PERFORMANCE ARTISTS
JOEY ARIAS & BASIL TWIST
With a résumé that includes roles in To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar and Wigstock: The Movie as well as a six-year run as the emcee "Mistress of Seduction" for Cirque du Soleil's Las Vegas show Zumanity, Joey Arias (far left) personifies drag as art. This year the Manhattan legend and Billie Holiday channeler returned to New York to join forces with award-winning puppeteer maestro Basil Twist (opposite page) for the uproarious Arias With a Twist, the pair's pulpy madcap revue featuring a sassy dominatrix-singer (Arias), alien abductors, magic mushrooms, and a puppet-stuffed Busby Berkeley dance number. The show runs until the end of 2008 at the Here Arts Center.RESTAURATEUR
FLORENT MORELLET
When famed New York diner Florent closed its doors for the last time in June, it was widely lamented as the end of an era. Not that the diminutive Florent Morellet, who opened the restaurant in 1985, would agree. “I loathe nostalgia,” he says, drawing out the word “loathe” with a very French emphasis. An artist who makes intricate maps of imaginary places, Morellet turned his HIV diagnosis in the mid ’80s into a public service announcement, recording his T-cell count on the daily specials board—an act of demystification that perfectly captures his combination of wit and defiance.MUSICIAN
OUR LADY J
Our Lady J (a.k.a. Jonnah Speidel) has been enchanting the underground music scenes of London and New York City all year with her divine melodies and lushly arranged covers of songs from Dolly Parton, Nine Inch Nails, and Alanis Morissette. Backed by the Pink Champagne Orchestra and the 30-voice Train to Kill Gospel Choir, the trans chanteuse-pianist recently released her EP Our Lady J: Live From the Zipper Factory and spent much of 2008 performing in the glitzy, gender-bending spectacle Lustre with Tony-nominated cabaret singer Justin Bond.PERFORMANCE ARTIST & PLAYWRIGHT
TAYLOR MAC
(Opposite page, top center) "My first professional job was at the age of 13, performing as a wedding singer," says Taylor Mac, who works in drag, but not in any traditional sense of the word. "When a song finished nobody would clap—they'd just stand and stare in befuddlement." He tends to win better reviews these days, and two solo projects, The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac and The Young Ladies of, wowed critics in the summer, with The New York Times hailing Mac as "one of the most engaging and assured performers around, and one of the most fearless."