Students are breaking out their wigs, glitter and padding. It’s drag show season.

Each year, the Pride Union puts together the Totally Fabulous Drag Show, a student competition, with professional drag performers as hosts and entertainment.

The preliminary round of the 12th annual show in Schine Underground sold out on Feb. 6 and the final round will be in Goldstein Auditorium on Friday at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $5 with a Syracuse University or State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry ID and $7 for the public.

As the drag show approaches, Pride Union Vice President Molly Mendenhall’s nerves are setting in. Her favorite part to watch is just before the show starts, she said, when the crowd is buzzing with energy and expectation.

“I really like to stand in the wings of Goldstein and watch the performances,” said Mendenhall, a junior women’s and gender studies major. “Even though I’m usually running back and forth between the professional performers’ dressing rooms and the student performers’ dressing rooms checking to make sure everyone is where they need to be.”

This year, there are five groups of student performers. Tanya Tatone, George Michael, Max Wagger, Antoinette & Donyella Dupree and Spike & Liandrah will compete in the finals.

Shangela and Alyssa Edwards, drag queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race, are hosting the finals this year. Shangela is a returning host from last year, continuing the legacy of RuPaul’s girls supporting the annual competition. Spikey Van Dykey, last year’s special guest, is also returning as a professional performer at this year’s event.

Kait Simon, a senior political science major and director of advocacy for Pride Union, said Pride Union is lucky to work with such cooperative performers in the hectic backstage atmosphere.

Drag queen JuJuBee, who competed on Season 2 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, helped hold the show together when she hosted preliminaries this year, Simon said.

Simon said the drag show is a public display of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community support.

“It’s really a place where the performers can turn into this entirely different personality,” Simon said. “And that’s really cool, especially when it’s really on the edge and gets people excited.”

Katie Farr, a junior conservation biology major and director of public relations for Pride Union, said the RuPaul girls also help put a familiar face to the drag show for students and faculty who might not be as well versed in drag culture.

Farr participated in the show last year as a faux-drag performer, which she said is a form of drag where the performer reveals their gender at the end.

Farr said she’s excited to work with the performers backstage this year. When one of her backstage assistants last year looked out into the audience, Farr said they both couldn’t believe the large turnout.

“If you slip to a performer how many people are out there,” she said, “you can see them panicking and you’re like ‘breathe, just breathe.”

But now that she isn’t performing, Farr said she hopes tickets will sell out. She said the preliminary round has sold out an estimated 240 tickets in Schine Underground the past few years and she thinks the event’s popularity and influence is continuing to grow.

Pride Union uses the drag show to support local LGBT groups, by donating a portion of the ticket proceeds and all of the tips to local organizations Q Center and CNY Pride.

Farr said she hopes this year will be the year the event finally sells out Goldstein Auditorium, which seats 1,500 people.

“It’s kind of unrealistic,” Farr said. “But at the same time it would be really awesome because all this money would go to charity.”

Reaching out to other local organizations is working to strengthen the gay community in Syracuse, which Farr said has become more accepting over the past few years.

This stood out to her after preliminaries, she said, when students approached her and asked how they could get involved in the show.

“Some people care and they sign a petition,” Farr said. “Other people care and they get involved in an organization.”

Published on February 19, 2014 at 12:36 am