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John Cameron Mitchell’s Journey From Reaganite to Punk Queen
John Cameron Mitchell’s Journey From Reaganite to Punk Queen
Kai Wright and Lizzy Ratner
The Nation
John Cameron Mitchell’s Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch closed in September, after winning a Tony Award as well as renewed fervor for the show’s queer antihero. Hedwig will soon be going on tour, while Mitchell’s hard at work on a film that he describes as “Romeo and Juliet between a punk and an alien.” Nation editors Lizzy Ratner and Kai Wright spoke with him about the show’s origins—and the striking bust of Hedwig that he keeps in his apartment.
KW: I was going to say “community building around making your art.”
JCM: I went to theater school at Northwestern, and I was quite conservative. Reagan at the time seemed quite revolutionary, or at least a rock star: He was radical and kind of punk rock.
There was this strange thing happening in 1980–’81. There was a huge shift culturally—a massive shift. Growing up, it was uncool to admit that your family had any money. And then, instantly, money was cool. In Reagan’s parlance, it was about freedom of the individual, which was freedom to be greedy… individual versus society. There was a weird seduction in that, which I still feel.
But I grew up in the military, which is the closest thing to a socialist structure that we have in the US. Very conservative-minded people were attracted to the military, but ultimately lived in socialism. So I had these things that I came out of that formed me philosophically, but also as a project manager. I realized that theater was the perfect thing for me, in short bursts of intense community building.
LR: I am curious about Hedwig, if she could be created in today’s New York.
JCM: Hedwig was born in ’94. I was thinking of a theater piece; Hedwig was one of the characters. SqueezeBox!, the club that (composer Stephen Trask and I) were hanging out in, was the first real queer-rock-and-drag club that I ever heard of. (Track) was the leader of the house band, and my boyfriend was the bass player. So it was like, “If you’re gonna do a gig here, you have to do the female character, because this is a drag club.”
It was just a wonderful scene—scary but thrilling. It was also Giuliani time, so (the New York City mayor) was trying to shut down anything fun, really, in nightlife. I remember the moment when I was thrown out of a club for smoking pot, which was shocking to me.
KW: I was going to say “community building around making your art.”
JCM: I went to theater school at Northwestern, and I was quite conservative. Reagan at the time seemed quite revolutionary, or at least a rock star: He was radical and kind of punk rock.
There was this strange thing happening in 1980–’81. There was a huge shift culturally—a massive shift. Growing up, it was uncool to admit that your family had any money. And then, instantly, money was cool. In Reagan’s parlance, it was about freedom of the individual, which was freedom to be greedy… individual versus society. There was a weird seduction in that, which I still feel.
But I grew up in the military, which is the closest thing to a socialist structure that we have in the US. Very conservative-minded people were attracted to the military, but ultimately lived in socialism. So I had these things that I came out of that formed me philosophically, but also as a project manager. I realized that theater was the perfect thing for me, in short bursts of intense community building.
LR: I am curious about Hedwig, if she could be created in today’s New York.
JCM: Hedwig was born in ’94. I was thinking of a theater piece; Hedwig was one of the characters. SqueezeBox!, the club that (composer Stephen Trask and I) were hanging out in, was the first real queer-rock-and-drag club that I ever heard of. (Track) was the leader of the house band, and my boyfriend was the bass player. So it was like, “If you’re gonna do a gig here, you have to do the female character, because this is a drag club.”
It was just a wonderful scene—scary but thrilling. It was also Giuliani time, so (the New York City mayor) was trying to shut down anything fun, really, in nightlife. I remember the moment when I was thrown out of a club for smoking pot, which was shocking to me.