BENSON DRIVE PRODUCTIONS JOINS AS PRODUCER OF “FIGHT BACK” – THREE ADDITIONAL PRESENTATIONS TO TAKE PLACE IN NYC THIS MAY
Press Contacts:
Rick Miramontez / Kendall Edwards
rick@omdkc.com / kendall@omdkc.com
212 695 7400
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
BENSON DRIVE PRODUCTIONS
JOINS AS PRODUCER OF
“FIGHT BACK”
THE IMMERSIVE THEATRICAL EXPERIMENT
CREATED BY DAVID WISE
ADDITIONAL PRESENTATIONS TO TAKE PLACE IN NEW YORK CITY
ON MAY 4, 11, AND 18
ALL NET PROCEEDS TO BE DONATED TO
THE LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL & TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY CENTER
AMBER RUFFIN
JOEL KIM BOOSTER
MARGARET CHO
MICHAEL URIE
PEPPERMINT
ROSIE O’DONNELL
ROXANE GAY
RYAN O’CONNELL
AND
WILSON CRUZ
JOIN PROJECT AS FIGHT BACK AMBASSADORS
SIGN UP NOW AT WWW.FIGHTBACK.NYC
Photo by Joseph O’Malley. To download photos, click here.
New York, NY (April 8, 2026) – Producer Benson Drive Productions (George Strus, CEO) announced today that they have joined as producer of Fight Back, the immersive theatrical experience created by David Wise. Due to popular demand, three additional presentations will take place in New York City on Monday, May 4, 11, and 18. All net proceeds going forward will be donated to The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (208 W 13th St) where Fight Back takes place, in the actual room where the 1989 meeting happened.
In addition to joining as producer, Benson Drive Productions has assembled a committee of ambassadors to support the project including Amber Ruffin, Joel Kim Booster, Margaret Cho, Michael Urie, Peppermint, Rosie O’Donnell, Roxane Gay, Ryan O’Connell, and Wilson Cruz.
To download headshots, click here.
The premise of this theatrical experiment is simple: It’s the March 13, 1989 meeting of ACT UP New York, the passionate group taking direct action to fight AIDS. But – there are no actors and there’s no audience. When participants come to Fight Back, from the minute they arrive, they are a person attending the meeting.
Participants get a biographical profile of their persona and instructions for how to engage. Some (self-selected) people will also get details about specialized roles they’ll have at the meeting. Every persona will be an actual person who was at that meeting. When participants register for Fight Back, they will fill out a brief questionnaire so that they get matched with a persona that suits them.
In a statement, producer George Strus said: “As our current Administration continues to attack the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community across the nation, I have been reflecting on the necessity of grassroots knowledge preservation, communal gathering, and collective power. David Wise’s stupendously effective and gripping theatrical experiment, Fight Back, transports each participant to 1989 and thrusts one into the mindset of a real human who sought justice and cultivated greater urgency as their government suppressed information and failed to help their constituents affected by the AIDS crisis. The experiment had a profound impact on me when I participated, and I believe it has true potential to radically transform the ways in which one collects and disperses information, resources, and community support in a time when fighting back and acting up is more crucial than ever.”
For more information and to sign up, please visit www.fightback.nyc . A $19.89 donation is suggested for all participants. You can follow @fightbacknyc on Instagram for additional updates.
To download press photos, click here. To download logo, click here.
The goal of Fight Back is to try to experience the amazing, complicated, life-changing emotions that the people at an ACT UP meeting in 1989 felt. For many ACT UPers, the weekly Monday night general meetings were central to their experience in ACT UP. Through these meetings, ACT UPers came to understand that their lives had worth — contrary to what they were being told by their families, their communities, and their government. During an unfathomably horrible time, they brought their anger, their shame, their defiance, their fear, their humor, their stubbornness, and their sexiness, and discovered that together they could use all of this to truly change the world and save their lives.
Fight Back explores whether there is something additional we can experience by attempting to inhabit the people who were actually there. Through trying to feel what they felt — by having our bodies enact their actions — can we come closer to experiencing what they experienced?
Fight Back is a proud recipient of a Support for Artist grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.
BIOGRAPHIES
BENSON DRIVE PRODUCTIONS (Producer) is a New York-based production company developing projects from the mind of George Strus (they/them), who grew up on Benson Drive dreaming of making theatre. Benson Drive Productions’ New York premiere of Amber Ruffin’s BIGFOOT! was praised by The New York Times as “ecstatically silly and irresistibly charming” and ends its extended run at New York City Center on April 26, 2026. BDP recently produced Trisha Paytas’ Big Broadway Dream starring Trisha Paytas, Sutton Foster, Ben Platt, Joy Woods, and Rachel Zegler, raising over $150,000 for the Entertainment Community Fund; a reading of Mathilde Dratwa’s A Play About David Mamet Writing A Play About Harvey Weinstein directed by Leslye Headland and starring Abbi Jacobson, Billy Eichner, and Helené Yorke, raising over $15,000 for NYCLU; and a developmental run of Kevin Zak’s A Kidman Carol starring Marla Mindelle and Josh Sharp, raising over $3000 for New York Cares. Projects in development include David Wise’s Fight Back, a musical adaptation of The Danish Girl, a revival of Neil Simon’s Rumors and over 15 other projects in various stages of development. Strus’ independent co-producing credits include Stephen Sondheim’s Here We Are (off-Broadway), Illinoise (Broadway – Tony nomination), Oh Mary! (Broadway – Tony nomination), Romeo + Juliet (Broadway), Evita (West End – Olivier nomination), Oh Mary! (West End – Olivier nomination) Liberation (Broadway), Cats The Jellicle Ball (Broadway), Proof (Broadway), and End Of The Rainbow starring Jinkx Monsoon (UK). George founded the Obie Award and two-time GLAAD Media Award-winning Breaking the Binary Theatre, was the 2024 recipient of the prestigious Prince Fellowship, is a member of the 2025 Shubert Organization Artistic Circle, and was recently inducted into the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2026 in Hollywood and Entertainment. www.bensondriveprods.com.
DAVID WISE (Creator) a multidisciplinary artist whose works blend performance art, immersive theater, and interactive experiences, exploring New York histories. A bit younger than the people who were involved with ACT UP in the late 1980s, David is inspired to explore their experience by the great writer and ACT UPer Vito Russo’s famous “Why We Fight” speech. David’s first major project was Momma’s Knishes, an interactive experience performed in people’s kitchens. David transformed himself into his great-grandmother in Brooklyn 1938, and the host and their friends became his great-grandmother’s 12-year-old daughter and her friends. The piece, performed in kitchens across the country, unfolded based on the stories that David’s grandmother told him about growing up in 1930s Brooklyn. The work was covered in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Time Out New York. David followed that with Central Park Papers, an adventure experience in which participants use a set of clues to uncover a secret hidden in Central Park. His most recent work is The Atlas Pursuit, an interactive digital novel in which the reader takes to the streets of New York City to follow in the footsteps of the actress Patricia Neal and a private detective to solve a mystery left by Neal’s famous husband, the writer Roald Dahl. The piece was featured in The New York Times. After graduating with degrees in Theater Arts and English from the University of Pennsylvania, David worked as a dramaturg at the Wilma Theater and the Arden Theater Company, both in Philadelphia, and was commissioned to create immersive experiences, including The Mercury Letter, an interactive tour for the video game company Atari; Beyond Eros, an interactive piece for two people that appeared at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival; and an ensemble theatermaking initiative for actors called the Experiential Theater Project. Originally from Danbury, Connecticut, David now lives in New York City.
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