BOSS LADY: “It was like 1999 when I started winning pageants left and right,” says Robb Smith, who performs as drag queen Celeste Starr. "A light just switched on, and everything I had trained for was suddenly there, and I’d made it."

Celeste Starr moves to O.Henry’s after more than 20 years performing at Scandals

Posted on by Kai Elijah Hamilton
See More

After his 1994 graduation, Robb Smith left his hometown. Like a story from an independent gay movie, he jumped on a Greyhound bus bound for Asheville, where he started a new life — complete with a drag persona — with the help of an accepting uncle.

HOLIDAZE: John Waters has been performing his Christmas-themed stage show for 12 years, and he knows a thing or two about handling the holidays. From ornaments with pictures of ugly relatives to a decorated electric chair, “I think that you just can take the traditional things about Christmas and have a little more fun with them,” he says.

Filmmaker John Waters talks Christmas, career, criminals and more

Posted on by Kai Elijah Hamilton

“I’ve been doing this Christmas show for 12 years,” Waters says. “Even when I made all the movies, I use to always do a show called This Filthy World or An Evening with John Waters. It began when I use to tour with the movies to introduce them. I’ve always had a stage show of some kind or other — I never gave up on Vaudeville.”