Theater
In Conversation
“Putting Your Shame Out There”: How a Booming Instagram Account Wields Comedy, Mimicry, and Advocacy
By Cam CroninJonathan Hoover may have started his Instagram account @inappropriatepatti for kicks—when you have the singular ability to parrot Broadway legend Patti LuPone, why not share it with the internet? But a talent for mimicry, like his booming account, has evolved into something greater: a source for comedy in dark times, and more importantly the vehicle for raising funds for justice. Here, Cam Cronin dives into the person and persona of Jonathan Hoover and how artistry is inextricably tied to activism.
Through the Uncertainty, Agnes Borinsky and the Working Group for a New Spirit Are Taking Inventory of Our Lives
By Daniel KraneHow can we find assurance and community in our upside down world? It is an especially taxing effort for theater artists, whose work and livelihoods depend on collaboration and communion. Enter the Working Group for a New Spirit, playwright Agnes Borinsky’s free initiative that offers a virtual home for transient artists, seminars in how to take stock of our lives, and more. Daniel Krane dives into this effort—”a series of gatherings for clarity and direction in our messy moment of distance and collapse”—that the Bushwick Starr is hosting now through December 7.
