On Saturday, families attending a drag story hour at Northern Stage in White River Junction had to evacuate the theater. Threats, that turned out to be hoaxes, were emailed to Northern Stage, as well as Planned Parenthood in White River Junction, the Target store in West Lebanon, and four individuals. The investigation is still ongoing, but police have determined there were no explosive devices at any of the locations.
Northern Stage received the threat during a drag story hour raising money for a local circus nonprofit. The two drag performers, along with the rest of the attendees, were in the middle of reading a book when they were asked to evacuate.
Justin Marsh, who performs under the name Emoji Nightmare, is a co-founder of Vermont’s Drag Story Hour chapter. They read books to children and their families alongside Kat Redniss, whose stage name is Katniss Everqueer. She's a chapter member and also performs with Green Mountain Cabaret.
Marsh said they've hosted Drag Story Hours in nearly every Vermont county since the chapter opened in 2017. They estimate they've visited around 40 Vermont libraries in total. A new grant from the Vermont Community Foundation will expand their reach to rural areas of the state.
"The grant we've received is for eight rural libraries in Vermont to receive this," Marsh said. "So those are libraries that have very low funding, especially programmatic funding, and they otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to host us."
During the hour, we also heard from Catherine Delneo, Vermont's state librarian.
Broadcast at noon Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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