Some people are unhappy with Philly’s drag educators. Local supporters have their backs

In People’s Light’s current theatrical production of Alice in Wonderland: A Musical Panto, the Cheshire Cat slinks onstage with freshly manicured nails instead of claws, and a shimmering dress overlaid with gleaming jewels instead of a striped coat.

Every year, People’s Light performs a holiday panto, which has a long tradition in the United Kingdom. Part of that tradition is the Dame — “usually presented as a cis-gendered heterosexual man in combat boots under various exaggerated dresses,” according to People’s Light producing artistic director Zak Berkman. For Alice, the theater decided to do away with this often homophobic tradition, and explore a new approach to this role of an all-knowing Guide.

Eric Jaffe, who plays the cat, is a self-described “genderfull glamor monster,” and is part of an increasingly mainstream practice in Philadelphia and across the country, where drag performers work with children’s audiences as a way to help promote tolerance and teach self-acceptance.

At one performance, when the Queen of Diamonds tells the Cheshire Cat that cats can’t wear nail polish, Jaffe said, a child in the audience yelled, “cats can wear whatever they want.”

Despite pantos being a hit with school children throughout the years, Alice has seen a drop in attendance and received pushback from parents who are opposed to Jaffe’s gender nonconforming portrayal.

Artists working in this space say they are seeing more resistance to drag performers working with children across Philadelphia — as well as a commitment from parents and performers to ensure the show goes on.

Over the past five years, drag performers have become increasingly involved in youth programming throughout the city and larger region. In 2018, The Free Library of Philadelphia partnered with Drag Queen Story Time, an initiative founded by Ian Morrison, who performs in the drag persona Brittany Lynn, to host regular story times throughout the city’s library branches.

Mister John’s Music, a local children’s music studio, partnered with Anthony Michael — under his drag persona name Maria Topcatt — to found Drag Storytime in 2017. The Philadelphia School District has also delivered similar programming to its students.

The drag performers have brought their art form — complete with campy wit and sheening wigs, that enter the room five minutes before they do — to children-focused programming with the goal of helping children develop positive relationships with themselves and others. In Drag Storytime with Maria Topcatt, “the books that we read are all rooted in lessons in kindness, compassion, and self-love” which can help build “an open-minded and open-hearted community,” according to John Francisco, the founder of Mister John’s Music.

At that event, children start the hour with a celebratory catwalk filled with affirmations and an uplifting “yass queen.” South Philly resident Mishana Klein has been taking her 7-year-old daughter to the story time since it first started five years ago. When her daughter first attended she “used to be really self-conscious … and now she’s so confident when she struts along with Maria Topcatt,” Klein said.

At a recent relaxed performance of Alice for folks with sensory sensitivities, Clementon resident and parent Jill Cox watched along with her 10-year-old son. She said that during the car ride back home, he exclaimed that the Cheshire Cat “is different like me. I can be different too.”

For drag performers, the dedication to celebrating difference is a response to a social upbringing that drove them to hide their differences. “I think back to when I was in middle school, and if I had something like this to watch,” said Jaffe. “If I saw someone like myself represented on that stage, what that would have meant to me!”

With the increase in drag performers’ youth engagement programming, there has also been an uptick in a targeted anti-LGBTQ+ pushback. Every year, People’s Light invites schools to their annual panto production. This year, five schools and one school district have declined the invitation in response to parental concerns around the theater’s masking policy and Jaffe’s role as a drag performer. Concerns over the panto being inappropriate for children were first expressed on a Facebook page titled “Uncanceled,” which discusses “news and hot topics covering all of Chester County.” The performance has been likened to “abuse,” and been called a “perversion.”

In an effort to address the misinformation, People’s Light emphasized in their invitations that Jaffe’s performance is family-friendly. The letter states that pantos typically have a guide — in this case Jaffe — who are “surprising, gender-playful and wildly extravagant creations” that can “be enjoyed by audiences of all ages.” Although Alice is sold out until Jan. 1, when the panto’s run ends, group sales from school visits decreased, leading to a $25,000 loss in ticket income.

But the parental concerns soon morphed into violent threats from outside of the region. “Libs of TikTok,” a far-right twitter account that spreads misinformation, later retweeted those threats, which begat more violent rhetoric in the comments. People’s Light notified the Whiteland Police Department, the Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Office, and Governor-Elect Josh Shapiro’s office.

Performers say they have seen more comments like these as the national rhetoric around drag performers has increased. At the same time, they say that allies and community members continue to support them and prevent further disruption of their programming.

People’s Light first learned of the online attacks because a parent sent them screenshots as a heads up. After the Andorra Free Library location received hateful comments against their story time event in June, a counterprotest emerged from that same Facebook page.

That same month, protestors disrupted Morrison’s story time events at Cherry Hill Public Library in June. The protestors were part of a church from out of town, “and they all came in one tiny little bus … trying to make a lot of noise and Cherry Hill was not having it,” he said.

“We had such support from the community … they came out in droves with their kids dressed in rainbows to form a rainbow wall,” Morrison said. Counterprotesters sang songs to drown out the bus of protestors.

In December, Craft Hall, an American cuisine restaurant, and Mister John’s Music, each hosted drag story time events without any disturbances.

People’s Light has had staff monitoring “all of our social media channels,” which has prevented them from “working on the next production and our holidays communications,” said Berkman. The Free Library of Philadelphia places additional staff at drag story time events “if there is an inkling that anything will go awry,” said Sandra Thompson, a library coordinator.

“I have five drag kids and dozens of drag siblings, people that I came up with … for this community, our chosen family is everything. And for some of us, it’s all that we have … we’re always there to look out for each other.” Jaffe said.

Negative responses have not deterred drag performers from hosting these events. Jaffe recounted, “What queer and trans people have done throughout history is persevered, even when there are people telling them that they can’t.” Morrison, who has a drag queen story time page with recordings of his events, urged protestors to check it out, “because story time is for everyone.”