Saturday, October 1, 2011

Photo of the Day: No Drag at the Box Office

I’d hate standing for a long part of the day at Duffy Square, promoting Broadway’s latest shows. You have to endure all kinds of weather (including most of the last week, when, instead of taking a decisive turn toward autumn, the New York weather remained sticky), often in uncomfortable clothing (including, in some cases, impossibly high heels), for theatergoers (especially tourists) who want to see a show, any show, and might not even have a clue about the one you’re hawking. All kind of a drag, if you ask me.

Except, maybe, in the case of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the new musical that the young lady pictured here is representing. After all, the show and the 1994 film on which it’s based are all about drag—drag performers, that is.

It was probably a good idea that this woman, as well as the handful of other promoters of this show I noticed the last couple of weeks on my walk to and from work, is not one of those performers. Buyers at the TKTS booth at Duffy Square were practically jostling each other to have their pictures taken with her—sort of like the young Scarlett O’Hara barely able to keep up with her suitors in Gone With the Wind. New York is a pretty liberal place, but somehow I doubt if the same level of eagerness would have been displayed toward this woman if, like those performers in her show, she were in drag.

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