[photo credit: Armory Center for the Arts]
The event, called Play House, runs from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. at the nonprofit’s Old Pasadena campus at 145 N. Raymond Ave. It was designed and will be led by Armory Teaching Artist Austyn de Lugo-Liston, who received an individual artist grant from the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division to stage it. RSVPs are required. Admission is free.
The Armory describes Play House as a “community-sanctioned, family-friendly event” in which all activities are “age-appropriate and centered on creativity, joy, and self-expression,” according to the organization’s website. The event page adds: “We affirm trans and gender-expansive youth. Allies welcome!”
Three guests are scheduled to appear. Lil Miss Hot Mess, a board member of Drag Story Hour, has published three picture books through Running Press Kids, including The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish in 2020 and If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It in 2022. Her first book received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. It was also singled out by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida in May 2022, when he objected to a drag queen story hour event at a U.S. Air Force base in Germany, according to a report by GLAAD. She has performed at venues including the Kennedy Center and the Brooklyn Public Library.
Manny Oakley, a drag king based in Los Angeles whom the Armory calls “the country western king of LA,” will also appear. Oakley, whose given name is Melissa Furtado, is the child of Cuban immigrants and has said she based her persona on Annie Oakley and the rhinestone cowboy aesthetic. “Because I’m the child of immigrants, the American cowboy is kind of like a special symbol to me,” Furtado told Tagg Magazine. DJ Cr1stallball will provide the afternoon’s music.
De Lugo-Liston, an artist of Puerto Rican and Virgin Islander descent who holds an MFA from Otis College of Art and Design, has taught at the Armory for years and during the pandemic began writing LGBTQ-inclusive arts curriculum for children and adults, according to an interview published in Voyage LA.
The Armory Center for the Arts is a nonprofit founded in 1989 when the Pasadena Art Workshops merged with the Pasadena Gallery of Contemporary Art, which had grown out of Caltech’s Baxter Art Gallery. Housed in a historic 1932 California National Guard armory, its stated mission is to advance equity and social justice through arts education. More than 80 percent of its programming serves socioeconomically disadvantaged youth and families, according to the LA County Arts Education Collective. The Armory also offers a Drag & Performance Art course in its regular class schedule, in which students of all genders create characters and design costumes, according to its listings.
Play House takes place Sunday, April 12, from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. at the Armory Center for the Arts, 145 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. The event is free. RSVPs are required through a form at armoryarts.org. For more information, call (626) 792-5101.
“That really has been one of my proudest and most rewarding paths as an artist and an educator,” de Lugo-Liston said of his LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum work, in the Voyage LA interview. The Armory will supply the wigs, the jewelry, and the costumes.
PLAY HOUSE Date & Time: Sunday, April 12, 2026, 12:30 PM to 3:30 PM | Venue: Armory Center for the Arts, 145 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, CA 91103 | Phone Number: 312-860-7585 | Website: https://www.armoryarts.org/calendar/2025/playhouse
