Attendees filled the Great Hall with laughter during the Spring Drag Show on  Sunday.

Students, faculty, staff and Ames community members young and old made up the audience of the spring 2020 Pride Alliance drag show. This drag show is one of two drag shows that the Pride Alliance puts on as a way to raise money for their attendance to the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Asexual College Conference (MBLGTACC)

MBLGTACC is an annual conference held to connect, educate, and empower queer and trans+ college students, faculty, and staff around the Midwest and beyond. Pride Alliance attends every year with a delegation from Iowa State.

Madison Mason, an open option LAS sophomore, the education chair of Pride Alliance and a reporter for the Iowa State Daily, was the emcee for the evening. When opening the drag show, she set some ground rules for the audience to follow.

“Respect everyone around you, we’re all here to have a good time,” Mason said. “Respect the drag royalty, they’re here to perform for you. Lastly, tip your performers, we have a bucket upfront if you don’t want to tip them directly.”

The first performer of the evening was Jade Knight, a performer with the Spotlight Cast at the Garden Nightclub in Des Moines. Knight has been doing drag for seven years and is a former Miss Midwest Diva and former Miss Illinois USofA Newcomer. This was her second time performing at Iowa State.

Knight performed her first act to a Shania Twain mix.

Knight came onto the stage wearing black knee-high boots, black checkered tights and a maroon bedazzled bodysuit.

Her performance was filled with audience interaction where she was down off the stage dancing with audience members and accepting tips.

Knight’s second performance was to “Part of Me” by Katy Perry.

For this performance, she was dressed in black knee-high boots, black checkered tights, a purple wig and a bright green dress with pointed shoulders.

Once again, Knight was down in the audience where she lip-synced and danced with many people. At one point she also cartwheeled down the stage.

The next performer was Donutella Tasti, who is the president of the Pride Alliance and the Asexual Aromantic Alliance. Tasti is a senior graduating this spring and this was their second ever drag performance.

Tasti entered the stage wearing a grey long sleeve shirt with a long black pencil skirt with suspenders over it. They also wore a pair of heeled boots and a Harley Quinn wig.

Tasti performed to “Sway with Me” by Saweetie and GALXARA. Throughout their performance, Tasti used a clear umbrella as a prop and swung it around.

At the end of their first performance, Tasti opened the umbrella before blowing a kiss to the crowd.

For their second performance Tasti dressed in a long grey wig with a black hat on top and a long black coat.

They performed to “Two Black Cadillacs” by Carrie Underwood.

Tasti’s second performance kept the audience guessing as they had one reveal after the other. First, the hat came off and then the coat, revealing a red flowy dress underneath. Next, they threw off their grey wig to reveal a shorter purple wig before finally pulling off that wig to reveal their natural hair.

The next performer was Masquera Noir, a 21-year-old doing their third-ever drag performance.

Noir came out on stage wearing a blue wig, a black floral dress and grey heels.

Noir was the only performer of the night to do something quite different than the others, sing live for the audience. They performed their own rendition of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” by Barbra Streisand.

When Noir hit high notes through their performance a crowd from the audience ran up to the stage with tips in hand.

For their second performance, Noir performed “Lights Up” by Harry Styles.

Noir owned the stage in a costume reminiscent of Styles with black heels, white high-waisted pants, a plum blouse and a black bobbed wig.

This performance included lots of swaying dance moves from Noir and they even came down into the audience. They also included a reveal when they ripped off their wig to reveal their natural hair.

The next performer was Loretta Stoned, a performer from the Blazing Saddle making her first-ever Iowa State drag performance.

She performed to a “Not Ready to Make Nice mix” that included a voice-over by Elizabeth Glaser, an HIV/AIDS activist, throughout.

“Elizabeth was a rich, straight, white woman married to a celebrity living a very charmed life,” Stoned said. “Elizabeth also contracted the AIDS virus at a time when it was widely considered a ‘gay man’s disease.’ Elizabeth chose to use her status and her privilege to become an activist. I tell you all of this because you are going to hear her voice throughout this number and it is always such an honor to share her words.”

Stoned was dressed in black heels, a sheer green blouse under a sparkly green bodysuit and big black wig on top.

Throughout the performance, Stoned emotionally lipsynced along to the song and even did a funny bit with an “AIDS burger.”

For her second performance Stoned performed “Satisfied” from the Hamilton soundtrack.

She came out dressed in red shoes, black fishnets, a sparkly red mini dress and her large black wig.

She entered the stage with a Redbull to do a “toast” for the beginning of the song before twirling off stage dramatically. She then continued her performance with emotional acting and lipsyncing throughout.

The next performer was Queer Al Yankmydick, a self-proclaimed “drag thing” doing their drag debut.

Their first performance was to “Sucker” by the Jonas Brothers, where they were dressed in black shoes, black jeans and a tucked-in black floral button up. They even had drawn-on facial hair to complete the look.

Yankmydick kept the audience screaming and yelling with all of their jumping-around dance moves and kicks and even some finger guns.

Yankmydick’s second performance was to “Death of a Bachelor” by Panic! at the Disco.

For their performance, they started out sitting in a chair as the lights came up on stage. They were wearing dress shoes, grey slacks and a black suit jacket with a black bowtie.

Throughout the performance, they removed the jacket revealing a grey vest, which they also removed to reveal a white button-up shirt and black suspenders.

They ended their performance by dancing with an audience member who was wearing a red dress.

The next performer was Ilana Logan, a Des Moines drag queen originally from Sioux City.

For her first performance, Logan danced to “When I Grow Up” by the Pussycat Dolls.

Logan was wearing white calf-high heeled boots, pink hair and a black fur coat.

Early on in her performance, Logan removed the coat to reveal a black sheer blouse which she took off to reveal an opaque black bodysuit with a white leather-strapped skirt over the top.

The highlight of Logan’s first performance was she did a dead drop with bright flashing lights in the middle of the song, eliciting cheers from the audience.

For her second performance, Logan lipsynced to “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I.

Logan was wearing a blonde wig, black heels, a maroon and gold dress and layers of gold necklaces to top it off.

For this performance, Logan interacted with the audience by coming down off the stage and dancing by different members of the audience.

A highlight was when she pulled off the front of her dress to reveal her legs, which elicited many oos and ahs from the audience.

The final performer was actually a group. DubH’s, Iowa State’s hip hop club, performance team, InnovAtion, performed right before the intermission after the first set of drag performances.

This group of around 20 students danced to their own mix of music.

Throughout their high-energy performance, the entire group wore matching outfits of white shoes, black pants and white jerseys with “Innovation 20” on the back.