“A dream assignment” is how Ashley Lee, a Los Angeles-based arts reporter, described the chance to write about East West Players’ summer revival of Philip Kan Gotanda’s Yankee Dawg You Die. She resonated with the show’s theme, Asian American representation onscreen and onstage (“a priority topic” in her years covering entertainment, including for The Los Angeles Times), and savored the glimpse of EWP under its new artistic director, Lily Tung Crystal. “The story turned out to be emotional to report and satisfying to write,” she said. “It was a blessing in itself.”

For Dezi Tibbs, a genderqueer theatre artist and writer based in New York City, writing about intergenerational mentorship among trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming performers “was like hugging my younger self.” Constructing their piece as advice they wish they had received earlier, Tibbs said they were relieved to realize, “There is no correct answer, which, as a trans artist, is a massive weight off my shoulders.” As inspired as they were by their sources, they also found it “empowering to be able to put into words my frustration with the commercial theatre’s narrow view of humanity.”