Professor Angela Washko‘s documentary Workhorse Queen continued its successful film festival circuit over the summer, screening in locations across the United States and Canada. The film was included in the: Prairie Pride Film Festival (Lincoln, NE, July 14-18), Bentonville Film Festival (Bentonville, AR, August 2-8), Vancouver Queer Film Festival (Vancouver, Canada, August 12-22), New Haven Documentary Film Festival (New Haven, CT, August 10-15), the CinemaQ Film Festival (Denver, CO, August 26-29), and the Slamdance Joshua Tree Festival (Joshua Tree, CA, September 24-26).

Workhorse Queen explores the complexities of mainstream television’s impact on queer performance culture. The film follows Ed Popil, aka drag queen Mrs. Kasha Davis. Not your average aspiring pop star drag queen, Mrs. Kasha Davis is a 1960’s era housewife trying to liberate herself from domestic toil through performing at night in secret – an homage to Ed’s own mother. After seven years of auditioning to compete on reality television show RuPaul’s Drag Race, Ed Popil was finally cast onto the show and thrust into a full time entertainment career at the late age of 44.