Ethan Heard ’06 is a Yale boy: Lacoste polo (collar popped, naturally) and khakis; Neiman Marcus bag and iPod in hand; “Duke’s Men” pin on his Jack Spade messenger.

But somewhere in between rolling up his pant cuffs and pulling on a pair of five-inch white high heels, Heard becomes “Trixie,” a not-so-Yale girl, who likes mischief, mayhem and “getting people’s goat.”

Veins popping out of the tight shoes, which put Heard at well over six feet tall, long legs crossed and “La Cage aux Folles” soundtrack blaring, Trixie crooks a finger suggestively, proceeding to sashay and salsa-step her way through a rendition of “I Am What I Am.”

Heard is auditioning for this Sunday’s Glam Jam, the kickoff event to the LGBT Coop’s Gay Pride Week. Glam Jam will feature 10 performances, two professional hosts and a whole lot of pantyhose. At 9 p.m., Morse College’s Dining Hall will become a veritable hotbed of glitter eyeshadow and show tunes, as cross-dressing Yalies and professional drag queens alike take to the stage for Yale’s first drag show.

Sitting down and pulling off the shoes, Trixie becomes Heard, a little worried about logistics.

“Should I have a martini in my hand at the beginning?” he asks. “And should I really be singing, or can I just lip-synch?”

Charlie Cardinaux ’07, organizer of Glam Jam and co-coordinator of GaYalies, thinks about the professional drag bars he’s frequented. No, he says, the pros never sing. Ambrosia Salad and Darienne Lake, two drag queens who are the most recognizable fixtures in the vibrant gay culture of Rochester, N.Y., will be coming down to host Glam Jam, and they will be lip-synching their numbers.

Cardinaux transferred to Yale from Eastman School of Music in Rochester and is close friends with the two divas.

“They are so excited about this trip,” he says. “They kept chanting, ‘You know we love those Ivy League boys’ in between numbers at their last show.”

Lake, whom Cardinaux describes as “a big girl” with decades of experience and who appeared on Vh1’s “Boys Will Be Girls,” says he can’t wait to come to Yale for the show.

“Me and George W. go way back, and he’s been keeping me abreast of all the things happening at Yale,” he says. “So I’m pretty excited about this trip.”

Lake says he was inspired by classic cross-dressing films like “Tootsie” and “The Birdcage.” But these days, Cardinaux says, it’s the critically acclaimed film “Bad Education” and memories of RuPaul on Vh1 that pique interest, or at least curiosity, among Yalies.

A little extra PR doesn’t hurt. Campus tabloid Rumpus’ most recent “50 Most Beautiful People” issue featured “Vanity,” the alter-persona of Will Cornwell ’06. Cornwell realized that his Halloween stints as Halle Berry and Lil’ Kim, and his popular Gayalies bartending persona received more attention (and tips) than he did when he dressed like a guy. Thus “Vanity,” whom Cornwell describes as himself “times 10,” was invented.

Cornwell is a scene columnist for the News.

During auditions March 26, “Vanity,” a co-coordinator of and performer in Sunday’s event, joins Cardinaux in the TD Multipurpose Room to audition Glam Jam candidates. Four men enter the room, which doubles as a gym, and begin drilling holes in the wall. Cornwell giggles.

“Oh my god, this is amazing,” he says. “Not just straight guests, but straight guests with power tools. At a drag show audition!”

Cardinaux ignores the workers and briefs Heard on what to expect.

“[The hosts will] probably call you a slut, say some scandalous things,” he says.

That’s fine with Trixie.

“Oohh, I’m excited,” Heard replies.

Trixie was born in a Calhoun freshman counselor’s dorm room, where Heard, modeling his female friends’ clothes, received compliments on his sexy legs. She was nurtured by an impromptu performance at a gay bar (“all the old men were like, ‘Yeah! Yale boys'”) and finally sent out on her own last Halloween, when she received dozens of requests for snapshots.

One sip of alcohol, warns Heard, can bring Trixie out. That’s okay, Cornwell says.

“A lot of the queens down a bottle before the show,” he explains.

David K. ’06 is up next, auditioning as “Natalia,” a Russian gymnast he describes as “graceful and elegant.” But the organizers have some concerns.

“Will you be able to do that in heels?” asks Cardinaux.

“Yeah, I tried it at Halloween, and it worked great,” David confirms. “The boobs stayed on and everything.”

Though he could barely walk in his shoes, he could, channeling Natalia’s grace, tumble with ease. At her audition, Natalia flips, pirouettes and leaps across the multipurpose room floor.

“I just pulled that out of my ass right there,” he says to an obviously impressed Cornwell. That’s about par for the Glam Jam’s sequin-studded, lip gloss-laden course. Rosario Doriott ’07 has no drag persona, no outfit and, as yet, no partner, but she’s not worried. She said she plans to throw on an oversized T-shirt, pull on some jeans and perform Sir Mix-a-Lot’s classic booty call, “Baby Got Back.”

Doriott is recruiting a lot of her “hetero friends” to watch Sunday’s show, who are excited: “They’re all like, ‘Whoa, dude, that’s happening here?'” she says. “It’ll just be a big party.”

The big party will culminate in “strut-off,” a la “Zoolander.”

The prize for first place in the Glam Jam is a trip to Princeton’s inaugural All-Ivy Drag Competition, which Princeton sophomore Paul Pawlowski, vice president of Princeton’s Pride Alliance, describes as “a big queer event with a lot of queer people having a good time.”

This latest Ivy League event is inspired by Princeton’s popular drag ball, Pawlowski said. He is hoping to have all 500 seats filled — after all, it will be pre-frosh weekend.

“I guess you could say there is a drag scene here,” he says. “At the same time, Yale is a lot more of an accepting environment.”

Cardinaux, used to Rochester’s gay scene, said he does not know why the unusually active gay scene at Yale doesn’t translate into a drag scene, but speculates that it has to do with the insular nature of the Yale campus: Most Yalies, gay or straight, don’t frequent bars and clubs too far off campus, he says. At Rochester, drag was a “townie” thing.

Lake thinks it is obvious why Rochester has such an active drag scene.

“It’s something in the water,” he quips, before pointing out that in Rochester, there’s just nothing to do but pull on a dress — preferably with a low neck — and “try to look pretty.”

“Don’t take us seriously!” Lake exclaims. “After all, we’re just a bunch of men in dresses.”

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