Mission & Goals
Worcester Draglesque Festival uplifts LGBTQIA+ voices in Central Massachusetts through the art forms of drag and burlesque. Through workshops and performances, we cultivate performers and audience members who recognize queer joy as an act of resistance.
Values
- Education: WDF is committed to making arts education accessible by offering free and lost-cost workshops for drag and burlesque performers of all experiences to hone their craft.
- Effervesance: WDF brings together community members of all experiences to celebrate LGBTQIA+ art as a joyful act of resistance against oppression and discrimination.
- Entertainment: WDF platforms the diversity of performance styles of local and regional superstars and uplifts our neighbors of all abilities, body types, neurotypes, races, gender identities, sexual orientations, sizes, religions, and other lived experiences and identities.
Community Benefit
Despite being the second largest city in New England, Worcester is often overlooked as a center of queer community. Grassroots efforts, such as Harley’s Funhouse, and small businesses like Femme Bar, MB Lounge, and Electric Haze, serve as cornerstones of queer art and community. However, there is still a need for more wide-scale, public showcases of queer talent in further inclusion in the community and empower new artists.
WDF benefits the community by nurturing performers. Classes and the performer showcase help the community better connect with and understand the queer draglesque community, combatting harmful stereotypes by centering joy, authenticity, and creativity.
Producers
Ali Kane/Joey March (she/they)
March co-produced the 2025 Festival, bringing two decades of experience performing and producing across theater, film, and now, draglesque. They offer business acumen from Bentley University and University of Pennsylvania, in addition to their LGBTQIA+ inclusion work at ALK Consulting.
Anna MacInnis/Lady LaRouge (she/they)
Best of Burlesque Exceptional Ecdysiast, Worcester Drag Gauntlet 2025, LaRouge co-produced the 2025 Worcester Draglesque Festival. She brought two decades of experience performing and producing across theater, film, and draglesque. A Worcester resident, LaRogue has a BFA in Theater (Salem State University), and has performed nationwide and on the high seas! Her passion for education and research led her to teach about the history of draglesque.
Acacia Learned/Dolores Sweet (she/her)
We’ve added Sweet to the production team for the 2026 Festival. She brings over two decades of dance performance experience, a decade of teaching dance, plus 2 years of draglesque producing experience, including shows at Rascals and Femme Bar, and burlesque workshops at Worcester Dance. She also had multiple roles in the regional hit The Slutcracker 2024 and brings a long time career in digital marketing.