Circle Jerk and This American Wife: The Internet Theater of Fake Friends

Two plays along with process essays on the cacophonous world of pop culture, politics, and personal testimony that we call the internet

In March 2020, the New York theater company Fake Friends was pushed off the stage and into the land of the internet. This book marks the first publication of two of their deliciously absurd and toxically serious internet plays, Circle Jerk (the first-ever work in digital theater to be shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama) and This American Wife. Circle Jerk tells the social media-infused tale of gay white supremacists creating an AI-influencer to dominate the global discourse, and This American Wife spins a surrealist web of queer devotion to the stars and performance strategies of reality television; both plays are unapologetically theatrical and digitally native, born out of the exigencies of the pandemic. This collection features an electrifying visual archive as well as individual essays from each company member reflecting on the practical and interpersonal processes of bringing these award-winning plays to life in our ever-more online, political, and personal world.