a&e features
Drag legend Ella Fitzgerald returns to the stage for Capital Pride festival
Donnell Robinson on 40 years as a performer and the current political backlash against drag
Donnell Robinson, who has dazzled audiences in the nation’s capital as the drag personality of Ella Fitzgerald for at least 40 years, has the date of Saturday, March 21, 2020, embedded in his mind.
That was the last time he performed in drag. It was at the popular Southeast D.C. nightclub Ziegfeld’s-Secrets, where Robinson performed as Ella Fitzgerald for nearly 40 years, before it, along with all city nightclubs, bars, and other “nonessential” businesses were ordered temporarily closed by Mayor Muriel Bowser in response to the COVID pandemic.
“That was the last show I did,” Robinson told the Blade in an interview at his apartment in Arlington, Va.
A short time later, around May of 2020, Robinson and all the Ziegfeld’s-Secrets employees and performers learned that the owner of the club’s building at 1824 Half Street, S.W., announced plans to demolish it to build an upscale condo building several years sooner than expected. That meant the club would not reopen when the COVID restrictions were lifted.
“So, what I recall is in May, it was the first week in May, Steven [Delurba, the Ziegfeld’s-Secrets general manager and part owner] called me and said, ‘Honey, do you have anything in the dressing room? Come and get it. The landlord called and said we must be out by the 15th.’”
Robinson said he has fond memories of meeting up with other drag performers, one of the longtime bartenders and other employees who came to retrieve their belongings in the dressing room and other storage spaces in the converted warehouse building that had served as home to Ziegfeld’s-Secrets since 2009.
And it meant at least the temporary end to a 40-year run in which Robinson (aka Ella Fitzgerald) served as emcee and lead drag performer at the Ziegfeld’s-Secrets nightclub, which began in the club’s previous location a few blocks away.
Robinson began performing as Ella Fitzgerald at The Other Side nightclub in 1980, which later changed its name to Ziegfeld’s-Secrets, at its previous location on the unit block of O Street, S.E., before it was displaced in 2006 by construction of the Washington Nationals baseball stadium.
The club did not reopen until 2009, when its owners Allen Carroll and Chris Jensen, were able to obtain a lease for the 1824 Half Street building, which Carroll and Jensen renovated before reopening the club there.
All of that has become the backdrop to Robinson’s excitement over returning to the stage as Ella Fitzgerald at D.C.’s Capital Pride festival on June 11, which will take place on Pennsylvania Avenue with the U.S. Capitol as a dramatic backdrop two blocks behind the stage.
While he’s hopeful that all will go well with his upcoming performance at the Pride festival, Robinson says he is aware of the recent far-right political backlash against drag shows in states across the country.
In addition to proposed laws placing restrictions on drag shows, protests targeting drag shows, including some attempting to disrupt the shows, have also occurred in cities and states, including earlier this year in nearby Silver Spring, Md., and at a drag brunch hosted by a restaurant near the U.S. Marine Barracks on Capitol Hill in D.C.
“I have read about some of that,” Robinson told the Blade. “I haven’t been in the drag scene in three years. But I see and know what’s going on,” he said. “And my fellow drag performers who are older in my generation, I know they may be at risk. And I know I am to a degree,” he continued.
“And it’s a shame that we have to fear that we can’t present our art, our art form of drag and hope that nothing is going to happen to me today,” he said. “Why should we have to even have that thought going through our mind while we’re going through our makeup and getting ready?”
Speaking with the Blade at his apartment, Robinson added, “I’m planning to walk out of here in full drag to go to Pride. And there’s going to be part of me in the back of my mind that I’ve got to watch my back because there may be some idiot out there that doesn’t want to see an old man dress up in sequins and beads.”
“I just don’t understand why people think that drag is going to go away,” Robinson said. “It’s not. It’s more popular now than it ever was because of RuPaul and the drag brunches and the shows that are continuing to go on.”
Robinson, 68, says he was born in Warrenton, Va., and grew up on a farm just outside Warrenton and raised by his grandparents. His first attempt at drag took place while in the 8th grade when he entered a school talent show portraying TV personality Flip Wilson’s drag character Geraldine Jones.
