Performance | Experience Design | PRODUCTION    

Family Affairs Studio is a cultural production and experience design studio.

Led by Michael R. Speciàle, we develop touring works, produce collaborative projects, and build the creative and organizational infrastructures that make ambitious cultural experiences possible.

sII. PROJECTS

Selected Works

Bottoming for Jesus

Solo Performance • Touring 2024–2026

Bottoming for Jesus is a queer coming-of-faith solo performance by Michael R. Speciàle about longing for purpose, for transcendence, for an imagined future self. A work of sincerity and embodied spiritual inquiry, it invites audiences to examine their own relationship to faith in what Willamette Weekly calls "an audacious but essential work of art."                

Moving between memoir, theology, musical numbers, and sharp wit, the piece reveals itself as a ritual of undoing, reassembling, and making meaning on one's own terms as Speciàle guides audiences through an intimate exploration of holes, and the lengths we go to fill them.

Developed with award-winning director Spenser Theberge and music director Jeremiah Ginn, Bottoming for Jesus premiered at LINT in Los Angeles and is now touring nationally, with a planned run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2026.

Explore Bottoming for Jesus   Book for Presentation ->

Critique Cabaret

Performance Lecture + Pop Assemblage • Created + Performed by Mandy Harris Williams • premiere: december 12, 2025

Critique Cabaret is a performance-lecture and live inquiry by Mandy Harris Williams examining what it means to think, feel, and perform in a world where attention has become both currency and trap. Moving between critical theory, cabaret glamour, and digital intimacy, Williams stages a space where scholarship becomes spectacle and spectacle becomes survival.                

The performance culminates with a final sequence that blurs the line between private confession and confrontation with her parasocial community, asking who is permitted to step back from the struggle for justice, who is expected to keep performing care, and what it costs to be perceived as politically coherent in public.                

Critique Cabaret is creatively produced by Family Affairs Studio and commissioned by Performance Space New York.                

Explore Critique Cabaret

Research + Publications

Love Letters From AI

Zine + Lecture • Created by Michael R. Speciàle • 2024-2025

A publication and live lecture-performance (currently in development) exploring authorship, lineage, and equity in the age of machine learning. The zine combines manifesto, memoir, and visual essay.

III. ABOUT

Studio

Family Affairs Studio is a cultural production and experience design studio navigating the spaces between spectacle and structure, intimacy and systems, collapse and transformation. Through performances, publications, touring works, and collaborative ventures, we examine how people relate to purpose, care, power, technology, themselves, and each other. 

We treat both the stage and the studio as laboratories: places to test ideas, build new architectures for gathering, and design experiences that open us to vulnerability, complexity, and change.

Michael R. Speciàle (Founder + Director) is an artist, performer, writer, and systems architect whose practice navigates embodied performance, cultural infrastructure, and operational design. His current works include Bottoming for Jesus, a touring solo performance examining queer spirituality and the myths we cling to; Love Letters from AI, a publication and lecture-performance exploring authorship and equity in the age of machine learning; and Artificial Ecologies, an ongoing research practice investigating how human bodies, digital systems, and belief structures interact.

Previously, Michael co-founded and was Executive Director of NAVEL in Los Angeles for seven years, supporting over 200 programs, residencies, and collaborative projects. His work spans solo performance, conceptual essays, cultural strategy, and the design of supportive infrastructures for artists and organizations. Through Family Affairs Studio and its sister practice Work◆Flow for Humans, he bridges artistic expression with the operational architectures that sustain it.            

IV. LINT

Production House

LINT is the production studio co-operated by Family Affairs Studio and Studio 3XP in Downtown Los Angeles acting as equal parts performance space, content studio, experimental workshop, and cultural R&D lab.

Studio A: The Loft

Square Feet 3,000 sq.ft.
Capacity 250 people

Studio B: Black Box

Square Feet 540 sq.ft.
Capacity 30 people

Studio C: Warehouse

Square Feet 7,000 sq.ft.
Availability

Currently available for long-term studio sublets only.                

V. CAPABILITIES

Studio Services

Family Affairs Studio supports partners across the full lifecycle of cultural production: from concept and research to experience design, staging, touring, and long-term creative development. 

We collaborate with artists, institutions, festivals, studios, and organizations seeking to produce work that is intellectually rigorous, spiritually alive, and socially resonant.

01

Performance & Experience Design

We design performance works, immersive environments, and participatory experiences that integrate dramaturgy, embodiment, and world class storytelling.

02

Creative Direction & Dramaturgy

Concept development, narrative architecture, performance language, and interdisciplinary frameworks. We help clarify the core of a work and shape how it lives in the world.

03

Cultural Research & Systems

Research-driven frameworks and publications examining care, labor, technology, spirituality, identity, and cultural power.

04

Production Architecture

Designing the technical, logistical, and organizational structures behind complex productions and large-scale cultural experiences.

05

Touring & Residency Development

Support for multi-city touring, commissioning partnerships, residency design, and touring documentation.


SISTER PRACTICE

Work◆Flow for Humans

Work◆Flow for Humans is the operational systems and organizational design practice of Family Affairs Studio. We support artists, creative teams, cultural organizations, and mission-driven companies with workflow design, automation, and sustainable creative infrastructure.

           Explore Services →        
⚙️ Systems Design
🗂️ Workflow Automation
📊 Strategic Planning
🧠 Capacity Building
VI. CONTACT

We typically respond within 2-3 business days.

Location

Los Angeles, CA
Est. 2021

Available For

Bookings & Commissions
Creative Collaborations
Institutional Partnerships
Research & Publications
Touring Works