Selected collections are donated with permission to be digitally shared with the public. For more information, please contact Harrison Apple [email protected]
Vanna (aka Michael Obusek) Collection
- Michael “Vanna” Obusek (b. July 10, 1966) is former staff of the Travelers Social Club and the Pegasus nightclub where he worked both on and off stage as a bartender, house manager, show director and drag performer between 1986 and 1999. Michael had moved to Pittsburgh from his hometown of Elizabeth, PA, at the age of 18 in search of a gay scene in city. After surviving a liquor control raid at the Traveler’s Social Club in 1986 and testifying to protect the club during a subsequent trial, Michael was offered a job as a bartender, beginning the next decade of his life in the bar business and club culture. When a workplace accident forced him to quit his position at Travelers, former co-workers helped him transition to Pegasus, where he stayed until leaving the bar scene permanently to pursue degrees in interior design and education in 1999... Read More
- Marsha Mellow Collection contains tapes and documents from the Pittsburgh nightlife scene with emphasis on drag shows at Pegasus Lounge located at 818 Liberty Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh. Marsha (aka Mark Wilkes) had come of age in the Pittsburgh gay nightclub, becoming a fixture in bar productions as well as regional pageants. Her own tape collection covers stage productions, benefit shows, and bar shows that help illustrate the DIY queer and gay drag cabaret scene in the city, entangled with local on-the-ground activism from AIDS awareness and public health efforts to youth programs like Growing Alterative Youth who were key in creating a space for minors in an otherwise adult-exclusive entertainment scene...Read More