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Michael Anderson: Political Activism and the Performing Arts

Richard Beck Richard Beck
22 Jun 2026

Political activism and the performing arts have been soulmates for centuries. Back in Boston, high-octane US storyteller, performer and trade union lawyer Michael Anderson brings them together to protect the rights of refugees. Here he writes about challenging the gun-wielding masked paramilitaries of ICE with clowns and quotes from Tom Paine. You can catch him at the Edinburgh Fringe, where his critically acclaimed multimedia and alternative comedy show Elvis in Chaos is raising money for immigrant defence networks.

Fascism is like pizza delivery – it comes to you.

It’s a little embarrassing to be an American at Fringe now. We’re coming from a country turning into the opposite of the Fringe: an increasingly degraded culture of ignorance and cruelty, contempt for creative thought and erasure of the Other.

Sure, fancy-pants performers from the States can pretend to be untouched by this, but that’s not true. It’s not enough to say, "Well, we didn’t vote for him," and go on with our jokes and dances and plays as if nothing is happening around us. Fascism is like pizza delivery – it comes to you.

As Churchill warned, failure against such forces risks a new dark age made more sinister by modern technology. Fear enforces passivity, which dries up our audiences. Sure, we can still rent out black boxes in urban blue states without getting arrested (yet). But it’s becoming harder to get people into seats, to persuade them to take off their VR headsets, turn off Netflix and come to a show with live humans.

A MAGA-run AI will never produce Shakespeare, but it doesn’t have to. It only needs to turn our audience’s brains to mush so they can’t tell the difference between Shakespeare and AI slop. This is happening at a frightening pace in the US. Fox News, social-media bots and the oligarchs’ takeover of major media are doing their job.

But maybe American refugees like me should come to Fringe with swagger instead of shame. If we are now up against the Destroyers of Art, this can be our finest hour. The mere fact of making art is now an act of resistance in America. I want to tell my British friends that we are winning.

The people of Portland and Minneapolis drove ICE out through acts of theatre: whistles blowing like banshees around ICE raids, protesters in inflatable unicorn costumes facing down DHS riot squads, enormous papier-mâché puppets held aloft over marches of a hundred thousand.

In Boston, I got a few actor friends together to form No Fear Street Theater, a weekly protest action in front of ICE headquarters. We read from Shakespeare and Neruda, sing opera and sea shanties, speechify from Tom Paine and Nemik’s Manifesto from Andor. We’ve grown into a small army of clowns, unicorns and Elvis impersonators carrying signs saying "Don’t Be Cruel!"

The Anarchist Mime Troupe stands in front of ICE vans, trying to get arrested, just to force a cop to say, "You have the right to remain silent." God, how we laughed. "The play’s the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King."

Last week, a tech bro rolled up in a BMW, sneering at me: "Dude, you are so happy right now."

He meant it as an insult, as though we don’t really care about the immigrants in cages inside and this is nothing but a woke street party. But that is what makes us dangerous.

MAGA bosses like Stephen Miller want us to feel despair, defeat and victimhood. We have to figure out what he doesn’t want us to feel: confident, tenacious, joyful.

In my day job lawyering for unions, I see two different types of picket line: one grim, dour and helpless, another with brass bands, frog costumes and salsa dancing. Guess which kind holds a strike longer. Guess which kind frightens the boss.

So spare a thought for us American refugees at Fringe. This could be you after the next election.

For my part, I’m doing a hallucinatory PowerPoint rave, Elvis in Chaos: rants about chaos theory, multiverse physics and the things I used to love about America – Elvis, baseball, Oreos. All proceeds go to LUCE, the immigrant-defence network in Boston.

Come see it, and come see what other Americans are doing to resist and reclaim. I promise you won’t be bored.

And you can help us make America great again.

Richard Beck

Richard Beck

A graduate in theology and education, Richard acted and contributed to dance, drama and music productions throughout his teaching career. He joined Broadway Baby in 2014 and is now our Editor-in-Chief. He usually disappears to warmer climes for the winter to pursue his passion for travel.

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