A Campy American Myth
Matthew Antoci talks about MEOW!, experimental theatre in New York, and pop culture.
Josh Feye: Hi, Matthew, it's Josh.
Matthew Antoci: Hi, Josh. Oh my God, I always forget my ringtone is Melissa Gorga's On Display—so 2010s Bravo.
JF: That's amazing. I haven’t kept up with the Housewives, but I loved watching the New Jersey and Beverly Hills franchises in middle school. I’m excited to talk with you because you’re one of my favorite performers. And we’ve been mutuals on Twitter and Instagram—we’ve kind of orbited each other for a long time.
MA: Yeah, you’ve come to two of my shows—or more—and I still haven’t shaken your hand or looked you in the eye, have I?
JF: No, we haven’t looked each other in the eye.
MA: Josh, why are you so elusive?
JF: Whenever I go see a show, I like to go in, experience it, and then get out. For me, it’s a spiritual experience. I want to sit with it by myself. Then I’ll message you afterward and tell you how I felt.
MA: Whenever I see a DM from you pop up, I’m like, “Oh, goody.” Now I have someone engaging with the show in a thoughtful way. It’s been a joy each time.
JF: Oh, Matthew, I appreciate that. MEOW!, which premiered at the Exponential Festival this past winter, was one of my favorite plays of the season.
MA: Thank you.
JF: And you and Meaghan Robichaud played raccoons at Grey Gardens.
MA: Yeah, we did.
JF: How did you decide Grey Gardens was the space to explore the decline of experimental theater in New York and America? And how did raccoons become the lens for that?
MA: In 2023, we originally applied to a festival with a totally different project. Meaghan’s cat had just died, and we were going to make something about resurrecting her dead cat. We’d just finished our first show together—I AM MY OWN MILF—which had a team of about five, realized we worked really well together, so a duo piece felt like a natural evolution. We were just going to throw stuff at the wall and see what stuck. At the time, Meaghan had a movie theater in her apartment in Prospect Park—PPLG. We’d go there to rehearse, and after about one and a half sessions, we realized the project was bumming her out. I like starting from a place of established culture, or an unexpected or "uncanny adaptation"— which can range from starting from a song, a person in culture, an aesthetic, a viral tirade, etc. Adaptation is not a perfect term, but close. Anyway, I suggested Grey Gardens because we were already talking about cats, and there are so many cats in that film. Meaghan hadn’t seen it, but she knew Jinkx Monsoon’s Snatch Game version. So she watched it, and something clicked. We made a 20-minute version in 2023, and our theatrical vocabulary then was very “yas gawd,” RuPaul’s Drag Race, rap-verse, snaps and all that. Then, a year and a half passed before we found out we were doing Exponential. We’d grown, lived a little, expanded our cultural and theatrical taste, and had worked together but in different ways. And we realized there was something deeper in the piece about decline. Everyone around us kept saying, “Theater is dead. The underground scene is dying.” We wanted to collide that narrative with Little Edie’s story—her trajectory of coming to New York in the ’80s, her sense of dislocation.
JF: It felt like an end-of-life celebration. It was wild and funny—and honestly, it was exactly what I needed during that awful cold January. It really helped me just… live in that world. And the camera work was fantastic.
MA: Suz (Murray Sadler) is amazing. We were so lucky to have them in the room throughout the development process. I’m really proud of the camera work. Once we realized we were working in a documentary framework, we leaned into that. We were inspired by cinéma vérité—the idea that the content dictates the form– and so wanted to emphasize the hand-held cam, improvised dialogue, and seemingly mundane tasks creating something bigger. We also didn’t use a big Isadora setup. Suz would put a hand over the camera lens to make a cut, or we’d lower the dowser we made with a pulley. That kind of liveness really excited me.
JF: I love that.
MA: Yeah. Anyway...
JF: I’m curious what you think about all the live film used in a lot of productions lately: The Picture of Dorian Gray just opened, and they called it “cinematic-theatre.” Robert Edmond Jones said that would be the future of theatre, using film to project characters’ inner lives. Do you want to keep exploring that kind of work?
