By day, West Norriton resident Derek Lightcap is a counselor at the Valley Forge Memorial Garden cemetery in King of Prussia.

He balances the weight of that career with a polar-opposite moonlighting job: Lightcap is a drag performer, sassily entertaining crowds with the persona he’s created, Fanci Dismount.

“I’ve been an entertainer my whole life,” Lightcap said in an interview for the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board.

“In college, I started to dabble in drag. We did gender-bender cabarets and fundraisers for different things. So that’s where I first kind of started with it. But it was never anything serious.”

A Halloween gig at a Norristown bar was his turning point.

He arrived in drag, his chosen costume for that night, and a freak fall snowstorm waylaid the scheduled entertainment.

Lightcap was on his own.

And crushed it.

His alter ego was born.

Lightcap describes Ms. Dismount as an “… amalgamation of that stereotypical loud-mouthed, bawdy, Mae West type … demure, sweet, innocent, motherly figure who is also a bawdy, raunchy doll.”

Lightcap regularly performs at Round Guys Brewing in Lansdale.

Additional details on his performance background are online at the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board.

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Fanci Dismount in all her glory.