âMy favorite number to do at Pride has been âSame Loveâ by Macklemore,â says drag king and Pride co-host Ceasar Hart. âA lot of people feel like thatâs an LGBTQ anthem.â
Hart, along with burlesque performer Goddess Briq House, invites Pridegoers of all backgrounds at Pride in the Park this Saturday, June 4 from noon to 7 pm in Volunteer Park. In addition to the Macklemore lip-sync thatâs likely to welcome newcomers, the hosts are preparing to greet familiar faces with an almost-back-to-normal outdoor party, complete with food trucks, a beer garden, kid-friendly games, and booths upon booths upon booths.
âIâm excited to help reunite our community,â says Hart, a longtime drag fixture around Western Washington who never met a gig heâd turn down. âAnybody that asks me to do a show, I just say âyes yes yes yes yes,ââ he says. That say-yes-to-everything attitude could easily sum up not only this yearâs Pride, but also Hartâs entire twenty-year career.
Hart moved to Washington from Texas around 20 years ago. As many of us do, he struggled at first to thaw The Seattle Freeze. âTrying to meet people in the community wasnât exactly easy,â he says. âIâm from the older generation when going out to nightclubs was generally how you met people. ⊠Thatâs all we really had.â
Early in his time here, Hart slipped into a drag persona to help at a nonprofit fundraiser, which opened his eyes to the possibility of using his platform to help the community. It didnât hurt that drag offered a convenient way to make friends in his new hometown, though he avoided telling his family what he was up to for several years.
Learning to be a drag king wasnât easy, especially in the early 2000s, when there were few role models to learn from. âWhen I first started, it was just attaching hair to my face and calling it a day,â he recalls. Now he comes equipped with an arsenal of makeup and brushes.Â
As Hartâs profile grew over the years, he found himself in greater demand beyond city limits, traveling deep into the suburbs to serve as a sort of cultural ambassador to those for whom queerness might not be such a constant presence. â I drive all over Washington all the time to do everything I can,â Hart says. âThere will be people ⊠out in Grays Harbor and Aberdeen who couldnât believe we were out here doing Prides.â
With two decades of performances behind him, Hartâs seen audience expectations for drag performers shift significantly â especially for frequent consumers of LGBTQ+ entertainment.Â
âItâs changed so much,â he says âBefore there was just a couple of drag kings, now thereâs a lot more ⊠not only doing drag but theyâre also doing burlesque â itâs blown up. I feel like a lot of it comes from Ru Paulâs Drag Race.â
Along with the full day of performing and hosting at Pride in the Park, you can also catch Hart at the Pride parade on June 26, where heâll be serving as one of the judges. After two years of uncertainty and isolation, heâs looking forward to ⊠well, if not an end to uncertainty, at least an emergence from isolation.
âEnjoy this moment, because itâs been so long since weâve been able to come back together,â he says. âBe safe and take care of each other!â