In imposters, six actors staged individualized narratives of fear, doubt, isolation, and–even–triumph, cohering on stage as a group dialogue. Our emphasis on reperforming these individual narratives in a live play was based on the possibility that individual narratives performed together can adjust the logics of individualism and shame that perpetuate the conditions of these negative affects. The audience witness community intimacies, collectivities, and possibilities among individuals who come across as self-isolating and even adversarial at times. Even the community acts of creation that brought these practices to the stage—hundreds of hours of interviewing, writing and responding to various drafts and table reads and grant applications, crowd-funding, staging, constructing props and costumes, rehearsing, and performing–evidence the value when our individual labor forms community.

imposters debuted at UMass Amherst on 4/12/16 starring Bo Jimenez, Jenny Krichevsky, Kelin Loe, Claire Thompson, Gustavo Torres, & Will Steffen; directed by Anna-Claire Simpson and Benjamin Zender; and scripted by Benjamin Zender; with original music by Margaret K. Foley, original set by Bil Hrusovsky, and a post-show Q&A led by Nicole M. Young.

imposters was made possible by made possible with support from a crowd-sourced funding campaign, the UMass Arts Council, the English Graduate Organization, 5Perform, the Performance Studies Grad Student Association, and the UMass Department of English.