Bottoming for Jesus, created and performed by Michael R. Speciàle, runs 24 nights at Zoo Venues this August. Produced by Family Affairs Studio.
For over two years I have been developing a show about one of the most confounding parts of my past: my decision to join the Mormon Church as a closeted gay teenager. A single question, "why?", led me down into the depths of my soul, to holes so deep that the only way I could catch my breath was to invite an audience to burrow down there with me. To discover together the universal yearning underneath my absurd autobiography: Have I lived a life worth living?
Bottoming for Jesus is what came out of spelunking in my holes. Part stand-up, part cabaret, part sermon, part TED Talk, performed nightly at Zoo Venues at 10:40pm — the nightcap slot, when the festival's daytime audience has cleared and the confessions can finally begin. It is a show about the performances we give in order to belong, and offers a path towards self-acceptance and the solidarity needed for us to meet this moment.
Twenty-four nights, seventy seats, one room. I'm asking your help to bring it to life in the shape it deserves.
Thank you in advance for giving what you can.
The Phase 1 deadline passed on June 15. We're now in Phase 2 — closing toward $21,000 by July 31. That's what gets Bottoming for Jesus to Edinburgh with the marketing, the housing, and the production support the show needs to land.
Curtain up · August 7.
Here's what your gift to BFJ goes toward across the production.
Every gift to Bottoming for Jesus is acknowledged. Every gift puts your name on the supporter wall and in the production program. The five levels below come with stacking perks. Larger contributions follow further down the page.
Every dollar helps the slate.
A small piece of the campaign in the mail.
A signed Edinburgh poster, digital now and printed later.
A literal fragment from the Bottoming for Jesus archive, hand-pulled and mailed to you.
A handwritten postcard from Edinburgh and personal dispatches all month.
Considering $1,000 or more for BFJ? Skip ahead to Co-Producer partnerships, which carry program credits and deeper access to the work.
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If you opted in, we'll be in touch with Edinburgh dispatches over the summer.
A show about holes, and the lengths we go to fill them.
At fifteen, Michael R. Speciàle converted himself to Mormonism. No missionaries required. A solo work of queer theology, music, and confession that Willamette Week called "an audacious but essential work of art."
Yes, there are cum dump jokes. Yes, we invoke the spirit of patron saint, Judy Garland. But underneath the spectacle lies one question, asked out loud in a room of strangers: have I lived a life worth living?
Key art by Roman Udalov · Performance photography from prior runs
Michael R. Speciàle is a writer, performer, and cultural strategist based in Los Angeles. He grew up between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington, converted himself to the Mormon Church at fifteen, served a mission in Paraguay, and left the Church at twenty-three. Two decades later, that experience became the catalyst for Bottoming for Jesus.
Before returning to the stage as a solo performer, Speciàle spent a decade building cultural institutions. He is co-founder and former Executive Director of NAVEL (2017–2024), the experimental Los Angeles arts space; was Assistant Director of Loyalty Marketing at Lincoln Center; and is the founder of Family Affairs Studio and co-leads LINT, the production space in Downtown LA where Bottoming for Jesus premiered in March 2025.
His producing credits include collaborations with SOPHIE, Mandy Harris Williams, Jermaine Spivey, Spenser Theberge, and Justin Elizabeth Sayre, whose Lottie Platchett Took a Hatchet he co-produced with Outside In Theatre at Edinburgh Fringe 2022, earning four- and five-star reviews. Bottoming for Jesus is his debut solo work. Edinburgh 2026 is its European premiere.
Fair question. Only about $6,000 of the Bottoming for Jesus budget is actually in the bank right now — silent investor support already received and in-kind donations like flights. The rest is contingent on box office at Zoo Venues, studio consulting revenue I'm still booking, and silent investor support that arrives in stages.
Community support is the part that lets us pay artists fully, market Bottoming for Jesus properly, and arrive in Edinburgh ready instead of scraping by. It is not the marginal dollar of a successful campaign. It's the difference between making the run work and making it work well.
The pie chart above has the breakdown. Roughly a quarter of the $57,400 BFJ budget pays the creative team: Michael, Spenser, Jeremiah, and Zach. That works out to about $725 per artist per week across six weeks of pre-production, rehearsal, and performance. That's below standard union rates, and we won't cut it further.
About a fifth goes to marketing and PR. Lisa Baker Associates, our London-based publicist, is securing pre-August features and culture press traction, which is what generates the reviews we'll need once the show is running. Another fifth covers production and tech: lighting (Zach Blane), sound, sets, projection, stage management. Accommodation in Edinburgh, venue fees at Zoo, per diem, music licensing, insurance, and a small contingency buffer make up the rest.
We value transparency. The category percentages and totals come straight from our production spreadsheet.
Edinburgh has gotten more expensive, and the dollar has gotten weaker. Every transaction in Scotland costs us more this year than it would have two years ago, before inflation hit British venue fees, housing, and freight, and before the pound strengthened against the dollar. The exchange rate alone has added thousands to the budget compared to earlier projections.
We are also intentionally not running this on free labor. A month of work onstage, with another in rehearsal beforehand, deserves to be paid. The budget reflects what it actually takes to produce a world-class solo show at the largest performing arts festival in the world.
The show still goes on. Bottoming for Jesus at Zoo Venues is confirmed and contracted. What changes is how much we have to compromise on the way in. Less marketing budget means smaller audiences. Less per-diem means a more strained team. More reliance on credit means a longer recovery on the other side.
Your gift is what determines whether we arrive in Edinburgh in shape or scraping by.
Not as a direct gift through this page. Family Affairs Studio is a working LLC, not a 501(c)(3). For larger contributions seeking tax-deductible treatment, we work with a fiscal sponsor and can structure the gift accordingly. Email hi@familyaffairs.studio and we'll walk through your options.
Yes. Stripe accepts cards from most countries. For Zelle, wire transfer, check, or larger international gifts, email hi@familyaffairs.studio and we'll arrange the right path. Wire transfers and Zelle keep about 3% out of processing fees and in the production, which matters at higher gift levels.
Gifts of $1,000 and above unlock Co-Producer credits, deeper access to the work, and, for the higher tiers, a real seat at the table on what Family Affairs Studio makes next. These conversations happen by email so we can structure the support cleanly. Zelle, wire, or check also keeps the ~3% Stripe fee in the production.
For Co-Producer commitments we work directly with you to structure the gift, including a co-producer investment instrument with backend revenue participation if that's the conversation you want to have. Email hi@familyaffairs.studio and we'll take it from there.
The studio is the longer story. Monthly membership gives you access to Family Affairs Studio's creative life: productions in development, members-only events at LINT, votes on the Artist Production Fund slate, and an active role in shaping what gets made.