“All of my girlfriends, they helped get it together,” Robinson recalls. “I borrowed the wig from the school librarian,” he said, adding he bought a red dress and borrowed a pocketbook from someone. “And I won the contest.”
He didn’t do drag again until his senior year in high school, Robinson said, when he “pulled out Geraldine again” in a dramatic arts class. “I got an ‘A’ in dramatic arts,” he told the Blade, before graduating from Fauquier High School in June of 1974.
“Then I waited a year or so, and then I came out to do drag in 1975 in the fall,” he said. That began when a friend introduced him to the then gay nightclub Pier 9, located in the building that later became Ziegfeld’s-Secrets, where drag shows were held.
Robinson said he was impressed by the beauty of the drag performers while attending Pier 9 drag shows. “I’m like, oh, so I can do that too,” he said. And that’s exactly what he did. In October of that year, he entered a Halloween costume contest at the Pier, once again as the Geraldine Jones drag character, and won the contest in the comedy category.
From there, Robinson says, through people he met at the Pier he learned of the then D.C. gay bar Plus One on Capitol Hill, which also hosted drag shows. After auditioning and being approved as a drag performer at Plus One, the owner of the club, Bill Oats, assigned him the drag name Fanny Brice.
It was at the Plus One about a year later when Robinson met Mother Mame Dennis, the drag performer and lead organizer of the Academy of Washington, a local drag social club that organized drag events, including the Gay Miss Universe drag competition. The next day, an Academy of Washington member who performed at Plus One brought Robinson to an academy event.
It was there that Mame Dennis approached him and raised the issue of Robinson’s drag name. “She said, ‘Oh my dear, if you want to be in this group you need to change your name immediately,’” Robinson quoted Dennis as saying. “And I was like, yes ma’am. She said you need to be either Nell Carter or Ella Fitzgerald,” Robinson recounted.
“I was being a smart ass. I said, ‘I’ll take Ella Fitzgerald for $2.’ She said, ‘Oh, you’re funny.’ And she named me Ella Fitzgerald,” Robinson remembers. “And I was her first African-American daughter in the group.”
Through the Academy of Washington and others he met through the drag scene at Plus One and other D.C. gay bars, Robinson quickly learned what he calls the art form of drag and developed a following among those patronizing drag shows in D.C. It was through the academy that Robinson also met the owners of the then Other Side nightclub, Chris Jensen and Allen Carroll, who invited Robinson to begin performing at their club.
“There were five of us and we did the show on a Sunday night for 500 women,” Robinson says. “Because, remember, between Washington Square, the earlier name, and the Other Side, it was all women. There were no men allowed until around 1986,” he told the Blade. “So, every Sunday night we were doing drag shows for 500 women, from ’80 until ’85 or ’86.”
Around the time he began performing as Ella Fitzgerald, Robinson also began his other career as a hairstylist, which he says he continues at this time and will celebrate his 40th anniversary as a hairstylist in November of this year.
For much of that time, Robinson has been one of the sought-after stylists at the VSL Hair Salon at 1607 Connecticut Ave., N.W., in the Dupont Circle neighborhood. The salon recently came under new ownership and now operates under the name of Color Lab Salon at the same address.
As Robinson’s reputation as a drag performer became widely known, many of his salon clients referred to him as Ella and were regular patrons of the Ziegfeld’s-Secrets drag show.
By the time Jensen and Carroll renamed the Other Side as Ziegfeld’s-Secrets and through the time it relocated in the building on Half Street, S.W. and until its closing in 2020, Robinson took on the role as the emcee of the club’s Ladies of Illusion drag shows as well as that of one of the city’s most sought after drag performers, according to people who attended his shows.
In an Aug. 2, 2001, lengthy feature article, the Washington Post referred to Robinson and his Ella Fitzgerald character as the “doyenne of Washington drag queens.” The Post article recounted what those who have attended Robinson’s shows already knew – that he also took on the role of a stand-up comedian engaging audience members in on-the-spot banter, often inviting audience members to come on stage to chat with Ella.
