poolboy00

poolboy: don’t pick up is an immersive party and performance about submissiveness, friendship,

and failure. Your computer is whitehot in your lap. What happens next is entirely in your control.

poolboy is trying to write a murder mystery. His best friend, momgrab (artist Julia Mounsey), is ghosting him. To avoid writing, poolboy will do anything you say. Anything. don’t pick up seems simple, an excavation of 20 years of writing: from School of Rock fanfic to failed plays to abandoned journals. The audience freely interrupts with questions, new conversation topics, or by giving poolboy tasks to complete on the spot. Reality and fiction intertwine. All is not what it seems. poolboy: don’t pick up is pure chaos: a participatory, living, white-knuckle document of poolboy’s very real life.  

This is the fifth iteration of poolboy00. Since 2020, Houston-born, Austin-based artist Sam Mayer has chronicled his life on-and-offline as his alter ego: poolboy00. This documentation became poolboy00(2020-present) an experimental reality show/participatory memoir/talk show for the streaming platform Twitch and irl. Initially inspired by The Real Housewives franchise, it has since morphed into long-term performance about friendship, public intimacy, partying, surveillance, and control. Previous iterations have been presented at Beaubourg, Co-Lab Projects, Crashbox, and UT Austin.

This project is supported in part by the City of Austin Economic Development Department.

Sam Mayer is from Houston. Full length works include POOLBOY00 (IRL@MoHA; Beaubourg; Co-Lab Projects; UT Austin), THE CUCK (Intramural Theater), and CHET'S SUMMER VACATION (Kennedy Center; Intramural Theater; Rec Room Arts). His work has been developed at and/or with The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, The Orchard Project, The Museum of Human Achievement, The Workshop Theater, The Mastheads, and SPACE on Ryder Farm. He is the recipient of the Chesley/Bumbalo Foundation Prize. MFA: Michener Center for Writers. https://sammayer.info

Julia Mounsey is a director and writer. Her work has been presented at The Public Theater, Soho Rep, JACK, the München Volkstheater in Munich and the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. She was a member of the 2017-2018 Devised Theater Working Group at The Public Theater, the 2017-2019 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and was a Baryshnikov Arts Center Resident Artist in 2019. Her play while you were partying was a finalist for The Drama Desk Award in 2021. She lives in Brooklyn and has no secrets. https://peterjulia.com 

Anderson Funk is an artist & engineer, interweaving skill-sets to produce experiences of technical and aesthetic joy via the extension of simple principles into exaggerations that can become overwhelming & sublime. Driven by an interest in oppositions, language, & attention, Anderson aims to transgress widely shared assumptions in order to reveal our deep-seated unconscious cooperation. Anderson has lived & grown in louisiana, texas, pennsylvania, tennessee, wisconsin, colorado, california, oregon, maryland & resides in New Orleans. https://andersonfunk.com 

With the generous support from the City of Austin Cultural Arts Funding Division Season 5, poolboy: don’t pick up premieres at the Museum of Human Achievement in Austin, TX on March 22nd, 2024