Tony-Nominee Justin Vivian Bond Named 2024 MacArthur Fellow

Tony-nominee, cabaret icon, and multi-hyphenate artist Mx Justin Vivian Bond has been selected as part of the 2024 class of MacArthur Fellows.

Bond is one of 22 people who will be awarded the MacArthur Foundation's “genius grant” this year. The annual prize includes a stipend of $800,000. Justin joins the company of notable theatre artists Lin-Manuel Miranda, Taylor Mac, David Henry Hwang, Sarah Ruhl, and more as a recipient of the honor.

According to The New York Times, Bond wasn't aware that they were in consideration for the award, noting, “I didn’t really expect it would ever happen to me, because I’m primarily a cabaret singer and I’d never seen anybody who was a cabaret singer win that before.”

Justin Vivian Bond has appeared on stage (Broadway and Off-Broadway, London’s West End), screen (Shortbus, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Sunset Stories), television (“High Maintenance”, “Difficult People”, “The Get Down”), nightclub stages (most notably a decades long residency at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater in NYC), and in concert halls worldwide (Carnegie Hall, The Sydney Opera House). In December of 2019 they made their debut at The Vienna Staatsoper in the world premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando as Orlando’s child.

Their visual art and installations have been seen in museums and galleries in the US (Participant, Inc, The New Museum) and abroad (Vitrine, London). Their memoir Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels (Feminist Press) won the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction.  They are the recipient of an Obie, a Bessie, and a Tony nomination, an Ethyl Eichelberger Award, The Peter Reed Foundation Grant, The Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant for Artists, and The Art Matters Grant. They have self-released several full-length recordings: most notably Dendrophile,  and Silver Wells. As one half of the legendary punk cabaret duo Kiki & Herb, they toured the world and released two cds: Do You Hear What We Hear? and Kiki and Herb Will Die For You at Carnegie Hall.

Mx Bond has been at the forefront of Trans visibility and activism since the early 1990s. They have a master’s degree in Live Art from Central Saint Martin’s College in London and have taught performance composition and Live Art Installation at NYU and Bard College.