Reverend Billy from the Church of Stop Shopping  is a character created by New York- based performance artist Bill Talen. Disguised as a religious leader, Talen parodies the preaching practices of TV evangelicals to address issues of consumer culture, labor exploitation, citizen's rights, and the privatization of public space under advanced capitalism.

In a manner that is similar to Augusto Boal's Invisible Theater, Talen appropriates the appearance and the demeanor of the preacher and engages impromptu audiences with inspired rants about the effects of capitalism on people's daily lives. Usually accompanied by the impressive Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, Reverend Billy takes over concrete commercial spaces such as the Disney Store, Starbucks, and Bank of America joined by collaborators and followers. Through different tactics they indirectly address casual shoppers, customers, and employees, laying bare the store's commercial strategies or denouncing its reliance on cheap, transnational labor.

Reverend Billy orchestrates events that radically alter the pre-established protocol of proper mass consumption. These performances are both pre-scripted and improvised in order to respond to the specificities of the place and to the actual responses of passersby and patrons.

In the same manner in which Starbucks Coffee shops replicate themselves in different cities, Billy's performances may be reproduced by other activists in different contexts. This is possible thanks to the scripts published in the Church of Stop Shopping website. The scripts are available online in the style of how-to manuals for others to craft their own invasions of chain stores in their hometown.

Some of these actions are:

• Shoplift: taking the word literally, the participants of this action lift products and, using prayer as a conduit, they communicate with the workers who made these products to draw attention to the exploitative labor conditions under which they work.

• WhirlMart: this is one of Billy's "non- shopping" events intended for activists against WalMart or big box stores. During the 60 minutes that the action lasts, participants move around the commercial space with empty carts and then form lines with other  comrades with empty- carts to manifest a communal gesture of anti-consumerism.

• First Amendment Mobs: many of Reverend Billy's actions are site- specific and they point to forgotten histories or violated rights. In the First Amendment Mobs, Billy's followers congregate to produce a collective recitation of the United States' Bill of Rights in places where people have been detained by the police who did not respect the protestors’ right to assemble peacefully. This can be done directly or using a cell phone to recite the text to an imaginary person.
  

• Cell phone operas: these collective actions take advantage of the proliferation of cell phone technology, and the subsequent blurring of the public and private spheres. In one of the Starbucks' cell phone operas, which took place in 2007 in Astor Place in New York City, where at that time there were three Starbucks coffee shops in a small perimeter, the participants of the cell phone opera expressed their frustration talking loudly on their cell phones. They had set Starbucks as a meeting point for a bind date and could not find each other.
  
  

As a response to the Reverend's sudden disruptions of Starbucks coffee stores, in April 24 of 2000, the head office of the coffee chain issued a memo to instruct Starbucks' NYC employees on what to do in the event of a store invasion by anti-corporate activist Reverend Billy. The memo, which inspired the title of Reverend Billy's book What Should I do if Reverend Billy is in My Store? and which is included in the volume,  introduces employees to Billy's activism, what he does and why, and how to respond to his actions (two of the four options offered instruct employees to getting in touch with him and his "devotees" while the other two recommend to call the authorities).

The memo also details procedures on how to manage the situation in regards to two other important actors: media and customers. What is striking about the memo is the way in which the text (which includes the Starbucks' logo) engages Billy's performance tone, disclosing only once, in the middle of the document, that Reverend Billy is "the creation of actor Bill Talen."

In this way, the memo text reads as another element of the performance: "Reverend Billy sits quiet at the table with devotees and then begins to chat up the customers [...] Then the Reverend's devotees hand around anti-Starbucks leaflets [...] According to a store manager, he may stand on your tables." (vii)

Listen to a radio interview and audio performance

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