Shea Petersen (left) as Vickie Versailles and Donovan Session as Courtney Berringers. Photo by Jack Cooper.

Navigating a wake can be a terribly complicated affair and there’s a reason most people in attendance eventually turn to drink. While there may not be an elephant in the room, there’s certainly a dead body, and this makes any celebration of life an emotionally confusing and contradictory experience. Are we crying? Are we laughing? The brain short-circuits and somewhere in the reboot the mind leaves an opening. Enter Terry Guest’s At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen, kicking off tonight at Urbanite Theatre and running through December 5, 2021.

Set in Albany, Georgia, the intimate one-act play brings audiences behind-the-scenes of the passionate but embattled relationship between two young drag performers, Courtney Berringers (government name: Anthony) and Vickie Versailles (government name: Hunter), amidst the ongoing HIV epidemic. Through memory and monologue, dance and drag, the tale unfolds. It’s a story about blackness, queerness, and the art of drag; about intersectionality, The South, and the power of creating your own narrative. It’s joyous. It’s tragic…

“It’s a party!” says Shea Petersen, who co-stars as Vickie, opposite Donovan Session as Courtney.

Because while the title of the play may seed the story with a certain impending doom, Petersen says, the content of the play strikes an important balance between celebrating the characters’ relationship and addressing those obstacles that arise. “So you have sadness,” they say, “but you also have these beautiful tender moments of joy, happiness and friendship.” Not to mention all the singing and dancing—much of it in six-inch heels that required the performers to master their own sense of balance as well. “My quads hurt so bad,” laughs Petersen. “This is definitely one of the most demanding shows I’ve ever been a part of.” 

But it’s also a show that Petersen has followed since serving as an understudy in Guest’s original 2019 production at The Story Theatre in Chicago. “It’s a beautiful and tragic and important story, especially in this time” they say, making note of the play’s treatment of the ongoing AIDS epidemic. “People hear HIV and AIDS and think it was a thing of the past, that we’re done with that,” Petersen says. “It’s still an epidemic.”

Directed by Damian Lockhart, At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen opens tonight at Urbanite Theatre (1487 2nd St, Sarasota). Tickets and more information found here.

Shea Petersen (left) as Vickie Versailles and Donovan Session as Courtney Berringers. Photo by Jack Cooper.