AACC’s Gay-Straight Alliance will host an online drag show Wednesday on Zoom, replacing the in-person event the club had planned before the college shut down in March for the rest of the semester.

GSA president Erica Romero said the event, titled Dragathon, will feature makeup and cooking tutorials, along with club members playing JackBox party games live with viewers.

“We can’t do what we did before, but [this] is something that people will want to watch that we can do from our home,” Romero, a third-year studio arts student, said.

Typically, the show features performers—including many students—dressed in drag in a theater on campus, dancing and lip-synching on stage and in the aisles for a live audience.

Chrystal Jones, the public relations chair for the GSA, said the club normally hosts rehearsals and auditions for the show, which usually has around 10 contributors. This year’s virtual show featured no auditions and has five participants.

The live, in-person show in previous semesters went on for one to two hours while Wednesday’s show will run from noon to 10 p.m.

Jones, a second-year elementary education student, said club members chose to make the event longer so viewers could watch all day.

“We came up with the idea that, ‘Why don’t we just do … kind of like a live stream, but with drag,’ and then we decided we were going to make it more of an event,” Jones said. “That way other people can come in and out throughout the day.”

Audience members at live shows in the past would give performers money as they danced in the aisles. The dancers donated the cash to charities, like last year’s beneficiary, The Trevor Project. That organization offers crisis and suicide intervention for LGBTQ youth.

During Wednesday’s show, the club will take donations online during the livestream for House of Ruth, a charity that works to end domestic violence.

GSA’s faculty adviser, Forrest Caskey, said club members voted to cancel the show the week before spring break when they learned all classes would switch to online as a coronavirus precaution. But they decided a few weeks ago to instead hold the event in a new format.

“They were very upset; there was some tears,” Caskey, an academic literacy professor, said. “But then they had the idea. I think once people were home and started using Zoom as a platform to meet up with friends … they decided that they could have a drag show and create a little community through Zoom.”

Jones said she’s anxious, yet excited, for the event.

“I’m just nervous because it’s a new platform but I’m so ecstatic that we’re still going to be able to do a drag show this semester, even if it’s not the drag show we wanted,” Jones said.

Watch the show live on Zoom with meeting ID 253 623 472 and password 590658.