Please join us in community at two performance locations:

HETRICK-MARTIN INSTITUTE @ 2 Astor Pl
Friday, March 20 at 6:30pm and Saturday, March 21 at 1pm & 5pm.

ST LUKE IN THE FIELDS @ 487 Hudson Street (between Christopher Street & Barrow Street)
Sunday, March 22 at 7pm and Monday, March 23 at 7pm.

All tickets are free and offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Space is limited and RSVP is required. All ticketholders should go straight to the performance venue—there’s no need to visit the NYTW box office.

One fateful afternoon in 2019, I wandered into World Harvest Grocery Outlet in Los Angeles not realizing that I had stepped into a non-traditional food bank whose generous distribution model would find its way into my mutual aid work, community activism, and a new show six years later. I certainly didn’t think that said show would be a solo karaoke rom-com musical about emergency food systems.

This show comes on the heels of my last work, Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, and attempts to answer the questions I was still left with in the aftermath of leading the Auntie Sewing Squad, a 500+ day national mutual aid mask sewing effort powered by 800 volunteer Aunties: Isn’t there actually enough for everyone? Why is everything distributed wrong? What is actually killing us? Who is going to save us?

I was fortunate to receive an ASU Gammage artist residency which gave me three years to develop the piece. I’ve met with dozens of food banks, pantries, social service agencies and mutual aid efforts to research this work. I hung out with ASU’s student-led Pitchfork Pantry and had many conversations with ASU community members. I met with professors and sustainability scholars. I even got to be in conversation with Jose Andres of World Central Kitchen onstage at ASU Gammage. I’ve gotten the valuable time of the policy experts at Mazon who advance policy solutions to end hunger. I’ve also visited food security efforts on the Navajo Nation, New York State, London, Washington DC, Western Massachusetts and more. At one point during the SAG-AFTRA/WGA double strike in LA, I initiated a months-long food giveaway at World Harvest for union members who were in need of food. I can’t possibly begin to thank every food giveaway entity I’ve encountered in this development process, every nuanced moment I’ve witnessed, every food insecurity factoid I’ve been told, but I so greatly appreciate everyone who took time to meet with me as I figured out what the story was of emergency food and how to make it this show.

I was introduced to Germaine Simonson, owner of the Rocky Ridge Gas Station and Market located in a rural part of the Navajo Nation by Arizona State Senator Theresa Hatathlie-Delmar whose mutual aid network Navajo Hopi Families Covid-19 Relief Fund worked with the Auntie Sewing Squad in the pandemic. One of the original paths this show was going to take was not a theatrical show, but instead, a handsewn fabric installation inside her gas station market that would have pointed visitors to more indigenous foodways. This would have been a collaborative project with local seamstresses to help visitors to the market imagine what food sovereignty is. The market had to close because of weather damage and we pivoted to a ribbon skirt sewing workshop in July of 2023. While I am sad we could not see the original fabric installation through, I hope some seeds of that time have shown up in this show. I also hope we find ways to collaborate together in the future.

I read many books on emergency food while researching this work. The most impactful texts were Janet Poppendieck’s Sweet Charity and Andrew Fisher’s Big Hunger. I had the great fortune of Janet surprising me with her attendance at a showing in progress at the Catskill Arts Center in Summer 2024. I’ve attempted to integrate her feedback about clarifying that World Harvest has a very atypical food bank model in the show.

Now we sit in a terrifying moment of history where social safety nets are being cut drastically and food banks can’t sustain the demand. It’s been tricky as an artist to critique bandaid solutions when everything is on fire. I find inspiration in mutual aid and efforts that connect people back to each other and the land. I believe that rebuilding a world that operates on true community trust is where we’ll ultimately find liberation.

While I can’t include the thousands of learning moments I’ve had in my process during tonight’s show, I’ve sifted through it all with my incredible director Jessica Hanna and lined up what I feel are some of the most enlightening moments for your enjoyment. Thanks for being here.

New York Theatre Workshop, Patricia MacGregor and Aaron Malkin, for supporting this piece.  

Other thanks: Sandy Morris for the incredible publicity photos which have gotten so much use! My best friend Brian Feldman, my other best friend Glen Curado of World Harvest Food Bank which is how I find myself in this mess/ show to begin with, Dave Delmar and Senator Theresa Hatathlie-Delmar, Germaine Simonson and the Rocky Ridge Gas Station and Market, Badly Licked Bear for co-producing the ribbon skirt workshops with me on the Navajo Nation, Nadine Narindrankura, Grandma Edith and Little Bobbin for your support that week as we held those workshops, Outside In Theatre, The Westin Tempe, Mazon, New York Theatre Workshop, Catskill Arts Space, The Kennedy Center’s Social Impact program, Rahman from Fiverr in Egypt who made these karaoke videos, our past production technicians in past development residencies—Latrel Thompson, Calvin Anderson, Arlo Sanders and Jenny Park—Center Theater Group for loaning some legal consultation, En Garde Arts (especially Anne Hamburger, Joan D. Firestone and Dr. David Milch), my beloved Lee Supercinski, and my hard working team of Lillian LaSalle at Sweet 180 and Olivier Sultan at CAA.

This performance/ event is supported in part by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of Social Impact’s Social Practice Residency Program, a three year Artist residency at ASU Gammage supported by Michelle Jung and Chris Rodriguez, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Social Practice Fellowship from the Kennedy Center, the Joan D. Firestone Award from En Garde Arts and additional residency support from the Dr. David M. Milch Foundation.

This has also been developed with residency time at the following: New York Theatre Workshop’s Residency at Adelphi U., Catskill Arts Center in partnership with A Single Bite (sponsored by the Dr. David M. Milch Foundation), UMass Amherst and Center Theater Group. With development opportunities at World Harvest Food Bank in Los Angeles. Additional rehearsals were made possible by Outside In Theatre, Los Angeles.

This artist has also been supported with a 2023 Doris Duke Artist Award.

Bios are provided by each artist. Where opinions are expressed, they represent individual views. We ask everyone attending an event to read and embrace the NYTW Core Values. If you’d like to tell us about your experience at NYTW, email us at LetsChat@nytw.org.