FROM TEENAGE TEMP TO 'CHOPPED' CHAMPION: KIA DAMON REMEMBERS HER ROOTS

It was shepherd’s pie at Potterworld one day; chili dogs at Mel’s Diner the next. It was a conveyor belt of tourists, sticky and hungry, impatient and waiting for their oversized portions. It was caricature in food form. She was part of Food Rescue, a laughable misnomer: a cost-cutting program for the overwhelmed theme park restaurants of Universal Studios in Orlando—not some nonprofit for food insecurity, some charity for the hungry.

PLAYING THE BOYS, THE GIRLS, AND EVERYONE IN BETWEEN: BROADWAY’S NINA GROLLMAN ON QUEER DRAMA

When Nina Grollman takes on a new character, she doesn’t revert to a set methodology, follow steps she learned in school. Instead, she thinks about how she can project someone else’s truth into the minds of her audience.

CHRISTINA QUARLES PAINTS THE BODY AS IT FEELS

The dynamic of feeling both insider and outsider—and neither one nor the other—mirrors her relationship to race. As the only child of a white mother and Black father, Quarles “struggled with the idea of being ‘mixed race.’” The term implies a cohesion and a singularity of experience that just didn’t fit. To her, “racially multiple” is more apt: it’s

COZY YET COOL: MASAMI HOSONO'S VACANCY PROJECT

In the six days following my first Masami Hosono haircut, five of my close friends told me they could barely remember what I looked like before. It looked, they said, like I had worn the style for years. That was exactly Masami’s aim. To them, the best haircuts are those that look worn in, those which result from collaboration between Masami, their client, and whatever cool they’ve been cultivating.

“DYKING IT UP” AS BEST I CAN

“Can’t you just...you know...dyke it up a bit?,” she said, peering over the frame of her horn-rimmed glasses. We were a match made in hell: an out and proud plus-sized queer performer versus a haughty director—a petite, delicately freckled English Rose with a penchant for faux-feminism, almond milk lattes and culturally insensitive yoga retreats.

THE “TRANSGENDER RAGE” OF ZOE SCHLACTER’S DESIGN

It was like a children’s gym: it had puzzle-shaped floor mats and neon-yellow walls. Patterns with candy-colored swirls and Tic-tac-toe grids. Contraptions hanging from the ceiling and plopped down on the floor. From the outside, you could look in and see the whole thing. Thick black and white lines framed the front window, forming a lopsided circle; their hypnotic undulation lured you in.