On stage on the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles, Kristina Wong presents herself as an out-of-work efficiency artist going through the onslaught of COVID-19 with little greater than a bias towards motion and a few primary stitching abilities.

“I have a Hello Kitty sewing machine. I got half a cut-up bed sheet. I got four yards of elastic,” says the Pulitzer Prize-nominated creator of the satirical solo present Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, enjoying by means of Mar. 12.

But there’s one other aspect to Wong’s seemingly humble theatrical persona: She can be the swaggering, self-appointed kingpin of the “Auntie Sewing Squad” — an ad-hoc community of volunteer mask-makers the then-unemployed artist galvanized in actual life by means of Facebook through the pandemic.

“This is my ancestral destiny!” Wong yells, her brash, amplified voice reverberating maniacally throughout the area as she marches concerning the set strewn with outsized bobbins of thread, pincushions and needles, all made of colourful felt. “I am the Sweatshop Overlord!”

A natural-born chief

Off-stage, the 44-year-old, Los Angeles-based artist has devoted a lot of her latest profession to taking over management roles on the grassroots degree. She then turns these real-life experiences into hilarious efficiency items relating severe social justice themes.

There’s Kristina Wong for Public Office, the performer’s satire about her adventures in native politics. The solo present is predicated on her ongoing expertise operating and serving on her local neighborhood council in Koreatown.

There’s additionally a stage manufacturing at present within the works about her function as an influencer for the World Harvest Food Bank in L.A.

And though she is not planning on making theater out of it for now, Wong even acquired suckered not too long ago into serving as treasurer on her constructing’s HOA. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” Wong instructed NPR in an interview.

Yet taking cost is in Wong’s DNA. “She was always a leader in her school,” mentioned Gwen Wong, the artist’s mom, in an interview with NPR. “She could easily be a CEO or executive director of some organization.”

Sewing masks to save lots of lives

As self-deprecating as she is energetic, Kristina Wong likes to take cost as a result of she desires to get issues carried out. This was the impulse fueling her choice, in March 2020, to launch the informal, mask-sewing Facebook web page that might rapidly snowball into the sprawling, advanced operation that was the Auntie Sewing Squad.

Kristina Wong demonstrates find out how to make a masks on the Hello Kitty Sewing machine in her Koreatown, Los Angeles residence.

Chloe Veltman/NPR

disguise caption

toggle caption

Chloe Veltman/NPR

Kristina Wong demonstrates find out how to make a masks on the Hello Kitty Sewing machine in her Koreatown, Los Angeles residence.

Chloe Veltman/NPR

“I really thought we were all gonna die,” mentioned Wong about how she felt at the beginning of the pandemic. “So I could try to look for income right now. But it feels like the more important thing is to keep everyone alive.”

Wong’s Chinese immigrant grandparents ran a laundry enterprise in San Francisco from the Sixties to round 1980, after they retired. Wong mentioned her mother and aunts sewed, so there was all the time stitching round her as she grew up — albeit principally of the purposeful, repairing-mending variety.

“I am very sloppy,” Wong mentioned of her skills as a seamstress (She owns a Hello Kitty stitching machine in actual life.) “I use the sewing machine like a stapler. I yank things through.”

She mentioned when demand for masks boomed through the pandemic, it made extra sense for her to deal with Auntie Sewing Squad “overlording” — doing issues like coordinating cloth donations and speaking to the press — somewhat than stitching masks herself.

“She was very good at making stuff happen,” mentioned creator Rebecca Solnit, who, as one in every of Wong’s underlings, was generally known as the Auntie Sewing Squad’s “Shakedown Auntie.” (“Shakedown, because I would go on Facebook and make money come in and stuff.”)

Solnit mentioned one in every of Wong’s best management abilities was making a help community for the aunties that made them really feel valued. They did good issues for one another, like delivering do-it-yourself cookies and instructing on-line yoga courses. One of the aunties, Valerie Soe, made a brief documentary concerning the members’ system of self-care, that includes music by the Kronos Quartet.

“There were other sewing projects,” Solnit mentioned of the proliferation of some of these grassroots mask-making efforts on Facebook through the pandemic. “But this one built a culture and a community for the people doing the sewing.”

When life turns into political satire

Sometimes, Wong takes on management roles that make nice satirical theater however do not fairly work out how she hoped they might in actual life.

Such is the case along with her stint as a neighborhood elected official, which served as supply materials for the 2020 present, Kristina Wong for Public Office.

Wong mentioned she’d been fascinated with doing a political present for the reason that 2016 presidential election, as a commentary on the theatrical spectacle of up to date politicians.

“I was, like, if politicians are going to be the spectacle makers, then maybe I just take my old job back and run for office and just see what that is and if that will make any change or shift,” Wong mentioned.

Her choice to run and get herself elected to L.A.’s Subdistrict Five Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council in 2019 took place by means of an odd flip of occasions.

It started when she was the goal of a trolling marketing campaign orchestrated by InfoWars. Wong mentioned the conspiracy concept web site took exception to what she taught youngsters on her youngsters’s social justice-themed net TV sequence Radical Cram School.

“I wasn’t trying to be a right-wing laughing stock meme,” Wong mentioned of the deluge of abuse she acquired on social media from extremists. (The performer shared screenshots of a few of these messages with NPR.)

One evening, Wong sought refuge at her pal Angie Brown’s place to de-stress.

The activist and TV producer, who additionally lives in Koreatown, supplied the performer some weed.

“And in about an hour, she was so high,” Brown mentioned. “We were talking a lot, and I convinced her to run for neighborhood council with me.”

Wong says she had equally excessive expectations for her function on the bottom rung of native politics.

“I was like, we’re gonna decriminalize sex work! We’re gonna make affordable housing for everybody! We’re gonna protect all renters!” Wong mentioned.

But the job, which Wong continues to do, has principally come up brief. Other than efficiently persuading the council to vote to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — a symbolic gesture — Wong mentioned she would not really feel like she’s been in a position to accomplish a lot in her function.

Kristina Wong (middle) on a Koreatown residence constructing roof flanked by fellow neighborhood council members Joeng Lynn Stransky (left) and Angie Brown (proper.)

Chloe Veltman/NPR

disguise caption

toggle caption

Chloe Veltman/NPR

Kristina Wong (middle) on a Koreatown residence constructing roof flanked by fellow neighborhood council members Joeng Lynn Stransky (left) and Angie Brown (proper.)

Chloe Veltman/NPR

“It’s very hard to do big things from an unpaid office,” Wong mentioned.

A blinding creative profession forward

Even if Wong would not have a blinding political profession forward of her, she is actually hitting her stride as an artist.

Sweatshop Overlord was one in every of two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2022. And final month, Wong acquired the Doris Duke Award. The unrestricted prize is likely one of the nation’s largest arts accolades, $550,000.

“So much of my identity has been forged in a certain scrappiness,” Wong mentioned, sitting in her lounge on a sofa the performer rescued from the road. “So what do I do now that I have a safety net?”

Wong’s time period on the neighborhood council is coming to an in depth within the spring. She mentioned she has no plans to run once more for this or every other political workplace anytime quickly.

“Oh, my God. Let me just make theater,” she mentioned. “I prefer anarchy.”

Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord runs on the Kirk Douglas Theatre Through Mar. 12.

Audio and digital tales edited by Ciera Crawford. Audio produced by Isabella Gomez-Sarmiento.