“Is that your husband?” the Post article quoted Robinson asking a female audience member at one of the Ziegfeld’s-Secrets drag shows. When the woman replied that the person was her boyfriend, Ella said with an incredulous facial expression, “That little queen?” according to the Post article. The audience roared in laughter.
Robinson says among the highlights of his career as a drag performer have been the recognition he has received from his peers in the drag community, including from the Academy of Washington and its leader Mame Dennis.
“Once I changed my name to Ella Fitzgerald, Mame said, ‘My dear, one day you will be Miss Universe.’ And 10 years later, Mame crowned me Miss Gay Universe. I was the first African-American Miss Universe in 1986,” Robinson recounted.
He said the prospect of resuming his drag performances to the degree he did before Ziegfeld’s-Secrets closed was uncertain, in part, because he is dealing with a bout of sciatica that makes it difficult for him to walk and move about quickly.
“You might see me come out with a cane at the Pride show,” he said with a laugh.
a&e features
Queery: Meet artist, performer John Levengood
Modern creative talks nightlife, coming out, and his personal queer heroes
John Levengood (he/him) describes himself as a modern creative with a wide‑ranging toolkit. He blends music, technology, civic duty, and a sharp sense of wit into a cohesive artistic identity. Known primarily as a recording artist and performer, he’s also a self‑taught music producer and software engineer who embodies a generation of creators who build their own lanes rather than wait for one to appear.
Levengood, 32, who is single and identifies as gay and queer, is best known as a recording artist who has performed at Pride festivals across the country, including the main stages of World Pride DC, Central Arkansas Pride, and Charlotte Pride.
“Locally in the DMV, I’m known for turning heads at nightlife venues with my eye-catching sense of style. When I go out, I don’t try to blend in. I hope I inspire people to be themselves and have the courage to stand out,” he says.
He’s also known for hosting karaoke at Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington, Va., on Thursday nights. “I like to create a space where people feel comfortable expressing themselves, building community, and showcasing their talents.”
He also creates social media content from my performances and do interviews at LGBTQ+ bars and theatres in the DMV. Follow the Arlington resident @johnlevengood.
How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?
I have been fully out of the closet since 2019. My parents were the hardest people to tell because my family has always been my rock and at the time I couldn’t imagine a world without them. Their reactions were extremely positive and supportive so I had nothing to fear all along.
I remember sitting on the couch with my mom, dad, and sister in our hotel room in New Orleans during our winter vacation and being so nervous to tell them. After I finally mustered up the nerve and made the proclamation, I realized my dad had already fallen asleep on the couch. My mom promised to tell him when he woke up.
Who’s your LGBTQ hero?
My LGBTQ heroes are Harvey Milk for paving the way for gays in politics and Elton John for being a pioneer for the fabulous and authentic. My local heroes in the DMV are Howard Hicks, manager of Green Lantern, and Tony Rivenbark, manager of Freddie’s Beach Bar. Both of them are essential to creating spaces where I’ve felt welcome and safe since moving to the DMV.
What’s Washington’s best nightspot, past or present?
Trade tops the list for me because of the dance floor and outdoor space. It’s so nice to get a break from the music every once and a while to be able to have a conversation.
We live in challenging times. How do you cope?
I’m still figuring this out. What is working right now is writing music and spending time with family and friends. I’ve also been spending less time on social media going to the gym at least three times a week.
What streaming show are you binging?
After “Traitors” Season 4 ended, I was in a bit of a show hole, but “Stumble” has me in a laughing loop right now. The writing is so witty.
What do you wish you’d known at 18?
At 18, I wish I would have known how liberating it is to come out of the closet. It would have been nice to know some winning lottery numbers as well.
What are your friends messaging about in your most recent group chat?
We are planning our next trip to New York City. If you can believe it, I visited NYC for the first time in 2025 for Pride and I’ve been back every quarter since. Growing up in the country, I was subconsciously primed to be scared of the city. But my mind has been blown. I can’t wait to go back.
Why Washington?
