Check Out Joshua Silverstein’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joshua Silverstein.

Hi Joshua, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My story begins when I saw Bobby McFerrin Live in concert as a five years old. When I first heard “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” I had no idea that he was making all the sounds himself until I saw him in concert. Inspired by what he did, I spent most of the 80s making strange sounds with my mouth to entertain myself and others. Slowly, it became my own style of beatboxing.

In the 1990s, while in high school, I joined various theater programs whilst being frequently invited to beatbox for rap cyphers on the schoolyard. Toward the end of high school, I began performing my brand of beatboxing with close family friend, notable saxophonist Cal Bennett and also started regularly performing alongside various spoken word artists in the LA scene as an accompanying beatboxer. After college, I leaned on my theater roots and storytelling abilities and began to facilitate creative writing and improvisation workshops. Soon after, I hooked up with DJ Jedi and Joe Hernandez-Kolksi to co-host and produce LA’s premier open space for High School youth, Downbeat 720 that 20 years later is still in existence. I went on to tour the country with Norman Lear’s Declare Yourself voting registration tour, lead innumerable creative writing courses/workshops throughout the country. I toured my comedic solo show, later titled “the Joshua Silverstein Show” and have continued to work as one half of the comedic duo “Joe and Joshua.” During 2020, my wife Cinthya Silverstein and I have creative a live show/podcast that gives our take as people of color on the latest news and developments we’ve seen this year. I have also continued working with The Braid (formerly The Jewish Women’s Theater) and Turbine Arts Collective, writing and performing autobiographical works.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
I am a beatboxer with acute asthma and live in very polluted LA while struggling with allergies. As a Black Jewish performer, I find joy in the opportunities I get to deconstruct what it means to be black, what it means to be Jewish and what it means to be a Black Jewish father in America.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am an internationally known beatboxer and have been named (by the Jewish Journal) as one of the top 5 Jewish beatboxers in the world. I am a comic and writer and I believe that the most interesting things to write and perform about are the most vulnerable aspects of our human existence. It’s that belief that pushes me to work with an understanding that through creative discovery we set ourselves on the path to healing and unity. I am proud of my family (my three kids are all amazing and my wife is the smartest person I know) and I find that within my field, it’s my vulnerability, honesty and transparency that sets me apart from others.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Besides seeing Bobby McFerrin live in concert, one of most beloved childhood memories is a story that my dad, who is also a storyteller, has told repeatedly throughout my life. The story goes like this: up until I was about 5, whenever my dad asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say “a doctor AND a clown.” A doctor because of how much time I had spent in the hospital because of the amount of time I had already spent in the hospital due to my allergies and acute asthma; a clown because I loved to make people laugh and to me, no one could do that better than clowns. Everywhere we went where my dad had friends, he would ask me that same question about what I wanted to be when I got older and the answer was always the same and always made the adults laugh. Until one day, amongst friends he asked me again, but this time, to his embarrassment, I replied with simply “a doctor.” My dad, for obvious reasons, in order to break the awkwardness of a child simply saying he wants to be a doctor, asked me “Joshua, what about the clown?” to which I replied, “dad I’m already funny.”

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: thejoshuasilverstein.com
• Instagram: @thejoshuasilverstein
• Facebook: thejoshuasilverstein
• Twitter: @thejoshuars

Image Credits
Cinthya Silverstein