Rosemary Galore.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ETHAN GULLEY
Look around.
With the largest concentration of midcentury modern architecture in the world, Palm Springs has long been known as a bastion for good design. In recent years, the area has also grown extremely dense with an entirely different but similarly eye-catching art form: drag. From beloved bars and nightclubs to stylish hotels and restaurants, the always expressive and sometimes controversial medium of entertainment is everywhere.
“You can find drag 10 days of the week in Palm Springs,” jokes Rosemary Galore, who performs and organizes PS Drag Brunch at the Saguaro Palm Springs hotel. The boisterous and glamorous drag queen is among a new wave of local performers saturating the market at an incongruous moment when drag finds itself both under attack and accepted in the mainstream thanks in part to the popularity of TV series like RuPaul’s Drag Race and We’re Here.
Video by Jared Bedrejo
Galore was literally born in Palm Springs. After working as a dance instructor and choreographer in the Bay Area, Sean Harrington moved to the Coachella Valley full time in 2016 with his husband. They were married in Palm Springs and shared a fondness for the desert. When searching for a slower pace, they decided to move. However, Harrington never envisioned he’d be dressing up, cracking jokes, and lip syncing as one of Palm Springs’ preeminent drag queens.
Rosemary Galore helms PS Drag Brunch at El Jefe Desert Cantina at the Saguaro Palm Springs.
“Once I started living my best gay life in Palm Springs, I was going to drag shows with my friends and was critical of everything,” Galore acknowledges. “These drag queens would come out onstage, and I’d go, ‘That hair with that makeup and that costume for this song? It doesn’t make any sense!’ ” Eventually, Harrington’s friends pleaded with the former cruise ship entertainer to stop being so judgy and start doing drag himself.
Galore quickly learned that performing drag in the desert comes with challenges. Namely, the heat. “When you put a potato in foil, bake it in the oven, and take it out, the potato continues to bake,” Galore says. “That is exactly what it feels like to do drag in Palm Springs in the summertime.” He employs a few techniques, such as sweatproof makeup and sitting on ice packs while getting ready. Sometimes, Galore resorts to prescription pills for hyperhidrosis, or excessive sweating.
Today, PS Drag Brunch is one of several drag brunches held at venues throughout Palm Springs and Cathedral City. Unlike traditional drag shows that typically take place at night for predominantly queer audiences in LGBTQ+ spaces, Galore says drag brunches can often be more welcoming to a wider audience, especially Coachella Valley visitors who are seeking permission to embrace their inner diva or simply looking to let loose and have a good time.
“Three weeks ago, we had a woman celebrating her birthday at PS Drag Brunch,” Galore recalls. “She was 89 years old [and] had never been to a drag show before. She came up to me after the show, put her arms around my waist, and hugged me like I was one of her grandchildren. She thanked me for making her 89th birthday the most memorable, fun, and happy birthday she ever had with her whole family. People underestimate our power.”
Brian “Bella da Ball” Wanzek earned his star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars in 2013.
The art of drag — a performance of exaggerated gender expression that may or may not include fabulous costumes, dramatic makeup, and sickening choreography — has been around for centuries. Many cite origins that date back to ancient Egypt when queens would dress as men to assert their dominance. Famously, ancient Greek and Japanese theater featured males portraying all the female roles because women were seen as inferior.
In modern times, drag balls in cities like New York and San Francisco allowed individuals to challenge societal norms surrounding gender and sexuality. In 1969, during the Stonewall uprising, the catalyst for the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, drag performers played a pivotal role in the resistance against police violence and discrimination. Their activism helped to establish drag as a vital form of empowerment within the LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s very unfortunate [politicians] have to find problems with an entertainer just because they’re doing drag when there’s so many other horrible things happening in the world,” Ball says.
David L. Gray, co-founder of LGBTQ+ History and Archives of the Desert, believes the first drag performers to take the stage in the Coachella Valley were likely gender-bending Vaudevillians. Decades later, in the 1980s, they were followed by famous female impersonators, such as Charles Pierce and James “Gypsy” Haake, who performed at venues including the McCallum Theatre and Riviera, now a Margaritaville property.
While many gays and lesbians began to plant roots in the Coachella Valley in the 1970s and ’80s, Gray says niche queer groups like the leather community and drag performers initially found acceptance more difficult to attain. For drag, a shift started in 1986 with Sizzle, a dinner and variety show featuring drag performers that served as the area’s first Pride event, launched to commemorate the Stonewall rebellion.
Vanity Halston and Epiphany Kali strike a pose. Halston oversees shows at One Eleven Bar in Cathedral City, while Kali orchestrates events at venues such as Reforma Palm Springs.
“Drag wasn’t as prevalent here as it was in big cities like Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago,” says Gray, who notes that the term “drag” — derived from the phrase “dressed as girl” — was not en vogue in the desert until the 1990s. “It was well established in many other places before it really started here. I think it had to do with Pride beginning later here and other controversies before it truly became acceptable.”