It’s the closest metropolitan area to my family, but not too close. I love the museums, the diversity, the history, and the proximity to the beach and mountains. It’s also nice to live in a city with public transportation.
Aging RFK Stadium has come down, but the RFK grounds are still getting lit up. Welcome back to the stage Project GLOW, D.C.’s homegrown electronic festival, on May 30-31. Back for its fifth year on these musically inclined acres, Project GLOW returns with an even more diverse lineup, and one that continues to celebrate LGBTQ antecedents, attendees, and acts.
Project GLOW 2026 headliners include house and techno star Mau P, progressive house legend Eric Prydz, hard-techno favorite Sara Landry, and bass acts Excision b2b Sullivan King, among the lineup of trance, bass, house, techno, dubstep, and others for the fifth anniversary year.
President & CEO Pete Kalamoutsos — born and raised in D.C. — founded Club GLOW in 1999. In 2020, GLOW entered into a partnership with global entertainment company Insomniac Events to produce live events like Project GLOW, which kicked off in 2022.
As in past years, Project GLOW not only makes space, but is intentionally inclusive of the LGBTQ community, one of its most dedicated fan bases. The festival’s LGBTQ-focused Secret Garden stage blooms again — a more intimate dance area that stands on the strength of DJs and musicians who draw from the LGBTQ community. D.C.’s LGBTQ nightlife mastermind Ed Bailey is the creative mind behind Secret Garden again. He joined Project GLOW in 2023.
“Kalamoustos says that “he’s proud of his partnership with Ed Bailey, along with Capital Pride and [nightlife producer] Jake Resnikow. It’s amazing to collaborate with Bailey at the Secret Garden stage, especially after the curated lineup we worked on at Pride last year.”
The Secret Garden will be a bit different from other stages: Eternal (“At the Eternal stage, time stands still. Lose yourself in the dance of past, present, and future, surrendering to the eternal rhythm of the universe”) and Pulse (“Feel the rhythm of the beat pulse through your veins as the heartbeat of the crowd synchronizes into one. Here, every moment vibrates with life as it guides you through a new dimension of euphoria”). The Secret Garden stage is in the round, surrounded by 16 shipping containers. The containers play canvas to muralists from around the world, who are coming in to paint them in a vibrant garden-style vibe. “We gave this stage some extra love with this layout,” K says, “ we finally cracked the code.”
K says that this will be the biggest lineup yet for the Secret Garden, featuring Nicole Moudaber b2b Chasewest, Riordan b2b Bullet Tooth, Ranger Trucco, Cassian, Eli & Fur, Cosmic Gate and Hayla. The stage is also the largest yet, featuring an expanded dance floor and 360-degree viewing.
Across all stages, K says that his goal for the fifth anniversary is “More art and fan interactive experience, more like a festival, strive to be like a Tomorrowland, as budget grows to add more experience.” Last year’s Project GLOW alone drew 40,000 attendees over two days.
K, however, was not satisfied with one festival this spring. GLOW recently announced a “pop-up” one-day event. Teaming up with Black Book Records, GLOW is set to throw a first-of-its-kind dance-music takeover of Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., headlined by electronic music star Chris Lake. Set for April 18, this euphoric block party will feature bass and vibes blocks from the White House. Organizers expect as many as 10,000 fans to attend. Beyond music, there will be food, activations, and plenty of other activities taking place around 6th St and Pennsylvania Ave NW – a location familiar to many in the LGBTQ community, as this sits squarely inside the blocks of the Capital Pride party that takes place in DC every June.
Over the past two decades, Club GLOW has produced thousands of events, from club nights to large-scale festivals including Project GLOW, Moonrise Festival, and more. Club GLOW also operates Echostage.
a&e features
New book celebrates 1970s dance music icons
‘A Night at the Disco’ features interviews with Donna Summer, Debbie Harry, more
If you’re a fan of 1970s-era dance music, don’t miss the irresistible new book by Christian John Wikane and Alice Harris, “A Night at the Disco,” which revisits more than 90 interviews conducted with some of the biggest names in pop culture.
