Workhorse Queen is a feature-length documentary film directed by Angela Washko. The film won grand jury and audience awards at American Film Festival, Buffalo International Film Festival, San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, Indy Film Fest, and IMAGE OUT Film Festival and went on to broadcast on STARZ, Amazon Prime, ROKU, and AppleTV.
Synopsis: By day, Ed Popil worked as a telemarketer in Rochester, New York for 18 years. By night, he transformed into drag queen Mrs. Kasha Davis, a 1960’s era housewife trying to liberate herself from domestic toil through performing at night in secret – an homage to Ed’s mother. After seven years of auditioning to compete on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Ed Popil was finally cast onto the tv show and thrust into a full-time entertainment career at the late age of 44. Workhorse Queen explores the complexities of reality television’s impact on queer performance culture by focusing on the growing divide between members of a small town drag community – those who have been on television, and those who have not.