Locals Only
New York magazine|January 17 - 30, 2022
A cabaret star asks: Can you find yourself without leaving home?
KATHRYN VANARENDONK
Locals Only

A CHICKEN. A cornfield. A tractor with a faded American flag flapping in the foreground. As this montage plays, Connie Conway croons a ’50s tune called “Kansas State Line” about how he has never left home but is a “rover at heart.” After this opening to Somebody Somewhere—the new HBO series created by and starring comedian and cabaret singer Bridget Everett—there’s a hard cut to someone whose dream of leaving has failed: Sam Miller (Everett), who sits in a fluorescent-lit room, marking a standardized-test booklet and filing it among a sad stack of folders. Sam does not fit in her hometown of Manhattan, Kansas. She may have tried to get out for a while. Now she’s in her 40s, with a job she dislikes, disconnected from everyone and unsure of what she wants or who she is.

This story is from the January 17 - 30, 2022 edition of New York magazine.

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This story is from the January 17 - 30, 2022 edition of New York magazine.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

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