Brandon Rubendall, one of the Pageant’s lovely contestants.

Curtain up and shirts off! The annual Broadway Beauty Pageant is taking over the Peter Norton Symphony Space next Monday with its regular line up of beautiful and graceful chorus boy hunks.

Can I get a follow spot? Or maybe just some alone time?

Tovah Feldshuh is once again hosting the show which benefits the Ali Forney Center, New York City’s main housing resource for LGBT youth. If you’re going to be in New York next week the show is definitely worth checking out. The show’s always hilarious, and the lineup this year is hotter than the weather outside today, ok? We’re talking 70 degrees and up musical theater sexiness.

Matt Anctil from La Cage aux Folles, Michael Cusumano from Chicago, Raymond J. Lee from Anything Goes, Brandon Rubendall from Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, and James Tabeek from Mary Poppins will all be competing for the crown this year. Last year, the big winner was the adorable Charlie Williams from Memphis so these talented lads have a lot to live up to.

The judges making this important decision will be funny man Bruce Vilanch, Rachel Dratch, and Carson Kressley! You can find out more info about the show and tickets by going to Ali Forney’s site.

The Ali Forney Center was formed in 2002 to address the lack of safe shelter for LGBT youth in NYC. It provides short and long term housing, HIV testing, mental health services, showers, food, and job training.

Just thinking about crowns, NBD

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Miss Michelle Dupree snagged the crown this past weekend at the Miss’d America Pageant in Atlantic City. Attagirl! Photo by Joey A. Wright.

There is a whole lot of drag going on these days, honey. RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered this week, and we even heard that Tuesday’s groundhog was wearing a dress when he saw his shadow, so it doesn’t look like it’s going to end any time soon.

Not to be outdone by that “other” drag competition, the Miss’d America Pageant arose from the ashes on Sunday, after a five-year dormancy, full of feathers, falsies and fierceness in Atlantic City’s historic Boardwalk Hall.

Oh, the drama! Miss Michell Dupree (center) gets crowned! Photo by Joey A. Wright.

Miss Michelle Dupree snagged the coveted crown after being judged against six other queens in swimwear, evening wear and talent competitions that would have given the fiercest Drag Race dolls a run for their money. By day, Miss Dupree is known as Scott Cooper, a registered nurse and a single adoptive father. Looks, talent, a career – and a 15-month-old kid? I guess you really can have it all. And what a wonderful ambassador for drag, to boot!

See an interview with the Miss Dupree from Philly’s local news. Glam!

The dragtastic pageant, hosted by hilarious and conspicuously charming Carson Kressley, and written and directed by Philadelphia drag queen Sandy Beach, took place, as ever, the day after the Miss America Pageant. (Miss Virginia who? Caressa Cameron sounds suspiciously like a drag name to me!) Judges included the Village Voice’s Michael Musto and Philadelphia Gay News editor Mark Segal.

Emcee Carson Kressley interviews Miss Michelle Dupree. Glam!!!! Photo by Joey A. Wright.

Miss’d America, a fundraiser that’s raised over $250,000 in its history for charities in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, sold more than 1,200 tickets this year. This little girl’s got to make some coin, honey. And she sure is growing up fast!

When the pageant was founded in 1993, the whole thing fit within the confines of the now-defunct A.C. gay bar Studio Six. This year, for the first time, the event was produced in the very building where Miss America was crowned every year until 2004. In fact, the 42-foot runway was the actual Miss America runway, in storage all these years since the pageant packed up its sequins and tiaras and headed west to take its chances in Vegas.

This drag resurrection is a welcome addition to the social calendar for gay and straight alike, and we are definitely looking forward to next year.

Pageant director Sandy Beach (blue sequins) leads a coterie of former Miss’d America titleholders in a sketch featuring the Anita Bryant Home for Washed-Up Beauty Queens. Photo by Eric Walter.

Who will claim next year’s Miss’d America crown? Who will Michelle Dupree pass the torch to? Come back next year and find out!!! Photo by Joey A. Wright.

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