Pensacola drag performer competing at one of America’s biggest drag events – Pensacola News Journal
Lauren Mitchell has made a career doing drag shows for over 35 years in Pensacola.
She came to Pensacola from Gainesville and, on a whim, performed in a drag show and won.
Over three decades later, she will compete for one of the most prized shows in the country.
Mitchell recently won the preliminary Miss Emerald Coast Entertainer of the Year pageant in Pensacola, and now she will be heading to Louisville, Kentucky, to compete in a national Entertainer of the Year competition from July 29-31. The event is one of four major pageants for female impersonators, drag queens and transgender women, alongside Miss Gay America, Miss Continental and Miss Gay USofA.
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“I’m excited and happy that I’m doing it the way I want to do it,” Mitchell said of competing in the EOY event. “The type of gown, the type of talent I want to do, the type of presentation that I want to present. I’m excited that I get to authentically be myself on a national stage.”
Ahead of the national competition, there will be a benefit event in Pensacola to help Mitchell raise money for her trip to Louisville. The benefit, set for Saturday at The Roundup Bar, will feature performances from local “queens” and is described as a night of “drinks, dance and supporting the Goddess of the Gulf Coast on her quest to become Miss EOY 2022.”
The local EOY preliminaries were held in Pensacola for the first time June 19 at The Round Up.
Mitchell won the event, which was broken down into four categories: Creative Presentation, Question and Answer, Creative Evening Wear, and Talent. Mitchell will now take her talents to the national stage, where she will compete in the Female Impersonator category.
The EOY event was started by George Stinson and Ed Lewis, who in the 1970s established The Downtowner, Louisville’s first gay night club. They found inspiration in doing the Entertainer of the Year from a one-time pageant that was held in Houston in 1985.
COVID-19 had slowed down many modern day pageants, as well as caused organizers to cancel the EOY contest in 2020 for EOY.
But now with COVID-19 restrictions lifted, there has been a resurgence of pageantry, and with shows like “RuPaul’s Drag Race” making pageantry more mainstream, the talent from Pensacola has been showcased for more to see.
Winning the Louisville event will allow Mitchell to go to other programs across the nation, and even if she doesn’t win she will leave EOY with an impressive addition to her resume.
Looking forward, she plans to help build up the preliminaries in Pensacola and help the next generation of performers find their footing in the pageantry world and get their own careers started.
“I don’t plan on slowing down, I’m just getting started,” Mitchell said with a laugh.
The benefit event will have showtimes at 9 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. on Saturday at The Roundup Bar, located at 560 Heinberg St. in Pensacola. There is no cover charge but there will be benefit raffles and donations at the door.
For more information go to the The Roundup Facebook.