Josh Kornbluth’s
Citizen Brain
In Person at The Marsh Berkeley
Written & Performed by Josh Kornbluth
In Collaboration with Aaron Loeb & Casey Stangl
Directed by Casey Stangl
Online ticket sales close 2 hours before each performance,
and additional tickets may be available for purchase at the door.
June 10 – July 29, 2023
Saturdays at 5pm
Extended!
August 5 – 26, 2023
Saturdays at 5pm
Ticket Information
Tickets: $25 – $35 General Seating sliding scale | $50 & $100 Reserved Seating
Online ticket sales close 2 hours before each performance,
and additional tickets may be available for purchase at the door.
90 minutes | No Intermission | Ages 10+
Please do not bring infants to the show
Please read our
Health, Safety and COVID-19 Information
Our commitment to our patrons
As of June 10, 2023, face masks are strongly encouraged but no longer required
About the Show
At the Global Brain Health Institute, Josh Kornbluth immersed himself in the study of brain disease and wondered if our society was suffering from political dementia. The discovery of the “empathy circuit” in the brain might be the cure. Can a neurotic storyteller, who flunked every science class he took in college, spark a science-based revolution of empathy?
Artistic Crew
JOSH KORNBLUTH – For over three decades Josh Kornbluth has been performing his autobiographical monologues for theater audiences all over the U.S., and in other countries as well. His show Red Diaper Baby, directed by Josh Mostel, ran Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theater, was selected for the Best American Plays of 1992 collection, was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, and was made into a performance film for the Sundance Channel, directed by Doug Pray. His monologue The Mathematics of Change was also made into a performance film, directed by his brother Jacob Kornbluth. His shows Haiku Tunnel and Love & Taxes have both been adapted into feature films by Josh and brother Jacob: Haiku was accepted into the Sundance Film Festival and was distributed nationally by Sony Pictures Classics; Love & Taxes was distributed nationally by Abramorama and received a 100 percent “Fresh” rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Josh has participated several times in both the Sundance Institute’s Theater Lab and Filmmaker Lab. In 2002 he collaborated with Michael Gene Sullivan and the San Francisco Mime Troupe Collective in writing their summer show, Mr. Smith Goes to Obscuristan. Josh has collaborated with director David Dower on five shows: Ben Franklin: Unplugged, Love & Taxes, Citizen Josh, Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews? (originally commissioned by the Contemporary Jewish Museum), and (for the Shotgun Players) Sea of Reeds. Josh has toured India with his monologue Citizen Josh, under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. For two years he hosted an interview program on public TV station KQED, cleverly titled The Josh Kornbluth Show. He was also artist-in-residence at the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco. Josh’s shows have been collected into a book, Red Diaper Baby: Three Comic Monologues, as well as two audiobooks from Audible.com: Red Diaper Baby: Three Comic Monologues and Ben Franklin: Unplugged … and Other Comic Monologues. He has taught a course in autobiographical storytelling at Stanford University. Since January 2017 he has been an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute, an experience that inspired his latest solo show, Citizen Brain, as well as a series of online videos also titled “Citizen Brain” (https://citizenbrain.org); he has also served a stint as Hellman Visiting Artist at UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center. Having done the first full-length show ever to run at The Marsh, Haiku Tunnel, he is thrilled to be back at The Marsh with his latest piece. Josh lives in Berkeley with his wife, Sara, a retired public schoolteacher, their son, Guthrie, a budding filmmaker. You can find him at joshkornbluth.com and via his online newsletter, “But Not Enough About Me” (https://joshkornbluth.substack.com/).
CASEY STANGL – Casey Stangl is an award-winning director based in Los Angeles. Recent projects include A Few Good Men at La Mirada Theater for the Performing Arts, Steel Magnolias at Everyman Theater in Baltimore, and a workshop of Anna Ziegler’s Antigones for the Foundry Project. Casey does script adaptation and directing of foreign language dubbing for Netflix, Amazon, HBO and Disney. Casey was named 2019 Director of the Year by StageScene Los Angeles. Her work has been seen at theaters across the country including South Coast Repertory, American Conservatory Theater, The Guthrie Theater, Arizona Theater Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Jungle Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Portland Stage and Cleveland Playhouse. From 2105-’22 Casey was Associate Artistic Director for Ojai Playwrights Conference and she has developed new plays at the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Humana Festival, Pacific Playwrights Festival, PlayPenn and Berkeley Rep’s GroundFloor. Casey proudly serves on the Executive Board of SDC, the national labor union for stage directors and choreographers.