Publishing is full of rankings, from power lists to best-dressed lists to under-40 lists. The CULT100 is different. There is just one criterion for inclusion—but it’s a high bar.

To qualify, a candidate must be actively shaping and changing our culture in real time. The people on this list represent five generations and hail from the worlds of food, publishing, art, fashion, activism, and entertainment. To put this group together, CULTURED‘s editors leveraged the full strength of our network, tapping artists, writers, and cultural leaders to tell us who they look to when they want to feel challenged, hopeful, and inspired.

Some members of the CULT100 are household names; others have been working behind the scenes to make possible the cultural encounters that stop us in our tracks. In a time of binary thinking, the creators featured in this year’s list are embracing contradiction, bouncing willfully between disciplines, and refusing to take no for an answer. They have guts, vision, and a potent cocktail of realism and optimism. None of them is shying away from the anxiety of our moment. Instead, they are thinking big, sharing generously, and embodying courage. The good news is, their work makes us all a little bit braver, too.

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SOPHIA ENGLESBERG
Photography by SOPHIA ENGLESBERG

MATTHEW GASDA

PLAYWRIGHT

The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research founder and playwright puts on shows that excavate the lives of young people—think Zoomers, Dimes Square hangers-on, the polyamorous—and he does it on a budget befitting of a non-trust-fund youngster. 

WHAT’S YOUR TRADEMARK? Doing small plays in small places that have an outsized influence and create a lot of talk, both online and offline. I’ve discovered that I can inject myself into memes or the zeitgeist—whatever you want to call it—and find something human and alive in a situation, a type of person, or a person people have a lot of opinions about. I look for something human, interesting, or surprising. In other words, I’ve taken the plays I grew up writing—family dramas and relationship dramas—and turned them toward public culture: Dimes Square, Zoomers, Doomers.

WHAT’S SOMETHING PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT YOU? They see one of the many things I do and associate me with it. I take a kind of pride in that. But in reality, I’m performing an act of ventriloquism to provoke reaction, to understand myself and the world better, and to create something entertaining, thoughtful, and—dare I say—deep. I’m not ingratiating myself with my subjects. In many ways, my view of life and my subjects is deeply critical. I am none of the things I write about.

"Everything I’ve done has been for under $10,000. I might be the only person on this list who still has a day job."

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST CONTRIBUTION TO CULTURE? A DIY spirit. Everything I’ve done has been for under $10,000. I might be the only person on this list who still has a day job. Yet the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, my company in Greenpoint, is increasingly influential. We have a huge, thriving community built around a simple philosophy: Write something, edit it, workshop it, put it up as fast as possible. Don’t make excuses if it’s not good enough—make it better on the fly.

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WILLA BENNETT
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SAM FRAGOSO