One of those dustups involved a fledgling Minor League Baseball team in 1996. After struggling to fill seats at Palm Springs Stadium, the Palm Springs Suns proposed over-the-top promotions and fundraisers, including a clothing-optional night and a drag queen night, which drew ire from both LGBTQ+ activists and other members of the community. The initiative struck out, and the team eventually departed the city altogether.
“I tell audiences at the opening of all my shows, ‘We’re in Palm Springs, and whether you’re gay, straight, trans, young, old, single, or in a couple, we welcome all of you,’ ” says Bella da Ball, who has been performing in the desert since the 1990s. “I also remind them that in Palm Springs, we honor and respect our drag queens and kings — not like some other parts of the country. It always receives cheers and applause, which makes me feel so good.”
Bella da Ball.
Rosemary Galore.
Vanity Halston.
Epiphany Kali.
Galore (in the distance) and Halston get ready for their close-up.
Ball is one of several drag performers whose legacies have been cemented on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars, including William “Bijou” Perez and the troupe Les Dames du Soleil. With higher-than-high hair, Ball has become a fixture on the Coachella Valley social scene, hosting fundraisers for organizations like DAP Health, reading to kids during Drag Queen Story Hour at the Palm Springs Public Library, and leading double-decker bus tours during Modernism Week.
The sheer amount of performances — whether a cabaret-style revue emceed by Tommi Rose at Toucans or a silly bingo session led by Angelique VaGorgeous at Hotel Zoso — reflects the activity’s status as a “must” while spending time in Greater Palm Springs. For many visitors, depending on where they hail from in the world, watching one of the desert’s 30-plus drag shows provides an escape from reality. Coachella Valley drag performers don’t take that responsibility lightly.
Last year, lawmakers in more than 15 states introduced restrictions targeting drag. Several of the laws have been struck down or found unconstitutional. The efforts in states like Florida, Kentucky, Montana, Tennessee, and Texas have stood in stark contrast to California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a slate of legislation strengthening protections for LGBTQ+ citizens. This disparity has been even more noticeable in the Coachella Valley, where drag is big business.
Kali looks fabulous at the hacienda entry.
Local support for drag hit a crescendo last year when Greater Palm Springs Pride declared Palm Springs was a “drag sanctuary city.” In a stand against anti-drag legislation and extremism, the Pride theme for 2023 was “Drag Now, Drag Forever,” and the Pride parade grand marshals were all drag performers: “Gypsy” Haake, Ethylina Canne, and Trixie Mattel, the RuPaul’s Drag Race: All-Stars champion who in 2022 opened the pink-hued Trixie Motel in North Palm Springs.
“Because of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the internet, many of the drag personalities out there now are much younger,” says Ball, who has hosted weekly drag bingo and trivia nights at the Ace Hotel & Swim Club for more than two decades. “There are, of course, still a lot of old-timers — or whatever you might call them — who are fans of the Golden Age of drag. Many of the newer queens are a little more in your face, eccentric, extreme. But I love it. I love the expression.”
Kali strikes a pose.
Epiphany Kali is among those newer local queens introducing a different perspective into the drag scene. She relocated to the desert four years ago to work at the Palm Springs outpost of AsiaSF, an iconic San Francisco revue starring a cast of trans female performers. Burdened by pandemic shutdowns, the local AsiaSF closed its doors in 2022, but Kali remained in the Coachella Valley. She now hosts Flip Phone Events’ weekly drag brunch at Reforma in downtown Palm Springs.
“It’s very hard being a woman of color working in this space because you have the older queens and cis white men who like the way things are and aren’t too welcoming of new concepts,” says Kali, who captivates audiences with drag brunches themed around pop culture franchises like The Wizard of Oz and Barbie or artists such as Lady Gaga and Beyoncé. “I’m just over here doing my thing, trying to be inclusive, and making space for all forms of drag.”
While drag has long been associated with the LGBTQ+ community, it’s not inherently sexual (although performers like Kali are not afraid to show a little skin). Nowadays, drag is regularly performed by singers, dancers, and comedians representing a multitude of genders, identities, and expressions. Beyond the larger-than-life personalities and performances, it’s ultimately a celebration of individuality and a platform for social commentary — in the desert or elsewhere.
Rosemary Galore's red bottoms.
Close-up of Bella da Ball and Rosemary Galore.
After performing in the desert for years, Halston moved to the Coachella Valley full-time in 2023.
“I use the stage as my form of therapy to get relief from the problems of walking the journey that I’m walking,” Kali says. “The stage is my chance to have full control over whatever situation. I bring it — be it my outfit, my look, whatever number I’m performing. We live in a world where we’re just rolling with the punches. But when I’m on that stage, I get to be in full control, and all I want to do is spread love and positivity. I want everyone in that room to feel something.”