MA: My projects tend to, in part, be a response to the project I did right before—I like keeping my artistic voice a little slippery. I’m an Aquarius sun and a natural contrarian. I would never want to be “the person who does live-feed theater.” That kind of over-obedience to a cohesive artistic adhesion—especially in larger companies—has sort of led to their decrease in significance over time, right? To me it’s very natural that artists have wildly different interests across mediums - I want to be able to make dance-theater with no video at all, or a three-act play. I want the freedom to change. So no, I don’t think video is essential or this grand key to unlocking 21st century anything. But for the past year and a half, the two projects I worked on needed it – MEOW! and Babies on the Street. We live in a world of constant surveillance, a world full of screens—so it feels natural to bring that into the theater when it fits. But I don’t think the theater needs screens to be progressive.
JF: Have you seen The Last Bimbos of the Apocalypse yet?
MA: Not yet! They might be among my favorite people making theatre right now. I’m so excited. I’m seeing it on May 15th—Seussical Day—”on the fifteenth of May, in the jungle of Nool.” That’s the date, right?
JF: Maybe. I’ll be curious to hear what you think. A lot of the show takes place online, but there are no screens. It’s such a fresh turn for Patrick (Foley) and Michael (Breslin). It’s incredible.
MA: I know they’ve been working on it forever. I’m so excited.
JF: So, what do you love most about theater in New York?
MA: Oh, surprise! I would say... well, I guess that's not really specific to New York itself. I also love showing up at the theater and unexpectedly seeing someone I didn’t know would be there. I love seeing something that genuinely pulls me out of my seat. It’s about surprise—that’s why I go all the time. I savor that moment of thinking, “I didn’t know someone could do that,” or “I never thought about something that way.” I’m a part of The Brick’s curation team, and right now we’re at the end of the ?! New Works festival. Each night, four or more artists present pieces under twenty minutes. And in every one—well, almost every one—there’s this moment of, “What was that?” (Lorde.) A little seed of risk. I love it. It's almost my favorite thing to see each year because you get it in four different ways. Sometimes I’ll go to an off-Broadway house and not even get that once. I really love the feeling of constant surprise. It’s also great for my fried attention span. I do require consistent entertainment.
JF: What do you hate most about theater in New York?
MA: People hoarding resources at the top. Also, closed-minded curation. There was so much promise in that season at Playwrights Horizons with Alex Tatarsky, Milo Cramer, and Ike, and I thought more theaters would follow that lead, giving downtown artists who’ve been doing work for years the space and support they deserve. But it hasn’t really spread to other organizations the way I hoped.
JF: Yeah, this season felt kind of off. I don’t know. Ryan Hadid’s new show was the first show at Playwrights Horizons this season I saw because nothing they programmed seemed that appealing to me.
MA: I think it's natural for organizations to avoid risks when they’re financially unstable. But is any theater doing financially well? The only one I can think of... well, I probably shouldn’t say.
JF: Alright. So, what have you been dreaming about lately?
MA: Great question. I’ve been daydreaming about lasers. I saw a laser performance and haven’t been able to get it out of my mind—I want to make something using that medium. I’ve also been daydreaming about Scandinavia.
JF: Why Scandinavia?
MA: Because Americans often prop it up as a progressive ideal. Especially American leftists. But when I was there, I had a different experience. There’s this “law” in Norway—it’s not really a law, more like a satirical list of principles—but the people embraced it seriously. It's called the Law of Jante. Have you heard of it?
JF: No.
MA: It’s basically a ten-rule code that embodies the Scandinavian mindset of not standing out. The first rule is: “You are not special.” And many Scandinavians embrace that. I find that idea—set against these dreamy fjords and serene landscapes—really compelling. I’ve been watching a lot of Oslo travel videos, and also the film work of Joachim Trier who made “The Worst Person in the World,” which sort of amaze-bored me with its emptiness.. I’m not sure how it’ll all manifest creatively yet.
JF: That’s really interesting. So, what are your dreams for the American theatre?
MA: Sigh my dreams? That there are enough resources to go around. That there’s no need for illegal spaces—because they wouldn’t have to be illegal. I dream of a shift away from academic institutions being seen as the sole indicator of artistic quality.
JF: Mm-hmm.
MA: And I want more people to be able to make theater for a living—without day jobs. I want more government funding, but with less oversight. If you read Helen Shaw’s piece in The New Yorker, I would love for maybe the past 30 years of deteriorating foundational funding to be reversed. The shifting priorities of these big institutions like Mellon and Doris Duke, and the other one to be reconsidered. Those would be my dreams.
JF: Those are wonderful dreams.
MA: Thank you. It always comes back to that, right?
JF: It does. It’s weird, because of America’s puritanical roots, the fine arts are always going to be struggling here.
MA: Never-ending.
