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John Cameron Mitchell

 “So, how can all of us access the punk? Get in the room with other people (more D.I.Y. and I.R.L.). Embrace the analog, which can’t be surveilled by artificial intelligence. Reach out to unexpected, even problematic (I prefer “problemagic”), allies, with different but compatible definitions of justice. Luckily, kindness looks the same to most of us. And as you start making that useful thing, you might lock eyes with the person working at your side, and maybe this time you won’t flinch. The walls of identity crumble in the face of our greatest human strength: empathy.”

2014 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical

Special Tony for Performance

Obie Award

Best Director award at the 2001 Sundance Festival

Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor

The New School’s Dorothy Hirshon Award for Cinematic Achievement

New York State Senate Democrats’ 2004 Special Human Rights Award

 

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“Jokes abound regarding identity politics, such as Anti-Racism Spin Classes (“no matter how fast we go, we’ll never get anywhere”) and one character defining themselves as “a Gen Z agender, multiracial, consciously celibate, neo-aesthetic social influencer”. But as the episodes progress, Cancellation Island broadens out into a nuanced, surreal plea to find commonality in the face of a greater looming threat – and QAnon-inspired conspiracies about a cabal of lizards.”
— The Telegraph on Cancellation Island
“Furiously entertaining with a heartwarming message.”
— New York Magazine on the 2014 Hedwig and the Angry Inch Broadway Revival
“As utopian visions go, it doesn’t get much better than “Shortbus,” a film in which all you need is love — and sex, lots and lots of mutually, sometimes collectively, pleasurable sex. John Cameron Mitchell wrote and directed, though orchestrated might be the better word for a carnivalesque romp in which men and women engage in sex in a multitude of creative combinations. An ode to the joy and sweet release of sex, the film manages to be a sincere, modest political venture that finds humor where you might least expect it.”
— New York Times on Shortbus
“One way of looking at this clever, funny, wildly innovative film tricked out with surreal pop embellishments and Day-Glo colors is to see it as the kind of movie David Bowie might have made had he pushed his early-70’s gender-bending persona to its logical limit.”
— The New York Times on Hedwig and the Angry Inch film
“It is an adult, thought-provoking musical about the quest for individuality, the attempt to forge an identity that works for both the head and heart. And it is terrifically served by a fresh and tuneful score by Stephen Trask, who meets the difficult challenge of creating rock-, folk- and country-influenced songs that help tell a story. The most impressive achievement, however, is by Mr. Mitchell, who transforms what might have been just another campy drag act into something deeper and more adventurous.”
— The New York Times on the original Off-Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch

John Cameron Mitchell wrote/directed/starred in the rock musical and film Hedwig and the Angry Inch for which he won the 2014 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, a Special Tony for his performance, an Obie Award, the Best Director award at the 2001 Sundance Festival and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, along with 25 other awards. 

He wrote/directed the improv-based film Shortbus (2006); directed the film adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole (2010) which garnered a Best Actress Oscar nom for Nicole Kidman; and  co-wrote and directed the YA punk romance How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017) starring Kidman and Elle Fanning. He executive-produced (with Gus Van Sant) Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation (2004) which was the most decorated documentary of 2004. 

John was in the original casts of Tony-winning Big River, The Secret Garden, and Six Degrees of Separation; as well as Hello Again (Drama Desk nom) and Larry Kramer’s The Destiny of Me (Obie Award). TV roles include: Girls, Shrill, The Good Fight, Mozart in the Jungle, Yellowjackets, The Sandman, City on Fire and Joe Exotic in Joe Vs Carole. He wrote and directed two scripted podcast series: the musical Anthem: Homunculus (2019) starring Glenn Close, Cynthia Erivo, Patti Lupone and Laurie Anderson; and the satirical sitcom Cancellation Island (2025) starring Holly Hunter. 

He received the 2007 Dorothy Hirshon Award for Cinematic Achievement from New School University and the 2019 Excellence in Acting Award from the Provincetown Film Festival. For his work on gay/trans rights he received the New York State Senate Democrats’ 2004 Special Human Rights Award. He is presently working to create a nonprofit artists residency, Temple House, in his new home in New Orleans and is presently developing LSM, a play about anti-Nazi Surrealist artist Claude Cahun and a feature film based on the life of AIDS activist Peter Staley. He regularly tours as a speaker and musical artist, and is working on a memoir entitled Holding My Heart Outside My Body.

 

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