Mardi Gras is here. The festival along the gulf coast is a time for parades and costumes and party goers catching plastic beads and doubloons. This year’s celebration in Alabama follows a Valentine’s Day like no other. Same sex couples got married and that includes two in Tuscaloosa. This follows a federal court hearing in Mobile that resulted in an order that prompted county probate judges to start issuing marriage licenses. This change, combined with Mardi Gras, is giving Tuscaloosa’s gay community a unique chance to interact with their neighbors in conservative Alabama.
“We were at home, and we watched the news all day…”
It was one particular story that Dawn Hicks of Tuscaloosa had been waiting thirty years to hear…
“It was a great moment when we heard Tuscaloosa County was going to issue marriage licenses…”
Hicks and her long time partner Angela Channel received the County’s first ever same sex marriage license. They were married Saturday for Valentine’s Day.
“It’s a great deal for our community in Tuscaloosa…”
Brian Taylor teaches fashion and design at the University of Alabama…
“I think it means the city’s changing, the state’s changing, the country’s changing…”
But, as happy as he is with the news, Taylor doesn’t have a lot of time to talk about it. He and a group of friends are hard at work at the Bama Theater in Downtown Tuscaloosa, one block from the county courthouse where Hicks and Channel picked up their marriage license.
It’s Mardi Gras season. And that means it’s time for Tuscaloosa's annual masked ball, known as the Bal Masque. Taylor says the performers will do more than just throw plastic beads into the crowd…
“This year, we have seven in the tableau, three drag queens performing for us and the captain’s numbers.”
Let’s put the drag queen part aside for a moment. Taylor explains this year’s theme is the seven seas…
“So, we’ll have the Indian Ocean, the Mediterrean Ocean, Ursula, the Little Mermaid, the Arctic Ocean, Captain Hook, and Jaws.”
The tableau includes performers wearing ornate headdresses which are like wearable set pieces perched on their shoulders. They can range up to fifteen feet high and twenty feet across as the actors walk up and down a runway stretching out into the audience. Words like flamboyant just don’t seem to be enough. We have pictures on apr.org.
Stage manager Alisha Lay barks out orders as the Little Mermaid number goes into final rehearsal. The performer is on wires, so he floats off the stage…
“So, we started with a ray skin as a cover, that will pop off into a ten foot mermaid tail, and then that layers down to a gown, then a little swimsuit underneath…”
The performer is from Birmingham. He goes by the stage name Ginger Snap…
“So far, so good, the biggest issue we’ve had today is getting on and off the wires. But, every drag queen wants to fly, so my dreams are coming true…”
“Well, it’s definitely a different week for Tuscaloosa…”
We met Brian Taylor earlier. Along with building the sets, he’s also co-captain of this year’s Bal Masque. The event is a fund raiser for West Alabama Aids Outreach or WAAO. It’s put on by Taylor’s Mardi Gras group called the Mystic Krewe of Druids. He says ticket sales are up and corporate sponsorship is growing, but does that mean acceptance of the gay community?
“I’m not sure. I think with the University here, it’s easier to do this in Tuscaloosa. There’s tons of people from all of the country and all over the world that come here to go to school here. I think that makes it easier with acceptance and moving things a little bit forward…”
“I like to think we’re a little more open to this kind of diversity…”
That’s Elizabeth Aversa. She’s part of Taylor’s target audience. She’s not in the Krewe, but she learned about West Alabama AIDS outreach through friends…
"We like to think this is neighbors caring about neighbors, and if this evening raises money for the people who have AIDS for a variety of reasons here in west Alabama, then as far as I’m concerned it’s worth it and I support it.”
It’s the evening of Valentine’s Day. Couples on Greensboro Avenue leave tips for a street performer across from the Bama Theater and the restaurants appear full. Backstage at the Bama, David Ford is at work. Remember this is a Mardi Gras event and Ford may be the most popular man at the Bal Masque…
“My job is to prep the beads for the different officers, the royal and the tableau characters, and everybody has their own beads that they throw to the crowd…” And there’s a science to being a Mardi Gras bead wrangler. Ford takes strings of beads by the handful and hangs them on a row of coat hooks next to the stage. He says that’s critical… “Because you can’t get dressed and put your tableau headpiece and then walk there, someone has to prep your beads, and then you can carry them out there. You keep them on a bead rack, so all you have to is stick your hand in and you can pull off a whole bunch at once.”
While David Ford organizes the beads, the performers are getting into make-up and costume before the show. Some are in drag, but Terry Hampton isn’t. He’s the new King of the Mystic Krewe of Druids, and his costume reflects it…
In other words, it’s easy to feel underdressed…
In the lobby of the Bama, the crowd is growing and soon it’s show time. Larry Contri is the Master of Ceremonies…
“You all having a good time tonight?” He asks. The crowd cheers its approval.
One by one, the tableau performers parade up and down the runway. Each is accompanied by handlers in costume throwing beads into the crowd.
“It’s funny, people go crazy for the beads,” says bead wrangler David Ford… “They’re not expensive, they’re just plastic from China. But, people will shove folks out of the way, and climb over the chairs, and step on somebody just to get beads. Now, if you’re in New Orleans, they do a little more risqué things, but that’s never happened in the Bama since I’ve been coming here.”
“I’ve gotten beyond wanting to be hit in the head with five pounds of Mardi Gras beads, " says Elizabeth Aversa, who watched the show from her seat, and left the bead chasing to others.
“Kinda racy, kinda jazzy, certainly the costumes were crazy…”
Last year’s event raised over forty two thousand dollars for Tuscaloosa’s AIDS outreach effort and this year’s show stands to do even better. But, as for acceptance of the gay community, that may take time. Two conservative groups have convinced the Alabama Supreme Court to hear a petition to stop same sex marriages in Alabama. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to rule on the issue…
