Event
Citizen Brain
Artwork by Rich Black
At the Global Brain Health Institute, based at UCSF, Josh Kornbluth immersed himself in studying 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 spark a science-based revolution of empathy?
Citizen Brain is a live solo show – an autobiographical monologue – that aims to “spark an empathy revolution.” Check out this fantastic write-up of his show on Forbes.
Josh will be performing in person in our cinema all three days for these special events:
Friday, Oct 4, 7 pm
Saturday, Oct 5, 7 pm
Sunday, Oct 6, 2:30 pm
REGULAR ADMISSION: $40
REAL ART WAYS MEMBERS: $35
FULL-TIME STUDENTS (WITH ID): $15
Photo Credit: Atlantic Institute/Lee Atherton
For years, Josh Kornbluth, who writes and hosts the “Citizen Brain” series, has been performing his autobiographical monologues for theater audiences all over the U.S. (and occasionally in other countries as well). His show Red Diaper Baby ran Off-Broadway, was selected for the Best American Plays collection, was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, and was made into a performance film for the Sundance Channel. His monologue The Mathematics of Change was also made into a performance film. His shows Haiku Tunnel and Love & Taxes have both been adapted into feature films by Josh and his 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. For two years Josh 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. Since January 2017 he has been an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute; he also served a stint as Hellman Visiting Artist at UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center. He lives in Berkeley, Calif., with his wife, Sara, a public schoolteacher, and their son, Guthrie, a budding filmmaker.
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What people are saying about Josh’s show:
“…an engaging story…told in his inimitable humorous, intelligent and forthright style.”
– Emily Mendel | Berkeleyside
“Citizen Brain succeeds most effectively in its complete and utter honesty…masterful storytelling…transcendent.”
– Caitlin Keller | The Daily Californian
“Kornbluth at his best…a winner…perfectly prescient, well crafted”
– Steve Murray | Broadway World
“captivating… warmly universal…intensely personal”
– Chad Jones | TheatreDogs
“Don’t miss it! He’s a magical, medical marvel—full of heart and soul.”
– Barry David Horwitz | Theatrius
