Hair holds power, especially for members of the LGBTQ+ community, for whom a good haircut can be life changing. Not only is hair a tool for self expression and gender presentation, but an outlet for creativity and self care. New Orleans, a city with an abundance of queer pride, has one of the few places in the country where you can get a gorgeous gender-affirming cut and gossip openly about your love life, whatever it looks like: Bandit Hair Company.

If you find yourself in France on April 1, don’t be surprised if something seems fishy. Maybe someone gives you a chocolate or a pastry in the shape of a cod? Perhaps you find a paper haddock stuck to your back, and then everyone erupts into laughter and starts pointing and shouting “poisson d’avril”? Don’t be alarmed, you’ve simply immersed yourself in the centuries-long French tradition of April Fool’s Day, known as poisson d’avril or “April Fish.”

As a city known for its festivals and food, it’s no wonder New Orleans has a special gustatory way of celebrating the Christmas holidays. Although modern festivities no longer require celebrants to stay up all night, revelers can still indulge in the nearly 200 year old feast of Réveillon every December, as the Catholic French Creole inhabitants of the city did before them.

While beignets and Bourbon Street are quintessential parts of the New Orleans experience, savvy travelers can discover so much more. For instance, the beautiful balconies adorning the Spanish-style buildings in the French Quarter? Some tell the tale of skilled iron workers from West Africa who integrated their indigenous ideologies into the iron work using symbols.

Perched at the mouth of the Mississippi River, New Orleans has been a crossroads of cultures since its first indigenous inhabitants. Just over a century ago, the interplay of West African, European, and Caribbean influences in the Crescent City forged the signature sound of American jazz.

Salvatore “Sam” Caruso started making ice cream at home in 2018 with a two-quart Cuisinart machine, but he could never get the texture right. Despite his best efforts, it was always too icy, not smooth enough for his taste. Then, as the world shut down in March 2020, Caruso found himself with ample free time after being let go from his job. He used a serendipitous tax return check to buy a higher-quality ice cream machine for $1,300 and started experimenting.

My theatre in translation story: the portal opened. The year was 2012. The place was Paris, France. I had convinced my study abroad program to grant me an independent study to translate a play from French into English. After hours weeding through the drama stacks at Gibert Jeune for a play (any contemporary play!) by a woman—which is a whole other soapbox—I found Louise, elle est folle (Louise, she’s crazy) by Leslie Kaplan.

Laughs in Spanish by Miami native Alexis Scheer is a love letter to her city, specifically the Wynwood neighborhood, home to Miami’s vibrant art scene.

SAY GAY PLAYS offers royalty-free short plays by queer playwrights to not-for-profit theater companies, arts organizations, and educational institutions for local activism and fundraising for LGBTQ+ communities across America.

As theatre around the world finds its footing four years after the onset of the COVID pandemic, many artists are refusing to return to prior industry standards—be they related to work schedules, the subscriber model, or the very setting in which plays are taking place.

I met Eva Doumbia in New Orleans, Louisiana in March 2019 (as documented in my essay “New to New Orleans”), and over a glass of wine, she shared plans for her upcoming creation, , which would tell the story of various foods’ interconnected histories of dominance and oppression spanning back to colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.

The interruption of the COVID-19 pandemic gave way to a time of reckoning for theatre and theatremakers. As we collectively emerge from the pandemic’s crucible, let me present a beacon of hope for what theatre in the United States can be, at its best: “adaptable, emergent, sustainable, and well.” I am quoting Lauren E. Turner (she/her), the founder and producing artistic director of New Orleans-based theatre company No Dream Deferred and the We Will Dream: New Works Festival.

I don’t remember consciously choosing to opt out of mainstream femininity, so much as never being interested in what it had to offer. It was always obvious my genetic gifts lay in my mind, not my looks, so it felt like a waste of time and energy to try to do anything about my appearance.

It was a weeknight in mid-December, and I was crouched on the top step of the stairs with my laptop, trying to work, when my brother called to discuss Christmas presents for my parents. I was in a mood and he could tell. He asked what was wrong.

I've moved a lot. Not for any of the usual reasons, like the military, or my parents getting divorced, or even specifically for work. My parents are still together, still living in the house I grew up in—well, technically the house I did most of my growing up in, from ages 8 through 18.