Community celebrates Bancroft Pride at Playhouse

By Bill Kilpatrick

On Friday June 21 Juno award winning singer/rapper Stacey Kay and her band performed at the Bancroft Village Playhouse to celebrate Pride month. She was joined by two drag performers, lip sync performer Oktavia known as the “Brazilian Heat of Canada” and live performer Ethan, known as “The County Queen” both fairly local performers who hail from Napanee and Picton respectfully. People of all ages and backgrounds packed the playhouse and were treated to fabulous fashion, jokes, dancing, rapping, and the amazingly powerful vocals of Kay along with superb musical talents of her band. Kay performed both original works and several of her favorite cover songs including her newest original work Unstoppable. The crowd sang along and got to interact with the performers as they roamed throughout the playhouse singing and dancing.
Tim Porter, the artistic director of the Village Playhouse was ecstatic to have Kay, Oktavia, and Ethan in Bancroft for Pride month. Porter said, “We are celebrating pride, which is first and foremost about loving everyone, accepting everyone, creating safe and comfortable spaces for everybody.” Porter was asked why events such as Pride are so important to have at this time in history and he had this to say, “It's incredibly important. It is an interesting time because [drag performing] is much more in the cultural zeitgeist right now. Drag Race is huge, drag shows are becoming much more common, a ton of young people are identifying as queer and non-binary. People are more open to the art. It's fascinating to still be in this position where we do feel like we have to encourage people to be open, loving and accepting. If anything, it's just getting more and more divisive so it's super important to celebrate pride.”