FEBRUARY 2027
KRISTINA WONG #FOOD BANK INFLUENCER
Written & Performed By Kristina Wong
Directed By Jessica Hanna
Pulitzer Prize finalist Kristina Wong brings her signature irreverence to the American musical—this time, through the lens of our nation’s emergency food system.
Based on her experiences with food distribution from New York to the Navajo Nation, Wong offers biting, hilarious commentary on food insecurity and America’s obsession with giving (and receiving) free food. How will she make you laugh about hunger? It’s a SNAP! (That’s the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.) Plus, free supplemental groceries available after every show! “The seeds of this show started in my neighborhood of Koreatown Los Angeles where I discovered World Harvest Food Bank on Arlington and Venice right before the pandemic. World Harvest became part of the ecosystem for our Auntie Sewing Squad pandemic era mutual aid work. I was so fascinated with this place that I started to research our emergency food systems everywhere and that became this sexy new musical. I’m thrilled to finally bring it home to Los Angeles!”
Kristina Wong is a Doris Duke Artist Award winner, Guggenheim Fellow and the first Asian American woman to be named Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama. She’s a performance artist, comedian, actor, writer and former elected official who has been presented across North America and internationally. Notable solo shows include: Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Going Green the Wong Way, The Wong Street Journal, and Kristina Wong for Public Office. Her role in accidentally starting the Auntie Sewing Squad, a national mutual aid mask sewing network during the Covid-19 pandemic, was the subject Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord— a New York Times Critics Pick that premiered off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop. That show was the 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama and winner of the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Solo Performance. In addition to guest star roles on movies on Netflix and shows on Nickelodeon and ABC, she’s been a commentator on late night shows on NBC, Comedy Central and FX. She starred in her own pilot presentation with Lionsgate for truTV. Her commentaries have appeared on American Public Media’s Marketplace, PBS, VICE, Jezebel, Playgirl Magazine, Huffington Post and CNN. Her newest show Kristina Wong, #FoodBankInfluencer was created as part of a three year Artist-in-Residence appointment at ASU Gammage that ran concurrent to being a Kennedy Center (rest in peace) Social Practice Fellow. Her work has been awarded with support from Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, Center for Cultural Innovation, National Performance Network, a COLA Master Artist Fellowship from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, ten Los Angeles Artist-in-Residence Awards from Department of Cultural Affairs Los Angeles, Center Theatre Group’s Sherwood Award, the Art Matters Foundation, and the Joan D. Firestone Commissioning Fund from En Garde Arts. She’s been awarded artist residencies from MacDowell, Montalvo Arts Center, San Diego Airport, Ojai Playwrights Festival and the County Exchange in Listowel, Ireland. Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism will be published Spring 2026 from Beaming Books and is co-written with the producers ofRadical Cram School, the web series she has created for kids. She co-hosts the podcast Killing Your Number which looks at the impact of the prison system on Asian Americans.
Kristina Wong is a board member of Creative Capital, New York Theater Workshop and API RISE.
Jessica Hanna is a Los Angeles based Director, Producer & Space Maker. She is founding Producing Artistic Director of Outside In Theatre, a member of The Kilroys and was Chair of SITI Company’s Board of Directors (2019-2023). Her focus as a director has been on new play development. Including Justin Elizabeth Sayre’s Lottie Plachett Took A Hatchet at The Cavern Club, The Los Angeles LGBT Center and Assembly Roxy Upstairs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Also Sayre’s Three Little Girls Down a Well at The Public Theatre for Under The Radar Festival 2023. Other world premieres include Deathplay written & performed by Lisa Sanaye Dring at Circle X, as well as Dring’s Hungry Ghost at Skylight Theatre Company; John Ross Bowie’s Four Chords and a Gun, Kerri-Ann McCalla’s The Willows, and Georgette Kelly’s I Carry Your Heart all at Bootleg Theatre, and she directed the Ovation Award winning Priscilla, Queen of the Desert at Celebration Theatre. www.JessQueen.com for more info.
Praise for KRISTINA WONG #FOOD BANK INFLUENCER
“What makes Food Bank Influencer so compelling is its ability to hold multiple truths at once. It uses humor to make difficult topics accessible without diminishing their seriousness. And it transforms a deeply personal story into a broader call for systemic change.”
— Kaju Roberto, The Village View NYC“A parody karaoke musical about social justice that you can sing along to? Yes, please!”
— Krista Garver, BroadwayWorld“Guns N’ Roses, Cyndi Lauper, and Bonnie Tyler may not be known for their activism fighting hunger, but in Kristina Wong’s one-woman show “#FoodBankInfluencer,” their music becomes the parody soundtrack for a hilarious and heartfelt exploration of food insecurity in America. ”
— Evanthia Chapman, The Berkeley BeaconRead our COVID-19 Policy
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