Alice Parsons
(She/Her)
Alice Parsons is a Creative Producer and Curator from Liverpool, living and working in Bradford.
She is the founder of Castles In The Sky Projects, an LGBTQIA+ arts producing company and platform through which she founded Bradford Queer Film Festival and OUT OUT, the drag king project. With OUT OUT, Alice creates residencies, cabaret nights, commissions and mentoring for drag performers with a specific focus on drag kings and things.
She has worked as Associate Producer of Right Queer Right Now festival at Theatre in the Mill, Programmer and Lead Producer of Bradford Pride and in LGBTQIA+ programming for Bradford UK City of Culture 2025. She is also a museum exhibitions and engagement specialist and has worked with National Science and Media Museum, People’s History Museum, British Library, National Videogame Museum and more.
Photo credit: Carolyn Mendelsoh
Bursary Reflection
Drag and LGBTQ+ Community Building in Ho Chi Minh City & Bradford
Earlier this year thanks to support from Producer Gathering I travelled to Vietnam for an exploratory trip engaging with the local drag scene. Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon might not seem the most obvious place to draw connections with Bradford but this relationship started almost 2 years ago.
When arranging the second ever OUT OUT event – the Bradford based drag king platform and club night that I run, I received a message from a drag king, they were asking if there was any way to get into the sold out night. They told me they were from Bradford and were home briefly from Vietnam where they had been living for the last few years. I initially thought this was a clever if not slightly unbelievable attempt to get a ticket but of course it was indeed drag icon Laurence Kashmere. From then on we stayed in touch, they delivered workshops for us, performed at a future night and when the time came for me to work on Bradford Pride they were top of the bookings list. Laurence was still living in Vietnam and returning to the UK semi-regularly, each time armed with more comparisons about our scenes. I couldn’t help but notice how many similar challenges and opportunities we were facing.
I never dreamt that I’d be able to go and experience the scene Laurence was explaining to me first-hand, but that’s exactly what I did. Initially drawn and inspired by my work with drag kings, I sought out other kings on the scene. There are fewer kings reflected in the Vietnamese scene compared with other drag artists, but they are working in innovative ways to create cross-city collaborations, drag king showcases and ensure a variety of drag is guaranteed on every bill. The experience led me to meet with many drag queens and drag things, as well as kings who are pushing the boundaries of this art form. Meeting with artists in Vietnam, I was able to learn about the societal influences on their drag and the limitations this may create, finding even more parallels with our scene in the UK, and more specifically, Bradford and West Yorkshire.
I am not myself a performer – unlike many drag show producers who miraculously wear both hats- I often feel a step removed from having a peer group to share challenges and successes with.
The rare opportunity as a Producer to soak in a scene, learn, watch, and listen was not lost on me. I fought the urge to create project proposals, instead taking the time to experience a partly funded time immersing myself in someone else’s scene.
Keen to make the most of my time and aware of my privilege travelling to have this experience ,I wanted to be generous and not take too much of anybody’s time. Initially planning on listening, having some casual chats and soaking it all in, I ended up spending hours and hours with incredibly generous Producers, Organisers and Artists who were just as eager as me to make sense of our scenes, find connections and just talk!
Sharing our challenges, celebrating our wins, and learning about each other’s scenes, I realised just how infrequently these spaces are made for Producers in general. Unless we’re working on large projects, Producers are often one of one and, therefore, can feel incredibly isolated, with little space to reflect not just on successes and challenges but fundamental questions of why and who.
Although I initially went to Ho Chi Minh to explore our similarities, I also encountered many key differences in our scenes which were just as helpful to identify. Ultimately being immersed in another scene is pure inspiration and energy. I left feeling connected and catalysed and despite my best efforts with 100 ideas for new projects.
