A Love Story About Hunger
Inside Kristina Wong’s Food Bank Influencer
By Kaju Roberto
KRISTINA WONG’S one woman show Food Bank Influencer at the New York Theater Workshop is a chaotic, funny, and ultimately incisive narrative about hunger, dignity, and the limits of charity in America. Photo by Kaju Roberto.
Kristina Wong’s one-woman show Food Bank Influencer unfolds as a deliberately chaotic, funny, and ultimately incisive narrative about hunger, dignity, and the limits of charity in America. The show recently completed a four-day run at the New York Theater Workshop in Greenwich Village. Built from autobiographical storytelling, parody songs, and direct audience engagement, the piece reframes a deeply structural issue — food insecurity — through the unlikely lens of a romantic comedy. The result is a performance that begins in satire and ends in a radical rethinking of what it means to care for one another.
The play opens with Wong recounting a real moment: her July 2022 interview with a Broadway producer to write the musical adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians, just two months after being named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her seventh solo show Kristina Wong: Sweatshop Overlord. In retelling the experience, she pitches an exaggerated, Cinderella-style story about wealth, romance, and upward mobility.
The framing is intentionally absurd. Wong, a self-described activist artist with a history of working with marginalized communities, is painfully aware that she does not fit the mold of a mainstream Broadway storyteller. Her comedic desperation — “I can give you crazy and Asian” — sets up one of the central tensions of the piece: the pull between artistic integrity and the desire for financial security and recognition.
When she fails to land the job, Wong pivots. If she cannot write a glossy musical about wealth and aspiration, she will write her own musical — one that reflects her real life. In a clever structural move, she adopts the conventions of a romantic comedy (meet-cute, complications, resolution) and casts an unexpected love interest: her local food bank. This conceit becomes the organizing metaphor of the show. The “relationship” allows Wong to explore not only her personal history with food insecurity, but also the broader systems that shape access to food in the United States.
Hunger, Shame and a Struggle to Survive
Wong’s early adulthood as a struggling artist provides emotional grounding. In her twenties, she juggles low-paying jobs and inconsistent income, often relying on work that provided meals or improvising ways to get by.
Shame plays a central role. Cultural expectations and personal pride made it difficult for her to seek help. Even when assistance programs existed, they felt inaccessible and stigmatized. Through humor, Wong illustrates how people hide food insecurity, masking it with resourcefulness and silence.
Her story highlights a broader truth: hunger in America is often invisible, shaped as much by social stigma as by economic hardship.
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The Meet-Cute: Discovering World Harvest Food Bank
The narrative shifts when Wong discovers the World Harvest Food Bank, a non-traditional food bank that operates like a grocery store. Unlike more institutional models, it offers flexibility and dignity — people pay what they can, volunteer, or simply receive food.
Wong describes this as a romantic “meet-cute.” For the first time, she experiences abundance without shame. The space redefines what food aid can look like, offering not just sustenance but autonomy.
Her affection for World Harvest extends to its founder, Glenn Curado, whom she portrays as an unconventional, almost mythic figure. Unlike leaders of large nonprofit food banks, he refuses restrictive funding, avoids bureaucratic oversight, and prioritizes accessibility for undocumented people and others who might be excluded from formal systems. Wong contrasts this model with the larger Feeding America network, highlighting tensions between scale, regulation, and flexibility. Through humor — comparing food banks to the Kardashian sisters — she critiques the hierarchies and branding within the nonprofit world.
Yet the play does not romanticize food banks uncritically. As the “relationship” deepens, Wong introduces complications. She examines the language of “hunger” versus “food insecurity,” noting how emotional appeals are often used in fundraising while obscuring systemic causes.
Dating the System: When Aid Programs Become Characters
Expanding beyond her own experience, Wong connects food insecurity to larger structural issues. She traces the history of U.S. food assistance, emphasizing that the country does not guarantee food as a basic right.
Stories from communities like the Navajo Nation illustrate “food apartheid,” where geography, race, and policy limit access to nutritious food. These examples reinforce that hunger is not accidental but systemic.
Wong critiques how food banks function politically. They offer powerful imagery for politicians while allowing deeper issues — low wages, housing costs, healthcare — to remain unaddressed. She suggests food banks act as a “Band-Aid,” providing relief without solving root causes. This dual role makes them both essential and problematic.
At the emotional peak, Wong realizes the food bank cannot be her “forever love.” While necessary, it cannot end hunger. This realization is framed as a romantic breakup. Food banks address immediate need but not systemic inequality. By dramatizing this, Wong captures the tension between gratitude and frustration.
The play ends with a vision of a world where food banks are no longer needed because basic needs are guaranteed. Wong imagines a society where food, housing, and healthcare are accessible to all.
This vision is aspirational but grounded in critique. It challenges audiences to think beyond temporary solutions and toward systemic change.
Comedy as a Call to Action
What makes Food Bank Influencer so compelling is its ability to hold multiple truths at once. It celebrates the lifesaving work of food banks while critiquing their limitations. It uses humor to make difficult topics accessible without diminishing their seriousness. And it transforms a deeply personal story into a broader call for systemic change.
In the end, Wong’s “love story” is less about a single institution than about a shift in perspective. By moving from charity to community, from scarcity to dignity, she challenges audiences to rethink not only how we feed people, but how we value them.
For more information, visit kristinawong.com
Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet.