JF: It’s a constant battle. And there’s so little arts education—people don’t realize how interconnected theater is with religion, paganism, and so on.
MA: Yeah, totally. It’s hard. And honestly, I could say I want more theater aligned with my taste, but even the stuff I don’t like deserves to be paid. Everyone deserves that.
JF: Yeah, we need the bad theater too—to make sense of what’s good.
MA: Exactly. I went to a panel at the Segal Center about festivals—curators from all the major New York festivals were there. Meghan Finn said something that really stuck with me: after 2020, spaces like The Tank and The Brick started doing the developmental work that big off-Broadway theaters stopped funding. Our generation, mostly zillennials, is now self-producing and building our own support systems. That’s why we’re hearing such vibrant new voices. It’s out of necessity. The institutions didn’t let us in, so we made our own paths – as obviously so many of us before us did, too. I could name so many people doing this work. We always find a way. I’m a delusional optimist, and part of my practice with Meaghan is convincing her to believe in that delusion. Despite everything, we’ll figure it out. Sometimes, watching a play in someone’s living room feels more urgent—like they spent everything just to make it happen. I wish we didn't have to, but that also hasn’t stopped this incredibly vibrant arts scene from booming. I feel like there’s so much to see and everyone’s doing something, despite the lack of resources.
JF: Yeah, and I want to start finding like... industrial garages.
MA: Yes!
JF: Where are the theater artists performing in those spaces? I don’t know how to find them. If you do, please send them my way.
MA: A great, often under-celebrated resource is the Instagram page performanceart_nyc. You’ve probably seen them. They post lists of performances—they’re out there documenting everything. I’ve met them a few times, and they’re the sweetest. What they’re doing is a serious archive of a particular moment in New York performance history. They take the work seriously—acknowledging and preserving what happens daily, which most people don’t. I’m sure there used to be listings in The Village Voice or whatever, but now, this is kind of what we have. And they’re amazing. If you’re looking for warehouse shows, start there.
JF: I’ve been seeing more Wooster Group shows lately, and I’m just... I’m totally inspired.
MA: I know—yes, Wooster-pilled.
JF: The abandon they have when they perform—it's just so good.
MA: Yeah, I saw the Foreman they did—
JF: Oh, Symphony of Rats!
MA: Yes! Oh my God. You can just feel the hours and hours behind it. That kind of conviction onstage—it’s attainable, and it’s everything. Just having that kind of presence and commitment—that’s half the cost of entry to my heart.
JF: For my last question, who or what are your biggest influences?
MA: Oh my God. Well, we already talked about Fake Friends—they’ve been really valuable mentors to me. I met Meaghan and James La Bella through workshops at Celebration Barn, and that’s where I found a lot of my core collaborators. We all came together under their guidance. They’re just so aggressively contemporary and brave, and have pushed me to be unapologetic and bold – I could go on. To me, they’re one of the most important theater companies working today. Beyond them, honestly, I was raised by Lady Gaga. Everything you need to know about my work is in her—in Born This Way, in her ferocity. I used to perform the VMA Paparazzi routine in my underwear. I’d put my foot on the piano, and my brother—who I shared a room with when I was young, would be like, “Mom, Matthew’s doing something weird again.” But that performance—that sincere bizarreness, that “This is who the fuck I am” energy—it’s deep in my DNA. To value supreme confidence above all. A hot mess presented confidently sort of makes the mess itself gorgeous. Like, when she screamed into the camera during Killah on SNL, that was everything to me, my spine vibrated. Pop music in general is a huge influence, especially how it’s structured around eras. Before you hear a second of music, the story’s already been told through marketing and visuals. Charli XCX with Brat is such a great example and she talks about how she’s thinking about marketing and performances while she’s making the music, which is similar for me. Lorde is just starting to signal a new era, too. I think of all my projects as eras. For me, marketing is a part of the authorship. I’ll spend hours on Canva—though I really should learn Adobe—because I want you to feel the show just from the graphic. So much theater marketing is stale and corporate. I love guerrilla-style promotion. We once rented The Tank rehearsal room, took 300 pictures in two hours, and that became the backbone of our show’s story to the audience. That’s a big part of my practice—being inspired by pop, the work itself prioritizing rhythm and working on an emotional level before cerebral, and by how pop stars present themselves in interviews during their eras. I imagine all the prep that goes into that. Like, “Okay, bring up David Bowie in this interview because that’ll help people get what you’re doing.” I try to mirror that—how I speak publicly about the work is part of the work itself.
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