Rooted in Community: Monique Gaffney and the Art of Belonging

By Ricky Anderson | @rickypresents

There’s a particular moment in every theater kid’s life when you realize the dream has shifted. Not disappeared. Not failed. Just… changed shape.

For Monique Gaffney, that realization didn’t arrive with fireworks or certainty. It arrived quietly, through hands busy with fabric, hair, wigs, and the steady rhythm of making something real. It arrived through community. Through being needed. Through finding spaces where she didn’t have to explain herself to belong.

“I never really felt like I was enough of one thing or the other,” Gaffney says, reflecting on growing up mixed race, with a Black father from New York and a Native Hawaiian and Portuguese mother. Raised largely on the East Coast, with summers spent immersed in Hawaiian culture, Monique learned early how to move between worlds without fully landing in either.

That in-between space shaped her. It sharpened her awareness. It made her observant, adaptable, deeply attuned to people and environments. It also left her searching for a place that felt like home.

As it turns out, she found it backstage.

Before wigs, before Broadway, before film sets and trailers, Monique was a performer. A competitive dancer from childhood through her early teens, she gravitated toward spaces where expression and discipline coexisted. Dance led to theater. Theater led her to pursue a BFA in Acting at Arcadia University. But like many artists, she discovered that what she thought she wanted wasn’t exactly what she needed.

Theater programs ask a lot of young people. Emotional excavation. Vulnerability on demand. For Monique, who was also the eldest of five and carrying responsibilities far beyond her years, it was overwhelming. What grounded her instead was making. Working with her hands. Building something tangible while still staying close to storytelling.

She found her way into the costume shop. Then wardrobe. Then special effects makeup. And eventually, hair.

“I never wanted to do hair,” she admits, laughing. But a mentor noticed what she hadn’t yet named: how naturally it came to her, how calm she seemed while doing it, how much joy lived there. What began as helping out turned into a craft. Then a calling. Then a career.

Hair and wig work allowed Monique to stay connected to performance without standing in the spotlight. It let her support stories rather than center herself in them. It also gave her something she’d been craving since childhood: community.

After graduating, the path wasn’t glamorous. Retail jobs. Costume shops. Regional theaters. An Amazon warehouse. Five years of figuring it out, piece by piece, paycheck by paycheck.

“I just knew something had to give,” she says.

That something turned out to be summer stock at the Santa Fe Opera. A leap taken not for money or prestige, but for reconnection. To the art. To people who loved it as fiercely as she did. To a sense of purpose she’d been missing.

Something shifted there. Being on native land. Being surrounded by collaborators. Being reminded why she started. When she returned east, opportunity followed quickly. A Broadway designer urged her to drop her résumé at stage doors. Wicked called the next day.

And just like that, the village expanded.

From Wicked to King Kong, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Company, The Last Five Years, and Jelly’s Last Jam, Monique’s Broadway career unfolded alongside a growing network of collaborators who kept pulling each other forward. When the pandemic shuttered theaters, that same community opened new doors in television and film.

Her union crossed mediums. Her people crossed with her.

Netflix. HBO. Apple TV+. Period pieces and prestige dramas. Halston. Dickinson. The Gilded Age. Only Murders in the Building. Fallout. American Horror Stories. Films that ranged from massive studio projects to scrappy passion pieces. Each job reinforcing the same truth: this industry runs on trust, relationships, and shared history.

“If it filmed here,” she says, “I’ve probably touched it at least once.”

What makes Monique’s story resonate isn’t just the breadth of her résumé. It’s the way she speaks about it. With gratitude. With humility. With a clear understanding that none of it happens alone.

Representation, too, has become a crucial part of that conversation. Monique is keenly aware of how much her presence matters in spaces where textured hair has historically been misunderstood or ignored. She’s seen progress. She knows there’s more work to be done. But she also knows the power of simply being there.

“Sometimes people see me and you can feel the relief,” she says. “Like, okay. Someone understands.”

Now, whether she’s working Broadway strike season, personal styling, or live television on Saturday nights at Saturday Night Live, Monique remains grounded in the same philosophy that carried her through uncertainty: stay curious, stay adaptable, stay connected.

She’s still discovering. Still learning. Still building. And while she may joke about eventually retiring somewhere warm, it’s clear that for now, she’s exactly where she’s meant to be.

Not because the journey is finished.
But because she finally found her people along the way.

Follow Monique on Instagram @Snatchinwigz