October 6: 8:00 pm – 11:00 pm
Location:
ArtPort
Green Mountain Mall
2000 Memorial Drive
St. Johnsbury, VT

Admission: Free

This event is 18+

Must be 21+ to drink. Please be prepared to show your photo ID for admission to this event.

7:30 pm – Doors, bar open
8:00 pm – Drag King Show
9:00 pm – Intermission + Trivia with Vermont Humanities
9:15 pm – Drag King Show
10:00 pm – Dance Party!
11:00 pm – End

Join host Mike Oxready for Drag King Night at the Telegraph Club! This free, 18+, event will feature an evening of performances from local drag king talent – plus a very special out of town guest. Performers to be announced soon. Be sure to join in on the fun for a special dance party to follow the event!

Please be prepared to show your photo ID for admission to this event.

This event is presented in partnership with Vermont Humanities, and is connected to the Vermont Reads 2023 book: Last Night at the Telegraph Club. Last Night at the Telegraph Club has won many prestigious awards, including the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, The Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association, the Stonewall Medal for LGBTQIA+ books, and the AsianPacific American Award for Literature.

Free copies of Last Night at the Telegraph Club will be available at this event for lucky winners during intermission trivia!

Vermont Reads 2023: Last Night at the Telegraph Club — about the book
Teenager Lily Hu is fully immersed in the life and culture of San Francisco’s Chinatown, home to Chinese immigrant families like hers. But as she comes of age in the 1950s, her passion for rockets and space exploration is matched by her curiosity about the Telegraph Club, located in a neighboring part of the city her parents have asked her to avoid.

Lily and her new friend, Kathleen, begin to sneak out at night to the club, which hosts performances by Tommy Andrews, a woman who dresses and performs in a traditionally masculine style. Kath and Lily’s interest in each other continues to grow despite the very real danger faced by two girls falling in love in 1954.

At the same time, McCarthy-era fears about Communism, coupled with ongoing anti-Asian hate, shake the stability of the Chinese community and threaten to engulf Lily’s own father.

A message from Vermont Humanities: For the 21st year of the Vermont Reads program, we invite Vermont communities to plan projects centered around Last Night at The Telegraph Club and its themes of self-acceptance, familial and cultural ties, USChina relations, LGBTQ+ and Feminist history, McCarthyism and xenophobia, music of the 1940s and 1950s, and the Asian American experience, among others