Drag shows find success, acceptance in Lakes Region

LACONIA — Tower Hill Tavern was packed on Sunday, full of people who came to witness a rare gem in the Lakes Region entertainment scene: a drag show. 

The jukebox was blasting everything under the sun, from the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack to classic rock and contemporary pop, as a projector silently played 1994’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. 

Despite the fact it was Valentine's Day weekend and Super Bowl Sunday, the venue managed to sell more than 150 tickets, with more and more patrons funneling in through the doors as the clock ticked closer to show time.  

At 11:55 a.m., the screen withdrew into the rafters, the bar room flickered from fluorescent to black light, setting any patrons clad in white aglow, as Zach Berteletti, who performs as "Carlos the Uber Driver," took the stage, wrapped in a ruby red glittering jumpsuit, a ginger wig, and plenty of makeup.

What followed was a series of performances by "Carlos the Uber Driver," "Patty Bouree" of Boston, and "Plane Jane" of Providence, Rhode Island. Each performer received thunderous applause, cheers and dollars from the audience.  

Performers danced, lip synced and sang on and off stage, weaving in between tables as dollar bills soared through the air, out of the patron's hands, and into the bodices of the drag queens.

“This is not so much a drag brunch as it is a robbery,” Berteletti joked at the beginning of the show, “the doors are locked, the exits are sealed. I’m not leaving until I have a new Tiffany bracelet.”

This was the latest installment of "Drag Me to the Weirs," Laconia’s only drag show, imported to the region by an unlikely partnership between a shrewd business owner and a New York drag queen seeking refuge from the pandemic.

Tower Hill owner and operator Anthony Santagate’s daughter Jaquelyn summed up the show’s origins for The Sun.

“Anthony lived in Key West for 15 years,” Santagate said. “It's super prevalent there. Then he found out that one of the bartender’s friends is a drag queen who is Carlos the Uber Driver and that's where it started. He saw the demand and decided to put one on.”

“One of my friends is a bartender here," Berteletti said. “She said ‘oh you're a drag queen from New York. Why don’t you do a show here?’ And I said that’s a terrific idea. So we just did one to see how it would go.”

The first show, put on last year, went very well.

“It was huge. It was here, we sold out, I didn't expect to but it was a really great day,” Berteletti said. “It sold out completely and I was honestly a little nervous going into the first one. I had no idea how it would be received, who was going to be in the audience. There were a lot of questions.”

Belknap County is the most red county in the state of New Hampshire. Perhaps counter-intuitively, Berteletti said the community’s reception has been warm.

“They've been nothing but respectful, really appreciative, the response has been really incredible,” Berteletti said, “another reason I love doing these shows, is people in New Hampshire aren't just flannel shirts and dungarees, people from New Hampshire look like a lot of different things.”

For Berteletti, drag is a way to showcase the diversity of the region, and bridge the gap between LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ persons.

“You don't have to be an LGBTQIA person to appreciate drag,” Berteletti said, “It’s just fun. It’s body humor, its beautiful dresses, people dressing up to entertain, it’s quality dancing.”

In addition to the dances, songs, and jokes, each queen made great efforts to involve the audience in the show. Performers danced with and among spectators, or involved them with jokes and roasts. Berteletti even hosted an audience participation walk off, where four unprepared spectators were brought on stage and encouraged to dance down the center of the bar room, showing off their best moves. Whichever walker received the most applause was awarded a free drink at the bar. 

Audience member Penny Newton of Lebanon stole the show with an energetic dance down the middle aisle, gaining thunderous applause and screams from the audience.

“Drag isn’t as scary as some people might think it is,” Berteletti said. “It's a little intimidating, sure, because when there’s a drag show happening, people feel like they're not enfranchised, they feel like they don’t have the power in the room anymore. The point of these shows has been to make people feel welcome. And welcome them into this world.”

Doing shows in areas like the Lakes Region has been a rewarding experience for Berteletti, who feels that he’s able to bring something new and unexpected to an audience that normally isn’t exposed to the LGBTQ scene. 

“Drag shows in New York City and cities in general happen in gay spaces,” Berteletti said. “Here’s it’s a matter of finding a venue that’s willing to take a chance on something they've never heard of before and something they’re not sure is going to work, because again, this is business still, but the great thing about it is that everywhere that I take this, it’s always the same reception. It’s always people saying thank you for bringing this here. It’s good fun, and we love sharing that with people.”

In addition to praising the warm reception of the Lakes Region, Bertletti also wanted to emphasize the visibility of LGBTQ people in the region. 

“It's been an incredible year bringing drag to this community. I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback. Every once in a while there’s a little Facebook post, like ‘why is this here’, or ‘really Tower Hill?’ The bottom line is, we’re here, I live here, I’m a member of this community as much as anyone. We're not hurting anyone, or offending anyone, we’re not pushing an agenda on anyone. We’re gay people. We’re your neighbors, we’re your relatives, we’re the people that work at the post office and the grocery store. We’re everywhere, and all we want is respect, and that is the experience I've had here at Drag Me to The Weirs, is people enjoying themselves and being respectful of something they might not understand completely, but they want to celebrate and enjoy it with us, and we’re not stopping anytime soon.”

Currently, there are shows lined up for each month of the summer of 2022.