Aid For AIDS Presents Best in Drag Show

Best in Drag Show is a star-studded and spectacularly elaborate drag show "beauty" pageant held at the historic Orpheum Theatre that features amateur performers as beauty contestants, and benefits Aid For AIDS.  

The Best in Drag Show evolved from a small event in a private apartment in 1989 to successively larger theaters to hold the growing audiences.

In the 1990s, the Wilshire Ebell Theatre was used, followed by the historic Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, which seats 1,800.

A small group of friends in West Hollywood created the original show, Battle for the Tiara, a farcical beauty pageant aimed at raising funds for AIDS assistance through Aid For AIDS that was featured in an award-winning documentary in 1998, Battle For the Tiara. 

The original Aid For AIDS fundraiser ran for 11 years. Following the death of its founder, Alexis Pittman, the original group took two years off. During the interim years, a version of the fundraiser named Quest for the Crown was produced by non-profit Aid For AIDS, the beneficiary.

The original group returned to helm the show for executive producer Aid For AIDS in 2003 with the currently-named production, Best In Drag Show. By 2009, more than $1.5 million had been raised with the new version of the show to help support the work of Aid For AIDS in Southern California.

The nonprofit beneficiary, Aid For AIDS is the largest housing provider in Los Angeles county providing a spectrum of services from rental assistance, to permanent supportive housing, to 24-hour group home living to otherwise destitute men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS.  

For more information, call 323.344.4880 or email cking@alliancehh.org.