Give Five Productions is hosting a talent-filled benefit show at Denver’s gay-friendly Hamburger Mary’s on Monday in an effort to help reopen Colorado Springs’ Icons nightclub.

The Club Q shooting in November 2022 followed by a downtown Colorado Springs fire that took out Icons and other businesses this past December have left the city without an LGBTQIA+-friendly bar.

Monday’s benefit event in Denver is all about “community, unity and solidarity,” said Denver entertainment producer Julia Tobey.

The program will include drag, live music and burlesque performances, with all proceeds going toward the effort to reopen Icons in a new Colorado Springs location. The club is co-owned by Broadway veteran Josh Franklin, a Colorado Springs native, and his husband, John Wolfe.

A GoFundMe has raised $34,338 toward a $75,000 goal, boosted in part by a donation from music icon Gloria Estefan. “I feel bad about the loss to the community. Hopefully, it contributes a little towards their rebirth,” Estefan wrote with her donation.

“The tragic closing of Club Q really affected so many people,” Tobey said, “and there are still a lot of questions about the fire.”

Icons opened at 3 E. Bijou St. in 2020 “and quickly became a beacon of acceptance and celebration for the LGBTQIA+ community in Colorado Springs,” Tobey said. “Its significance as a safe queer space and celebrated live music venue cannot be overstated, and its absence has left a void in the hearts of many.”

Icons was one of many businesses that sustained major damage and losses along Bijou Street in the Dec. 4 fire. Fire officials determined that the blaze was started by an electrical malfunction with a kitchen refrigerator at another downtown business. But while the fire easily could have ended Icons for good, “Josh and John are refusing to let their dream die,” Tobey said, “and bringing awareness to that is everything to me.”

Opening — or in this case, reopening — a gay bar in a city where there was a mass shooting less than two years ago “is a very courageous thing to do,” Tobey said.

The Icons benefit show will be hosted by Kai Lee Mykels and include performances by two dozen Denver and Colorado Springs drag, theater and cabaret stars including Abby McInerney, America Jackson, Anne Terze-Schwarz, B. Glick, Belzin Whistlez, Bender Flames, Elio Nova Wolfe, Jake Bell, Jalyn Webb, Jeremy Rill, Sam Barrasso and members of the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus alongside Wolfe, Franklin, Tobey — and even a few go-go dancers.

“Icons was more than just a bar,” said Franklin. “It was a home for so many. With the help of our friends, family and supporters, we are determined to rebuild and continue serving the LGBTQIA+ community of Colorado Springs.”