Slaying a Drag-a-thon’ tells the story of Portland’s 48-hour, Guinness-setting drag show

 RuPaul might be the country’s most famous drag queen, but in the Pacific Northwest, the LGTBQ+ community is still feeling the loss of Darcelle, who passed away earlier this year. The icon, also known as Walter Cole, was arguably the best known and loved drag queen in the region. Darcelle XV Showplace, the drag bar institution she created, lives on where she and others have performed for decades. So when Portland writer and podcast host Eden Dawn was pitched the idea of beating the world record for the longest continuous drag show (36 hours and 36 minutes in Australia), she knew it couldn’t happen in any other place, with locals in the audience participating and cheering them on.

What Dawn ended up producing was a 48-hour extravaganza created with a cast of dozens of performers — 60 drag queens, and an assortment of MCs and stand up comedians, as well as a large and dedicated crew behind the scenes. At the end of the two days, a representative of the Guinness World Records pronounced the record set, and presented performers with the official certificate. Still, that outcome was anything but certain. Any one of a series of mishaps and near misses could have shuttered the whole project.

Dawn and Fiona McCann produced a five-part podcast telling the story of the triumphs and the tribulations, called “Slaying a Drag-a-thon,” which is a “sidecast” of their regular show, “We Can’t Print This.” The whole event was also a fundraiser with $309,000 donated to the Trevor Project, which helps LGBTQ+ youth in crisis. Joining us in studio to talk about the highlights and lowlights are Dawn and BinKyee Bellflower, one of the drag queens that helped break the record.