Mark Mariucci was born in Iron Mountain, Michigan, in 1955, but he’d never call himself a Yooper. Mark’s family moved to De Pere when he was a year old, and he’s been part of the Green Bay fabric ever since.

“This city has come a long, long way,” said Mark. “The last weekend in March was a perfect example. On Friday the 28, the Tarlton Theater presented Legends of Drag in Titletown, a decade-spanning drag documentary that sold out the house. It was like an old school family reunion. There were lots of laughs, a few tears, and thunderous applause. The next night, we had another sold-out show for the Trans Day of Visibility. The mayor of Green Bay was there to read a proclamation supporting the community. There were scholars, artists, Two Spirit folks, activists—all coming together on one stage. It was just so uplifting.”

Green Bay’s progress is more than a fleeting weekend of queer events. The city, once last in the state on the Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index, earned a 100 percent score in December 2024.

And Mark Mariucci had a lot to do with that. Over the past 50 years, he’s been involved in several gay bars, multiple organizations, and the longest-running LGBTQ+ print publication in Wisconsin history.

Finding passion & purpose 

Like most queer kids, Mark knew he was different. He just didn’t understand why.

“I was called femme at least once a day, every day, from freshman to junior year,” said Mark. “It was so bad that the school guidance counselor called me into their office for a wellness check. I played it down, but it hurt a lot. A female friend wrote in my yearbook, ‘Have a good life and don’t steal all the boys,’ so I guess people knew before I knew.”

Looking back, Mark noted that De Pere wasn’t just where he grew up. It was where his passion for photography was born. “My best friend Leon Wagner was just amazing with electronics,” said Mark. “He was using an old camera—Kodak 620 film—and an enlarger to produce these really big negatives. I wanted to do that, so I bought my first 35mm camera, and things just kept going from there.”

When Mark graduated in 1974, gay liberation was hitting new heights across the Midwest. But Mark wasn’t quite convinced that was where he belonged. “I went through a really, really deep depression,” said Mark. “I was even a little suicidal. That ended when I met someone I really liked. He was gay, and I had a big crush on him, although I didn’t understand that at the time. It never became anything more than a platonic friendship, but the friendship really opened my mind.”

“I knew I was attracted to guys, but I still wanted to be ‘normal’ in my mind,” said Mark. “I actually used to pray that I would get over that. There weren’t really any resources for us back then, except maybe GPU News (a national magazine published in Milwaukee). If you were questioning, there was really nowhere to ask your questions—unless you knew a gay person and were brave enough to ask them.”

“I remember going to Gail’s Bar (1101 W. Main) once and only once. There was an 80-year-old man sleeping at the bar and a middle-aged woman bartending. I used the phone, walked out, and never went back. I found myself in a panic wondering if that’s what gay life really looked like. I thought all gay men were old, depressed alcoholics. I kept telling myself, I’m the only one who is like me.”

Fortunately, Mark’s good friend told him about a gay bar called The Roxy Lounge.

“When he told me about it, I said, ‘I can’t hang around you anymore, because you’re a really bad influence,’” said Mark. “Can you imagine? I seriously thought that. Six months of invites later, I finally summoned the courage to check it out.”

“We were standing outside The Roxy, and he said, ‘Come on, let’s go in,’ and I just couldn’t. There might be someone inside I knew. And my friend said, ‘So what? If they are, then they’re just like you.’ And sure enough, we went inside and saw two people I knew.”

This experience led to Mark becoming a regular. Even now, he considers The Roxy the place where he came out, and soon found himself DJ-ing. “This was around 1975—and the set-up was very crude.”

After about a year, Mark found himself at a crossroads. He’d long dreamed of moving to New York and becoming a photographer, but wasn’t sure he was quite ready for that. Even now, he realizes how different his life might have been—and how different Green Bay would be—if he’d made that move. Eventually, Mark ended up settling in Madison, where he took a DJ job at the Cardinal Bar.

“The Cardinal was really influential to me, because it was so different than anything I would have ever expected,” said Mark. “It was very open, very fluid—a mix of gay and straight—more straight than I expected since it opened as a gay bar. It was a really exciting time. Madison had this rebellious attitude that Milwaukee didn’t, and I felt like it enlightened me. It might have been the incubator that inspired me to get more involved in the community.”

After that, Mark moved back to Green Bay and continued DJ-ing part-time at The Manhole, and The Body Shop, which later became Who’s. “That’s when he discovered a new and emerging passion: Video. I was running video cameras in the bars before most people owned a video camera,” said Mark, “and I started taping drag shows for fun.”

“Eventually, a friend told me that he wanted to take over Who’s, and I told him he was crazy. He said, ‘But we want you to DJ!’ I looked right at him and said ‘No, but I’ll be your business partner.’ I wanted to use the club as a vehicle to make the Green Bay LGBTQ community a safer, better, more fun place to be. Green Bay always felt 20 years behind the times. Very few people wanted to stay. They would move because it sucked. And that was something I wanted to change. We spent everything we had to make Green Bay a better place.”

I want my MTV 

When Mark opened the legendary Za’s Videobar on July 20, 1989, he decided the bar was going to be all video, all the time. “We didn’t play any records at all. Everything was music videos. We projected video onto three screens all night long.” In the beginning, Mark used Betamax videos exclusively, but soon switched to laserdisc, and then DVD.

