Cointelshow: A Patriot Act, Second Edition

Inform yourself! Inform on your neighbor!

Follow Special Agent Christian White on a cheerfully creepy tour of declassified government surveillance documents. White probes the redacted (blacked-out) texts of the FBI’s notorious Counterintelligence Programs, searching for the words erased in the name of the Freedom of Information Act.

Learn fun techniques for the infiltration of activist groups, how to earn benefits and a pension as an agent provocateur, and how to, in the words of J. Edgar Hoover, “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize” your neighbors!

These are our tax dollars at work, folks; we might as well enjoy it.

This script has been performed by writer/activist L.M. Bogad in theatres, galleries, labor halls, and community centers for the past twelve years. The pamphlet also includes a preface by Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and a companion essay by Bogad about the history of domestic surveillance/harassment, and a “how to” for would-be performers of the script.

Back by popular demand, this new Second Edition adds photos of the original COINTELPRO documents used in the show. There are also many updates to the script: more information, more character development, and more and better jokes, all in the darkly humorous style of the original.

Praise:

“This play is important for activists and apathetics, clergymen and clerks, artists and engineers…all of us, because we all have good reason to ask ‘Who Watches the Watchmen?’ As Bogad makes all too clear, it will have to be us. ” —The Yes Men (Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno)

“One would rarely use the word ‘fun’ to describe something generated from materials obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, but that’s exactly how I’d refer to COINTELSHOW: A Patriot Act. Bogad’s hilarious satire teaches us about the gruesome details of COINTELPRO, and connects them to our post-9/11 security state, without preaching, spoon-feeding, or boring the audience.”—Jason Grote, writer for the TV shows Mad Men, Smash, and Hannibal, and author of the plays 1001, Box Americana, and Civilization (All You Can Eat)

“The Left can also laugh, even at the worst of circumstances... Audiences will chuckle along as they engage with this creative teach-in/manifesto on how to challenge, subvert, and educate ourselves about our country’s ever-growing “Patriot Acts. ’” —Benjamin Shepard, PhD., author of Queer Political Performance and Protest: Play, Pleasure and Social Movements

About Lawrence Bogad:

Lawrence Bogad works on the intersection between art and activism, and on the role of humor and imagination in organizing social movements. His book, Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements, is an international study of performance artists who run for public office as a prank. Bogad’s produced plays have covered topics such as the Haymarket Square Confrontation, the FBI’s COINTELPRO activities, the Pinochet coup in Chile, and global climate chaos. He is a veteran of the Lincoln Center Theatre Director’s Laboratory, and a cofounder of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. Bogad was a lead writer/editor-in-mischief on two Yes Men prank newspaper projects that garnered international attention. These “special editions” of the International Herald Tribune and the New York Post were attempts to draw greater public attention to the Copenhagen Climate Summit and the larger issues of climate change.

About Guillermo Gómez-Peña:

Performance artist, writer, radical pedagogue, public citizen, and activist against all borders. Intellectual Coyote (Nanabush)… fighting colonialism since 1492. Artistic Director of international arts organization La Pocha Nostra.

See and hear author interviews, book reviews, and other news on L.M. Bogad's page HERE

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