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What's a pickup truck doing inside MoMA PS1?
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Sonia Rao
Published Jun 25, 2026
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Renée Paule courtesy of PS1
By
Sonia Rao
Published Jun 25, 2026
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There will soon be a pickup truck parked inside MoMA PS1. Or that’s the hope, anyway.
“Truck” playwright Georgica Pettus remained confident in a recent interview that her team would be able to overcome the setback of a Toyota Tacoma recall and rent the perfect vehicle to park at the center of her new production “Truck,” a one-night-only play that will be staged Saturday in the art museum’s courtyard.
“Getting the pickup truck has been the hardest part of this project,” Pettus said. “But that’s amazing because the truck really is a symbol in this play.”
Inspired by the 1997 cult documentary “Hands on a Hardbody,” “Truck” follows a group of people competing to win the titular vehicle by seeing who can keep a hand on it for the longest amount of time. In the documentary, the winner has been awake and on their feet for a few days by the time they are crowned, a physically taxing assignment revealing the competitors’ senses of adventure, greed and/or desperation.
“Truck” is a part of PS1’s “Greater New York” series, which celebrates artists living and working throughout the New York City area. Pettus, 28, is a Bedford-Stuyvesant resident and has lived in the city since graduating from Barnard College. She was about to put on her tragicomedy “Skyscraper,” which was partially staged on the Roosevelt Island Tramway last year, when a friend put her on the PS1 curators’ radar. They saw that play and learned she was working on another.
PS1 curatorial assistant Sheldon Gooch was impressed by Pettus’ ability to stage theater in unconventional spaces. They worked closely with Pettus to develop “Truck” over the past several months and said it “feels very pertinent to our situation today.”
“Like all of her past plays, [‘Truck’] has to do with what draws various people across generations … to aspire for a certain thing,” Gooch said. “In this case, maybe that’s an object. In other plays of hers, that’s a lifestyle or love, desire and more.”
The five contestants we meet in “Truck” range from a car thief forced to participate as part of his parole to an aspiring actress seeking public attention. They all live in Texas — as did the subjects of the original documentary. Pettus maintained the setting in an effort to try something new: Her past work tended to take place in New York.
But the city is still ingrained into anything she writes, she said. The characters are “all amalgamations of different people. There are a lot of New Yorkers in this play.”
Consider Mike, the contestant played by actor Vishwam Velandy. While Mike reveals a complicated backstory — he is an Iraq War veteran and alludes to being a closeted gay man — the monologue he delivers during a rest break can be applied to internal battles across the board. After relating the challenge to the time he stayed up for five nights in a row while serving overseas, he concludes: “This whole thing, it ain’t about who can muster the stamina to stand for the longest. It’s about who can remember what they’re doing here.”
Mike then returns to the truck. He’s in it to win it, after all.
PS1 has hosted a variety of events in its expansive courtyard, including architectural installations and an annual music series that will return in late July. Gooch said it was a no-brainer to host “Truck” in the space.
“As we were speaking to Georgica about what she was working on,” they recalled. “The first thought that came to mind is, ‘Why don’t we just drive the truck into the courtyard?’ And we’re excited to do that.”
The performance is currently at capacity; PS1 says all 600 tickets have been reserved. Pettus, who helps sustain her artistic career by teaching a playwriting class to high school seniors, noted that some of her students will be there to see her work. She aspires to take “Truck” on the road, even if that means staging it in traditional theaters.
“I want to take this play as far as it can go, really,” she said. “It’s a unique experience to premiere a play at a museum, and it’s just a question of where it goes next.”
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Sonia Rao
Sonia Rao is a culture reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. She previously covered entertainment and breaking news at The Washington Post. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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