‘Berg alumni deliver the slay in “Slay Seegers!”

On Feb. 7, Muhlenberg held a drag show titled “Slay Seegers!” where over 300 students attended on a Wednesday evening. The show featured Muhlenberg alumni, who are also drag performers, Pink Pancake, Angela Mansberry, Matzah Belle and Petti Cash along with a host from the class of 2027, Casanova. Before the show, a tabling fair from Students for Queer Advocacy (SQuAd) and Voices of Strength (VOS) offered resources on LGBTQIA+ topics and to speak about their organizations. Halfway through the show, the icons also hosted a walk-off challenge where a few Muhlenberg students, and even a fellow alum, were chosen to walk in a similar style as a drag performer would while performing. After the show, there was a Q&A from the performers themselves where Muhlenberg students asked questions spanning from how their careers developed to their favorite GQ order. 

Angela Mansberry recreated the “Liza Minnelli tries to turn off a lamp” Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit, and Petti Cash did a performance where they held a baby doll and threw it in the air while “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” by Celine Dion was playing in the background. One of Pink Pancake’s performances included lip-syncing to the iconic Britney Spears song “Circus” along with wearing a bedazzling circus outfit. 

During the Q&A, Pink Pancake emphasized that drag is an art form where “as a queer person you can really express your authenticity.” All of the performers said that they make their own mixes and have a lot of freedom and control. 

When the alumnis were inquired about future goals, Angela Mansberry said,“I don’t want to be famous, I just like creating art and I want to continue to create art in this form.” 

Muhlenberg Activities Council (MAC) representative John Lukan, assistant director of Seegers Union and the student experience, led the planning of the show. Lukan said,“One of the performers had reached out to us at the start of the year to see if there was interest from the campus in a show…It took some time to get things organized and bring together the student organizations who helped with planning, but eventually, we had representatives from the Student Government Association (SGA), Voices of Strength (VOS), SQuAd, Queer and Trans People of Color Collective (QTPOCC) and MAC at the table to organize the event with our performers. The planning committee was even able to connect us with a student performer, Casanova, who volunteered to serve as the host for the show!”

One challenge that came with planning was simply setting a date for the show. Lukan continued, “Finding a truly free time slot on campus is impossible, but we ended up going for later on a weeknight when we were unable to find a weekend that worked. Once that was set it was a manner of working out what was needed for the event with the student organizations!” 

Additionally, VOS detailed their input for the drag show. Emily Orlich ‘24, one of the VOS interns, said they “helped plan out the little things like the name of the show (I came up with the name ‘Slay Seegers!’) and the VOS-related stuff like what services we could provide and how VOS as a group could help.” 

VOS felt like their presence at the drag show was necessary for the student body. Orlich said, “VOS is by definition a peer education group working to support students and spread information about gender and sexual violence. Drag is sexual and sex is a big thing we talk about in VOS and when you’re doing a big event that is sexual, you need to provide resources for people who may need it. That is why VOS is there, to celebrate queerness and a queer art form that is under attack and to provide resources about sex!” 

SQuAd President Sarah Wedeking ‘24 discussed the importance of drag at ‘Berg. Wedeking said, “It is so important to have a drag show at ‘Berg. While we do have a large queer population, having a drag show (particularly with support from the administration, and with alumni performers) creates a space where queerness can thrive and be celebrated.”

An audience member, Megan Block ‘26, stated, “It was my first time at a drag show, and I had no clue what to expect, but it was really fun! The cuts from their music to the parts where they talked with the audience was a smooth transition, and I think that overall it was done really well.”

Another audience member Marley McGehee ‘26 said “I thought it was really fun, and I liked that the drag [performers] were Muhlenberg alumni. It was cool to have a different type of event than we normally do.”