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Jezz Chung, a queer disability advocate, began acting as a form of therapy, but then continued as a form of resistance. As a queer, non-binary, autistic actor, they tell Time Out New York that there were never many people who looked like them or shared their identities who were in the spaces they wanted to inhabit, which fueled them to work to become that representation for others.
“It took me a long time to even think acting was an option,” Chung says in an interview with Time Out New York. “I always think about how one of the symptoms of oppression is a suppression of our imagination.”
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In 2020, they quit their job and started to pursue their creative interests more seriously. Around that time, Chung learned about the New York Neo-Futurists, an ensemble of multidisciplinary artists, after watching A League of Their Own and finding out that actress Roberta Colindrez—who Chung admits they had a massive crush on—has been a member. Chung decided to try out and after a rigorous audition process, they were cast into the group. In the past year, they’ve been performing with the New York Neo-Futurists, and are playing the last two shows of The Infinite Wrench this upcoming weekend before taking a hiatus.
I’ve had so many people message me after and say ‘I feel this too’ or ‘I’m going through this too, thank you for your vulnerability.’ That’s the power of art—to heal us and free us.
If you haven’t heard of it, The Infinite Wrench, which has been running in the city for 20 years, is an epic and chaotic one-hour play that is actually 30 different plays lasting 2 minutes each. Chung describes it as SNL “if SNL was performance art,” and the mechanics of the play itself changes every single week, keeping the audience—and the cast members—on their toes. It’s also pretty interactive: The audience determines the order of the plays, and at the end of the show, an audience member rolls a dice and the number they land on determines how many new plays the group will have to write for the following week.
Chung says that being in the New York Neo-Futurists has allowed them to fully show up as themself in an acting space for the first time. They want to teach other queer people, people with disabilities and Asian Americans that they can bring all of their identities to their art and still be taken seriously.
“Being able to write material based on my own experiences is a very special thing,” they say. Plus, being in an environment where they have to think on their toes made them realize how capable they actually are, which is pretty powerful when you’ve grown up being told you were limited by the body and mind that you inhabit, Chung says.
In the past couple of years, Chung has learned to live by two creative mottos: That things don’t need to be perfect, and we get better at anything we practice. It’s a process of allowing ourselves to mess up, or, in other words, be human. They say that in a recent show, their voice cracked during a song but they allowed it to happen and kept singing—no self-flagellation, no cringing.
To watch a queer person of color allow themselves to mess up in front of an audience is the type of thing that makes me instinctively wince—what are they gonna think of us?—but then I have to catch myself and remember that being imperfect is a human right, even for people who aren’t always given the room to mess up.
I always think about how one of the symptoms of oppression is a suppression of our imagination.
Accepting imperfection is also something they explore in their book, This Way to Change: A Gentle Guide to Personal Transformation and Collective Liberation, which comes out next month (preorder here) and focuses on themes of community care, Asian American identity, queer friendship, and healing.
“The play has helped me let go of perfection, because it’s so experimental. There is room for things to be imperfect,” Chung says. “People just show up as themselves.”
And clearly, Chung’s presence and message has resonated for people during their time at The Infinite Wrench. “I’ve had so many people message me after and say ‘I feel this too’ or ‘I’m going through this too, thank you for your vulnerability,’” they tell Time Out New York. “That’s the power of art—to heal us and free us.”
This upcoming weekend will be the last chance to see Chung in The Infinite Wrench at 154 Theater on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village for a while. You can get your tickets to the performances here.
For similar experimental shows, Chung recommends checking out the offerings at The Public Theater, SoHo Rep, and La Mama or The Bushwick Starr in Brooklyn.