Abraham Lincoln might be an unlikely contender for a Greenpoint beauty pageant winner, considering he’s, uh, famously pretty dead!
Yet that’s exactly what occurred at Warsaw (261 Driggs Ave.) on March 21.
An evening of delightful debauchery unfolded during Brooklyn Community Kitchen’s 2nd Annual All-Gender Beauty Pageant. A former president, now revived and dancing under the moniker “Babe-raham” Lincoln, shared a stage with a wrestler, a guitarist, a magician, and a shorts guy, all duking it out for the crown.
Host Tefi Pessoa elegantly MC’d the evening’s proceedings, with comedians Jake Cornell and Jaboukie, writer and podcaster Hunter Harris, and iconic director Amy Heckerling comprising the judging panel.
An audience prize raffle also included a gift card to Big Night, WORD Bookstore, and a curated picnic basket from artist, Tracy Morgan.
Left: Winner Babe-raham Lincoln with last year’s winner, Denise “Mistah” Coles. Right: Kassiani Menas and Bryan Dakota.
Photo: Camilo Fuentealba/ @camilo.fuentealba.brevis
Contestants competed in a talent portion and a Q&A session. Kassiani Menas kicked things off with a rendition of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” (complete with a backdrop of memes!), while Sazzy Boatright wowed the crowd with wrestling moves. Attendees also witnessed an original guitar solo by Jake Gayle, a magic show that abruptly morphed into a Magic Mike-style striptease, Kia Williams-Tilmon singing “I Will Always Love You” a la Whitney Houston, and Bryan Dakota bringing down the house with a performance of Addison Rae’s “Fame Is a Gun.”
But it was Babe-raham who took top honors with a song and a brief impression of bagpipes.
Last year’s winner, Denise “Mistah” Coles, crowned Babe-raham, who quipped that it was the best time he’s ever had in a theater! Perhaps he might be interested in joining his wife onstage, I hear she’s the toast of the Great White Way!
Photo: Camilo Fuentealba/ @camilo.fuentealba.brevis
We love silliness for silly’s sake. But the event also pulled double-duty as a fundraiser for a great cause. Event organizers Simone Tetteh and Thomas Tomczak started pageant as a way to raise money for Brooklyn Community Kitchen, a Greenpoint-based non-profit that provides delicious and nutritious meals to neighbors in need.
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