{"id":278163,"date":"2026-06-25T19:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T19:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/278163\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T19:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T19:21:14","slug":"whats-a-pickup-truck-doing-inside-moma-ps1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/278163\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s a pickup truck doing inside MoMA PS1?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There will soon be a pickup truck parked inside MoMA PS1. Or that\u2019s the hope, anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cTruck\u201d playwright Georgica Pettus remained confident in a recent interview that her team would be able to overcome the setback of a Toyota Tacoma recall and rent the perfect vehicle to park at the center of her new production \u201cTruck,\u201d a one-night-only play that will be staged Saturday in the art museum\u2019s courtyard.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting the pickup truck has been the hardest part of this project,\u201d Pettus said. \u201cBut that\u2019s amazing because the truck really is a symbol in this play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspired by the 1997 cult documentary \u201cHands on a Hardbody,\u201d \u201cTruck<\/a>\u201d follows a group of people competing to win the titular vehicle by seeing who can keep a hand on it for the longest amount of time. In the documentary, the winner has been awake and on their feet for a few days by the time they are crowned, a physically taxing assignment revealing the competitors\u2019 senses of adventure, greed and\/or desperation.<\/p>\n

\u201cTruck\u201d is a part of PS1\u2019s \u201cGreater New York\u201d series, which celebrates artists living and working throughout the New York City area. Pettus, 28, is a Bedford-Stuyvesant resident and has lived in the city since graduating from Barnard College. She was about to put on her tragicomedy \u201cSkyscraper,\u201d which was partially staged on the Roosevelt Island Tramway last year, when a friend put her on the PS1 curators\u2019 radar. They saw that play and learned she was working on another.<\/p>\n

PS1 curatorial assistant Sheldon Gooch was impressed by Pettus\u2019 ability to stage theater in unconventional spaces. They worked closely with Pettus to develop \u201cTruck\u201d over the past several months and said it \u201cfeels very pertinent to our situation today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike all of her past plays, [\u2018Truck\u2019] has to do with what draws various people across generations \u2026 to aspire for a certain thing,\u201d Gooch said. \u201cIn this case, maybe that\u2019s an object. In other plays of hers, that\u2019s a lifestyle or love, desire and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The five contestants we meet in \u201cTruck\u201d range from a car thief forced to participate as part of his parole to an aspiring actress seeking public attention. They all live in Texas \u2014 as did the subjects of the original documentary. Pettus maintained the setting in an effort to try something new: Her past work tended to take place in New York.<\/p>\n

But the city is still ingrained into anything she writes, she said. The characters are \u201call amalgamations of different people. There are a lot of New Yorkers in this play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consider Mike, the contestant played by actor Vishwam Velandy. While Mike reveals a complicated backstory \u2014 he is an Iraq War veteran and alludes to being a closeted gay man \u2014 the monologue he delivers during a rest break can be applied to internal battles across the board. After relating the challenge to the time he stayed up for five nights in a row while serving overseas, he concludes: \u201cThis whole thing, it ain\u2019t about who can muster the stamina to stand for the longest. It\u2019s about who can remember what they\u2019re doing here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike then returns to the truck. He\u2019s in it to win it, after all.<\/p>\n

PS1 has hosted a variety of events in its expansive courtyard, including architectural installations and an annual music series that will return in late July<\/a>. Gooch said it was a no-brainer to host \u201cTruck\u201d in the space.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we were speaking to Georgica about what she was working on,\u201d they recalled. \u201cThe first thought that came to mind is, \u2018Why don\u2019t we just drive the truck into the courtyard?\u2019 And we\u2019re excited to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The performance is currently at capacity; PS1 says all 600 tickets have been reserved. Pettus, who helps sustain her artistic career by teaching a playwriting class to high school seniors, noted that some of her students will be there to see her work. She aspires to take \u201cTruck\u201d on the road, even if that means staging it in traditional theaters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to take this play as far as it can go, really,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a unique experience to premiere a play at a museum, and it\u2019s just a question of where it goes next.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There will soon be a pickup truck parked inside MoMA PS1. Or that\u2019s the hope, anyway. \u201cTruck\u201d playwright…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-278163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}