GIVE ME THE MACARTHUR GENIUS GRANT
Hollywood Fringe Festival
Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre
Los Angeles, June 29, 2024
Whom or what do you envision when you hear the word “genius”? A prototypical mad scientist with a devious glimmer behind his spectacles? Albert Einstein? The Little Einsteins? Tarek Ziad anticipated these answers — and he came to the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre a few weeks ago ready to revise them.
In his one-man comedy show Give Me the MacArthur Genius Grant, Ziad — whom you might recognize from appearances at local literary readings or his viral Instagram reels — petitioned for the famous MacArthur Fellowship, which is known colloquially as the “Genius Grant” and offers $800,000 “without any strings attached” to individuals “who show exceptional creativity in their work.” Over the course of his hour onstage, Ziad test-drove hyperbolic artist statements, tried to charm a “rich and influential” rabbit plushie into funding his career over dinner, and put on a safari hat to hunt down success as if it were a wild animal — all while exploring how we determine who deserves our awe and acclaim.
The show immediately seized the audience’s attention with a video address by none other than Michelle Obama, spouting words of praise for our esteemed emcee. “Tarek,” her projection gushed, “you make me so proud, and I love you.” This intro wasn’t an AI experiment, as I initially suspected — nor was it evidence of a personal relationship between Ziad and the former First Lady. Rather, it was a doctored version of a video she posted to Facebook in 2019, titled “Open Letter to Beyonce — ‘Homecoming.’” Not only did it get the crowd going; it also vividly conjured the thrill (and absurdity) of having one’s creative work legitimized by the powers that be. (Click here for a previous review of a New York workshop of the play.)
If it hasn’t quite hit you yet, $800,000 is a nearly unfathomable amount of money — especially to the average artist chasing creative fulfillment while pursuing financial stability by slugging through day jobs or stringing together an assortment of gigs. (This archetype applies to Ziad, myself, and likely many of my fellow theatergoers that night.) After a brief primer introducing us to the grant and its history, Ziad called upon audience members to ask what they personally would do with the hypothetical winnings. The exchange illuminated one of the art world’s most glaring peculiarities: the gaps in wealth and recognition between artists in the same field. Often, these are vast; the majority break their backs to make a halfway decent living while a very select few score magazine covers or, you know, virtual letters from former First Ladies) and rake in millions, if not billions.
Although Ziad hooked us with satirical assessments of his qualifications for the grant — the evidence he mustered in support of his childhood “giftedness,” including inventive insults he once hurled on the playground, proved particularly amusing — the script quickly veered into more theoretical territory. Oft discussed were the labels artists are forced to affix to themselves as they parade in front of cultural gatekeepers — a kind of performance that typically takes place behind the curtain. One of the show’s biggest laughs came when Ziad, channeling the kind of language we’re coached to use in applications and on résumés, cartwheeled across the stage shouting, “I exist at the intersection of the arts and sciences!”
Later in the evening, Ziad examined the 21st-century phenomenon of playing show-and-tell with one’s personal struggles for sympathy points from privileged, powerful elites. “[I’m] a queer Muslim child of African immigrants from a poor, predominantly Black neighborhood of an urban city in the South,” he intoned in a dramatic voice. After collapsing onto the floor in slow motion, he defeated the suffering-industrial complex with a single quip: “I don’t like being in pain day-to-day. Why the hell would I want to be in pain professionally?” As a neurodivergent Latina with chronic asthma, I had to agree.
Ziad may not have ended the show with a Genius Grant in hand. Still, he demonstrated that it’s possible to produce meaningful work even in an industry that seems designed to beat artists into cynicism. I’d certainly call that “exceptional creativity.”
