Burlesque dancing, a Ted Talk-style gay history lesson, and a family-friendly storytime in drag await attendees of this weekend’s Atlanta Fringe Festival. This year’s Fringe is produced in partnership with Metropolitan Studios, home of the Atlanta School of Burlesque. Since Atlanta’s Pride Parade and Festival was sadly canceled this year due to COVID-related concerns, the Fringe Festival and Metropolitan Studios will center queer arts, drag, and burlesque in a full rainbow of weekend events both live and virtual.
The two-day Pride lineup known as “A Queer Day’s Night” features Will Nolan in drag as Leola Ladyland teaching “Gay History for Straight People,” a “Big Queer Cabaret,” “Drag Storytime with Brent Star,” and a queer arts panel discussion. Nolan and burlesque dancer and Metropolitan Studios CEO Rebecca Beasley joined “City Lights” producer Summer Evans and Metropolitan’s digital content producer Amy Ferzoco to talk about all the weekend’s colorful festivities.
Beasley, who also runs Metropolitan Studios’ award-winning burlesque troupe, the Candybox Revue, will perform in the “Big Queer Cabaret” as her alter-ego Roula Roulette. The name, she says, comes from her unwillingness to be pinned down. “Burlesque was really theater for myself, and what I really wanted was a name that didn’t say, ‘Oh, they only really ever perform this kind of thing,” said Beasley. “Am I gonna come out and be this super-sensual Glamazon, or am I going to come out covered in cats and roll around in a baby pool full of milk? You don’t know.”
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