Kill the Buddha
A New One-Woman Show by Eli Walker
“When you find the buddha on the road, kill him.”
A darkly comic solo-performance dismantling the modern obsession with expertise, belonging, and spiritual authority.
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The Show
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Part confessional memoir, part satire of wellness culture, Kill the Buddha traces the path from eager yoga student to viral yoga entrepreneur to self-proclaimed "belonging expert" and the unraveling that exposes the gap between performing wisdom and living authentically.
Framed around a disastrously honest podcast interview, the show ricochets between past and present as Eli confronts the manipulative yoga teacher who exploited her search for meaning, the media machine that commodified her irreverence, and her own complicity in turning pain into performance.
Through a rotating cast of characters, from vapid hosts to desperate seekers, Kill the Buddha skewers the ways we surrender our agency to anyone claiming to have "the way."
Kill the Buddha’s Core Themes
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Spiritual Authority
What happens when the gurus, experts, and "belonging consultants" are just as lost as the rest of us?
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Wellness Culture
A scathing look at the commodification of authenticity and the seductive promise of self-optimization.
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Raw Honesty
With biting humor and unflinching vulnerability, what does it really take to stop performing enlightenment?
ABOUT ELI WALKER
Eli Walker is a speaker, author, performance artist, and social wellness expert whose career bridges intimate storytelling and global impact. With a BFA in Theater from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, she is the founder of the internationally acclaimed brand Drunk Yoga® (featured in GLAMOUR, Women's Health, Forbes, and The LA Times + more) and a recognized voice on belonging and human connection.
A storyteller since childhood, Eli wrote her first one-woman show (a feminist twist on Little Red Riding Hood) at age 8, and by 16 was performing Lily Tomlin's The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe from memory. She has performed off-Broadway at Lincoln Center, LaMaMa, and the Lucille Lortel Theatre, working with Tony Award-winning directors, and has appeared in TV, film, and commercials for DiscoveryID, Microsoft, Honda, and Xfinity.
Through all her work, Eli invites audiences to explore the space between self and other - (the place where social wellness is sparked).