‘Step right up’ to the 10th annual GLITZ this weekend

Juneau’s biggest drag show will feature the most performers it has ever had this year, including its debut of Southeast representation.

Tickets to “Cirque du so Queer” are sold out for Friday and Saturday but Sunday still has open seats, and people under 21 are welcome to attend Sunday with a guardian. This year, the show is held at Perseverance Theatre.

“It’s a feast for the senses,” Gigi Monroe, founder and producer of GLITZ, said. “As soon as you walk in the front door, you’re immersed into the circus world.”

She said the new partnership with Perseverance Theatre helps cover major costs of equipment, rental, design, and technical elements.

“It’s grown so much in the level of production value,” Monroe said. “The first GLITZ we had was at the Rockwell Ballroom and it was great for what we had access to tech-wise, and a lot of our performers were brand new and didn’t have a lot of experience. Now, some of them have been performing for almost 10 years. They’ve gotten so much more polished, and now we’re in a space like this where we have professional equipment and professional people to help us match the level of entertainment value with the production elements.”

Monroe said the new venue has allowed her to focus more on the creative direction of the show and supporting the cast of 22 performers, who are coming from all over Alaska to honor Pride Month. The planning begins in January, with rehearsals starting in April. Monroe was a board member of the Southeast Alaska Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Questioning Alliance (SEAGLA) in 2015 when she received feedback that people wanted a traditional, big drag show for Pride.

“I had about 10 years experience performing before I moved to Juneau in 2013, so this was something that I’d done before, but when I moved here, I wasn’t sure if this was something the community would want,” she said. “I started drag in Atlanta, Georgia, and that’s really my drag roots because the South is so over the top with everything. So it’s all the glamour and the huge hair and just all the rhinestones and the costuming and the performance, it’s so theatrical.”

The 10th anniversary includes an immersive pre-show experience, featuring a cocktail party, silent auction, photographer, DJ, and bar. People can also interact with a creative mural to reflect on what Pride means to them in their own words or pictures.

But this year’s GLITZ isn’t all glamour. For Monroe, creating the show this year has been connected to the moment “we are in politically, socially, and globally.”

Each performer creates their piece in the show, and as proposals came in, Monroe noticed themes of persecution, resistance, and control. She said she decided to make the theme “The Circus” to explore the ideas since there are strong parallels.

“There’s a lot of really fun things that have to do with the circus, but there’s also a really dark side to the circus,” Monroe said. “Especially with the history and looking back and seeing how marginalized people were treated and sometimes found a home in the circus, because that’s maybe the only place they could find some acceptance. In some way, the whole history of the freak show and the oddities and the side shows — we wanted to call out to that history and reclaim it.”

Monroe said the tight-knit community is experienced at withstanding hatred and prejudice, and the show is about reminding the cast that they can count on each other.

“The beginning opens really happy, positive, all the good things about the circus that we love and we enjoy,” she said. “Then Act Two starts with a little bit of the darker side of things, and how a lot of circus performers are controlled by the ringmaster and the history of P.T. Barnum. And then we end with a Grace Slick song called ‘Dreams,’ and it’s about someone who knows that this whole beautiful world exists somewhere, the circus world and where there’s all these fantastic things happening, but the world around them is so dark and filled with conflict and hatred that it’s hard to hold on to that vision.”

Kings, queens and backup dancers are coming from Skagway, Sitka, and Ketchikan for the first time. The headliner, Athena Nuff, is flying in from Anchorage.

In the dressing room at Perseverance, makeup and costuming workshops were hosted, but Monroe said the best way for someone to make progress is to perform.

“If someone is new, they have to get onstage, they have to just try it,” she said. “We’ve been doing Zoom rehearsals and sending video clips of choreography back and forth. They’re creating their own number, and everyone in the show who has their own number comes up with it completely themselves.”

Amy MacPherson (Pickle D. Ginger) will perform drag for the first time. She said she usually helps backstage during Skagway’s many Pride events. But drag performer Cody Burnham (Candy Ginger) encouraged her to form a duet with him this year: puppet and puppet master. He has been on Skagway’s Pride Committee for the last three years and performed with Munroe last year. MacPherson and he are friends and work together at the Skagway School District.

“I’ve been participating behind the scenes,” MacPherson said. “I was already comfortable in the environment, so that wasn’t super hard, and we act like idiots together anyway. So really, all we’re doing is doing it in costume, instead of in our jeans.”

Burnham is looking forward to traveling more around Southeast Alaska for performances. At Wednesday night’s tech rehearsal, it was the duo’s first time joining in on the Act Two group performance, where Kelsey Bryce Riker reigned as the evil ringmaster.

“People in the LGBTQIA+ community often don’t like who they see in the mirror, or they try to repress who they see in the mirror,” Burnham said, explaining part of the group performance where he held up a mirror to MacPherson. “So the imagery that Gigi was talking about is just that idea of taking that person that you don’t like when you see yourself and learning to love that person and accept that person.”

Funds from the show this year will benefit SEAGLA, Perseverance Theatre, and the rainbow crosswalk in downtown Juneau.

“It was just completed last weekend because we had dry weather, and there’s already a dozen skid marks across it,” Monroe said. “That happens every year, but this seemed like more and sooner.”

Monroe said GLITZ doesn’t end with rainbows and glitter this year because that’s “just not where we’re at.” While the audience is always supportive, she’s seen a surge in bomb and death threats toward the event in the last three years, and people have ripped down her posters or written slurs across them.

“That’s our new reality,” Monroe said. “We have a really good relationship with the Juneau Police Department, and the greater community is very supportive of us. I know that should anything happen, we would have a lot of support.”

• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz.garrett@juneauempire.com or (907) 723-9356.

Know & Go

What: GLITZ: Beyond the Big Top – Juneau Pride Drag Show.

When: 7 p.m. Friday, June 27, and Saturday, June, 28 at 7 p.m. 4 p.m. Sunday, June 29.

Where: Perseverance Theatre, 914 3rd Street, Douglas.

Admission: Varies, for more information, visit https://www.ptalaska.org.