This Sunday's 38th annual Pride Parade marks a long-running tradition in San Francisco in the celebration of sexual freedom, but one of the city's newer traditions has marked an important anniversary, too.

"Sunday's a Drag," a drag show at Harry Denton's Starlight Room, turned two years old this month. It's modeled after the long-defunct Finocchio's, which ran for 63 years above Enrico's in North Beach - but with a twist.

At most drag shows in town, performers hit the stage in the dark of night - midnight, usually. At the Starlight Room, they're dolled up in the light of day - for brunch. Crystal-beaded gowns, lip-synching, coffee and croissants may not seem like breakfast fare, but the show has been a growing hit with tourists and locals since it began in spring 2006.The show is hosted by Donna Sachet, one of San Francisco's most notable drag queens, and a co-anchor of the parade coverage on KRON-TV.

The nightclub show is held at the top of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, with sweeping views of the city, and draws tour groups, friends celebrating birthdays, bachelorette parties and novelty-seekers as well.

"Finocchio's was so popular here for years and they closed in 1999 and there was not really that type of show in town and I just said, 'Why don't we do a brunch?'" said Denton, tableside at the second anniversary show on June 8. "Since the nightclub is closed during the day, it's a perfect time. And I'm proud to say I did come up with the name, 'Sunday's a Drag.' Some people thought it was crazy. I think it's a great name. You know - instead of going to church you go to 'Sunday's a Drag.' You go to the church of entertainment."

On that Sunday, the show doubled as a fundraiser for Positive Resource Center, a nonprofit assisting people disabled by, or at risk of, acquiring HIV.

In drag circles, there's old-school "vanilla" drag - with performers in diva gowns singing or lip-synching to Top 40 ballads. That was the case at the legendary Finocchio's, which began featuring cross-dressers in 1936 and closed due to rent increases and a decline in audiences. There, the straight and married performer Lucien Phelps starred as a Sophie Tucker expert for 27 years. At "Sunday's a Drag," transsexual Cassandra Cass bumps and grinds, while Hollata Tymes draws laughs with her "I Love Lucy" routine and a cast of others jiggle and flaunt their rhinestones and feathers. In a similar vein, there's AsiaSF restaurant, where servers jump up on a bar and lip-synch.

But there's also a newer, avant garde style of drag that's less tame, with a more in-your-face, gender-bending, theatrical feel involving performance art, live piercings, stage blood and objects set on fire. At one such club, a show featuring the theme "Transfat" had singers throwing jelly doughnuts at the audience.

Those shows include "The Charlie Horse" on Fridays at the Cinch Saloon on Polk, hosted by Miss Anna Conda, awarded Miss Trannyshack 2005, and "The Monster Show" at the Metro Bar on Market Street with Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 every second and fourth Saturday of the month at 11:30 pm. Aunt Charlie's on Turk Street does a drag show on Fridays and Saturdays hosted by Gina La Divina and the Hot Boxxx Girls. There's also "Fauxgirls!" at Kimo's Penthouse Lounge on Polk Street on the third Saturday of the month and "The Midnight Show" at Diva's Nightclub on Post Street on Fridays and Saturdays. (Trannyshack, a drag club founded by drag queen Heklina in 1996 at the Stud bar at 9th and Harrison streets, is scheduled to close this summer.)

"Sunday's a Drag" features PG-13 style entertainment - no nudity or profanity, but the occasional ribald comment by emcee Sachet, who improvises her patter as she goes along. Laura Polden of Mountain View, a recent college graduate, attended the June 8 performance with her family to celebrate her 21st birthday. Nobody told her it was a show with female impersonators.

"I was not a drag virgin, but I did not know I was coming to a drag show," she said. "It was incredible, the food was good, the entertainment was amazing and these lovely ladies blew my mind. My grandma loved it my sister loved it, everyone loved it."

Sachet looks at the show philosophically.

"I think all of us have masculine and feminine traits, and with drag you get to express all of yourself," Sachet said. "In my case I came to San Francisco and started doing drag, and found that I could use the very things I was teased about as a kid to create this character that has fun, raises money for charity and makes people smile. I mean what a reversal - to take the very thing that was a punishment and a bad thing and turn it into something good. I have so much fun with it."

If you go: Sunday's a Drag; Harry Denton's Starlight Room, Sir Francis Drake Hotel, 450 Powell St., San Francisco. Two shows, 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Cost: $39.95. Reservations recommended; call(415) 395-8595 or go to www.harrydenton.com for more information.