But as he learned, it was a little harder to pull off than it looked. “Mike, who owned Body Shop, had a very old video beam projector with a curved metal screen,” said Mark. “It was just a piece of crap! Every once in a while, I’d have to get out of the DJ booth, walk across the dance floor, and pound on the thing to make the video come back on.”

After 11 years, Za’s closed in November 2000. “After my business partner passed away, and our rent increased over 500%, I knew it was time for a change,” said Mark.

“I found the Historic West Theatre, and asked a realtor to help me take a look at it. It was a ‘pizza and beer’ second-run movie joint that was going out of business. It was depressing, with gray carpet paneling on the walls, a water-damaged drop ceiling, and this oddly slanted liquor bar.”

“I got right to work. We sandblasted all the seats, reupholstered them, and put them back together in the theater style. We built a gigantic stage with a flat space in front that could be used for dancing or restaurant tables. The restaurant didn’t go very well, but the Friday and Saturday dance club really, really did. We would have 450 to 500 people dancing. It was a really amazing moment in time.”

Embarking on a quest 

In 1995, Green Bay area bar owners hosted “Alive with Pride 95,” a remarkably successful pride picnic event. Seeing an opportunity for a more cohesive community, Mark aligned the Green Bay bar owners around a common purpose. They formed a non-profit organization, Rainbow Over Wisconsin, with a mission of promoting the growth and stability of the Northeastern Wisconsin LGBT community. In its first decade, the group funded more than 60 projects from 24 groups with more than $100,000 in Community Enrichment Fund grants.

But as Mark remembers it, “There was just one problem: It was extremely expensive for any gay bar or organization to advertise. Even InStep, Wisconsin’s leading gay press of the era, was very pricey.” That’s how Quest magazine was born in January 1994. After the first few issues were released, the print shop—which also published the Entertainer, a publication filled with adult entertainment advertising—refused to print any more issues based on “moral objections.”

But undeterred and committed to his craft, Mark found a used press and asked a friend to teach him how to use it. “This was just another one of my crazy ideas,” said Mark. “It was a brutal process that took me 18–19 hours to print a single issue. And then, I would sleep for four hours, come back to the shop, and use their booklet maker to finish the design work. Then, I had to drive all over Wisconsin to distribute it. I wanted Quest to go everywhere.”

“It was pretty much a bar rag!” he laughed. “But it allowed some of Wisconsin’s smaller markets to have exposure and advertising. Later, with the closing of Wisconsin Light and InStep, two long-established respected publications, Quest became Wisconsin’s only publication dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community, a title it held from 2003 to 2007.

After 25 years, Quest ceased publication in 2019. It holds the record for the longest-running LGBTQ+ print publication in Wisconsin history.

An Encore Performance 

Mark first met Tarl Knight at a pride celebration.

“He was wearing this heavy winter coat in the middle of July,” said Mark, “and he was playing piano and singing with this most incredible voice. And I thought, ‘Wow, he’s really talented and really eccentric. I’m going to keep my eye on this one.’”

In time, Tarl and Mark got to know each other and eventually went into business together and purchased the Historic West Theatre in 2018. Over the next six months, they carefully renovated the space to create a Streamline Moderne performance venue with not only cinema capabilities, but a full food and beverage operation.

The Tarlton Theatre opened on December 15, 2018. Since then, it’s become home to the Green Bay Film Festival, Green Bay Jazz Orchestra, Weidner Downtown series, the Truck Yard food truck park, and soon, Green Bay’s first LGBT Film Festival. The building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2024. Now sustained by the Historic West Fund non-profit, the Tarlton is one of the only surviving Art Deco movie theaters in northern Wisconsin.

“We’re not trying to run a gay bar, or a second run theater, or an art house theater,” said Mark. “This is something completely new and different. When people need a stage, we can give them a stage—without charging a lot of money. We can give them a space that isn’t a tavern. The focus is on entertainment. And it’s great.”

On Friday, March 28, Mark debuted his latest passion project: Legends of Drag in Titletown, showcasing nearly three hours of restored archival footage from Green Bay drag shows dating back to 1979. The documentary features an incredibly diverse array of performers past and present, including titleholders and fan favorites long ago departed. After the sold-out premiere, Mark hopes to take the show on the road with additional performances throughout Wisconsin.

“These videos were in various stages of degradation and decay,” said Mark. “It took everything I had, for months on end, to restore, protect, and preserve this incredibly rare footage. But I’m just wowed by how everything turned out. The documentary is a visual history of drag in Wisconsin—it’s a glimpse into moments in time that could never happen again. I’m so happy with how everything turned out.”

Guiding the future 

Mark may be approaching his 70, but he’s nowhere near “done.”

“It’s funny to think about being ‘done’ with anything,” he said, “I was done with the theater for almost 15 years. And then, I was back in, and when I got back in, I was so glad to be there. This is just wonderful, and I don’t want to quit anytime soon. I want to keep going. I plan to work until I’m at least 75. I want to get involved with the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. I want to support the LGBTQ history archives. I’ve always dreamed about teaching analog photography to students.”

“I really, truly feel fulfilled,” he said. “I can barely put it in words. I’m happy we were able to do this interview because you never know who your story might inspire. At the same time, I don’t have an ego about anything I’ve done, because my work has brought me tremendous joy. There’s no need to pound your chest and announce what you’ve done when you love what you do.”