Once a month, Glassboro’s Landmark Americana Tap & Grill hosts “Drag me to Landmark,” a drag show. On Feb. 18 and 19, the drag show’s theme was “Drag Wars,” a Star Wars-themed drag extravaganza.
The queens danced to different numbers with songs from popular music artists such as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Doja Cat, Britney Spears and more. They were also in Star Wars costumes, such as Darth Vader, Yoda and Princess Leia.
According to Astala Vista, the host of Drag Me to Landmark’s Drag Wars and the host of several other drag events, the majority of the costumes used in the show are made by the queens themselves.
“So for shows like Star Wars that are very specifically themed, I have to make sure it’s queens that know how to costume themselves well, so queens that’ll sew are almost a necessity,” Astala Vista said. “Every single queen except for one, the one that did Yoda, sewed all of their own costumes, made everything. And the one that did Yoda actually got their costume from another queen in that show.”
The theme for this show popped into Astala Vista’s mind while visiting Disney World in January 2020.
“We saw the Star Wars Barbie so it all kinda clicked together, I was like ‘Oh my God, we can turn this into a drag show, we can actually do drag queens as Star Wars characters,’ and then it just took off from there,” Astala Vista said.
However, because of COVID-19, the show wasn’t able to be put on stage for two years.
“Then Covid happened, obviously, and then everything in life changed and Star Wars was suddenly not the most important thing anymore,” Astala Vista said.
Although customers were nervous at first to return back to Drag Me to Landmark immediately after the pandemic, shows have been selling out.
“Jimmy’s very very good at advertising and he knows all of the little things to do, so shows have been selling out since we’ve been back from Covid, but it did take a little bit to get there,” Astala Vista said. “People were scared for like the first six months of us starting shows again, now everything though is sold out pretty much two weeks to a month in advance.”
According to Astala Vista, one of the best parts about the shows at Drag Me to Landmark is the unity that is expressed through everyone in the crowd.
“I really do love the fact that it brings a gay clientele and a straight clientele together,” Astala Vista said. “There is such a rainbow of LGBT people at the shows, as well as so many straight people, so it really just shows we can all kind of coexist in one night, hang out together, and have a really great night without it having to be a gay bar, or a straight bar, or this or that, we’re just here to enjoy entertainment and that’s just that. And I don’t feel like that happens at too many places.”
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