Wigstock is Best When Served with a Sense of Self Bob Krasner recalls festival’s gritty East Village roots
Photos by Bob Krasner
Some in the crowd reached the heights of self-expression commonplace during Wigstock’s early era.
Neil Patrick Harris’ Hedwig was a literal showstopper.
BY BOB KRASNER I remember seeing a flier on an East Village lamppost years ago, advertising something called Wigstock. This will be interesting, I thought. Talk about understatement — it was fascinating. I made it a point to go every year that I could (I was at almost every one), shooting god knows how much film and marveling at the creativity and outrageousness of everyone involved — and everyone was involved. There wasn’t much separation between the performers and the audience then, it was all one big communal gathering in a perfect setting that felt like our backyard. In the very early days in Tompkins Square Park, you could probably count the attendees without much trouble. There was no real “backstage,” and, for me, the real show was the audience. People filled the park with costumes of bold inventiveness, served with a sense of humor and a sense of self. Custom-made wigs defied gravity, and so did some of the queens, tottering on heels that may have been modified from stilts. In the days long before RuPaul was a household name, Lady Bunny and Scott Lifshutz had created a particularly unique event — one day a year when the denizens of the Pyramid’s drag scene, and anyone else, could parade about and be admired (and gawked at) in broad daylight. Of course, it was inevitable that the event would
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NYC Community Media