“A Night at the Disco” (ACC Art Books) was published on March 24, and distributed by Simon & Schuster. It celebrates more than 100 artists who sparked a phenomenon in dance music from 1970-1979 and features excerpts from interviews with everyone from Donna Summer to Debbie Harry.
Lost City Books (2467 18th St., N.W.) will welcome author Christian John Wikane for a book signing and conversation about “A Night at the Disco” on Thursday, April 16 at 6 p.m. Details at lostcitybookstore.com. Bird in Hand Coffee & Books in Baltimore (11 E. 33rd St.) )will also host a Q&A with the author on Wednesday, April 15 at 6 p.m. Details at theivybookshop.com.
Below is an excerpt from “A Night at the Disco.”
“I’ll let in anyone who looks like they’ll make things fun.” Steve Rubell is guiding a New York Times reporter through Studio 54 as resident DJ Richie Kaczor dazzles the crowd with records by CHIC, Odyssey, and T-Connection. “Disco, that’s where the happy people go,” The Trammps sing as dancers spin and twirl underneath tubes of flashing lights. Seven months since Rubell and co-owner Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 in April 1977, it’s welcomed untold numbers of “happy people” … at least those lucky enough to pass through the doors.
“We were part of the chosen few,” says André De Shields, who immortalized the title role in The Wiz on Broadway at the time. “We could show up at Studio 54 and the doorman at the velvet stanchion would look over everyone and point to us from The Wiz to come in, that kind of thing.” As the lead vocalist in the GRAMMY-nominated Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, whose debut modernized big band sophistication for the discothèques, Cory Daye had carte blanche in the club. “The energy was like a New Year’s Eve party every night,” she says. “I would go up to the mezzanine and watch the mechanical light pillars go up and down, metallic confetti falling from the ceiling, the spoon and the moon. I was so fascinated and enamored by it.
“When a certain song came on, the people would just rush to the dance floor. There was no contact dancing — the hustle was pretty much on its way out — but it was just an amazing experience to see all the cultures together. It was a fusion of cultures, which described my life and my band, so I was right at home there.”
“Studio 54 was the place,” adds Linda Clifford. “Crazy parties. If you could think it, you would see it. It was like a circus. Just an amazing place to be. I worked 54 so many times. It was like a second home to me. The people there treated me so well. The crowd always seemed to enjoy my show. I always had a good time with them. That was the most important thing: making sure that they had fun.”
Well before Studio 54 opened, disco had become a business juggernaut. “A four billion dollar market and still growing,” Billboard announced in February 1977, with dance music offering more variety than ever. “There is no longer a single, readily identifiable disco beat, but a kaleidoscope of sounds that are melodic and danceable,” Tom Moulton told the magazine. In the clubs, records by veteran artists like Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees were mixed in with a range of new acts like Grace Jones, Boney M., and The Ritchie Family, while everyone from ABBA to Marvin Gaye scored number one pop hits with songs that had club-centric storylines.
Beyond the charts, disco itself remained as idiosyncratic as ever, especially on several productions by Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis, whose studio creations, El Coco (“Let’s Get It Together,” “Cocomotion”) and Le Pamplemousse (“Le Spank”), joined their own “Lust” from Seven Deadly Sins (1977) among the most tantalizing releases on AVI Records. Rinder & Lewis also produced acts for the newly hatched Butterfly Records in Los Angeles, where Saint Tropez (“On a Rien à Perdre”) and Tuxedo Junction (“Moonlight Serenade”) reflected the duo’s high gloss sound, spanning everything from European sophistication to a more literal translation of the ’40s sensibilities popularized by Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.
12-inch singles had also grown as the preferred format to approximate the club music experience at home. Nearly a year after Atlantic Records introduced its series of promotional 12-inch singles for DJs, New York-based Salsoul Records released the industry’s first commercially available 12-inch single, “Ten Percent” by Double Exposure, in May 1976. A year later, T.K. Records was the first label to certify a gold record for a 12-inch single when Peter Brown’s “Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me” tallied one million sales.— Christian John Wikane
(From “A Night at the Disco” by Alice Harris & Christian John Wikane. Published by ACC Art Books.)
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