our 21st season
REDUCTION IN FORCE
a new comedy about back-stabbing, ass-kissing, and survival of the sneakiest
written by Patricia Milton
directed by Gary Graves
July 30 – August 28
(previews July 28 & 29)
GLOBAL ECONOMIC MELTDOWN!
UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS SEND STOCK MARKET PLUNGING!
LABOR REVOLT IN WISCONSIN!
HOMEOWNERS STORM BANK SHAREHOLDERS MEETING!
Central Works continues its 2011 season with a new “economic” comedy ripped from the headlines: The Icarus Wealth Management Group has hit financial whitewater. Behind closed boardroom doors profits plunge, questionable investments surface, and a crisis erupts. What's the solution? Fire the "little people," of course! A reduction in force puts career secretary Anita Green on the chopping block. Will she keep her job or her self-respect? An hilarious clusterf*** of backstabbing, ageism, class warfare, and—romance!
A Central Works Method Play developed in collaboration with Gary Graves, Michaela Goldhaber, John Patrick Moore, Kendra Lee Oberhauser, Gregory Scharpen & Jan Zvaifler.
Read the script of Reduction in Force
From the RIF Workshop mix:
The Truth About the American Economy
by Robert Reich
A brief, clear, cogent (as well as non-political) explanation of what has happened to the American economy since WWII, and why we are in the stagnant situation in which we find ourselves today from local UCB luminary Robert Reich. Well worth the read.
The People vs. Goldman Sachs
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone makes the case: A Senate committee has laid out the evidence. Now the Justice Department should bring criminal charges!
“Goldman isn't a pudgy housewife who broke her diet with a few Nilla Wafers between meals — it's an advanced-stage, 1,100-pound medical emergency who hasn't left his apartment in six years, and is found by paramedics buried up to his eyes in cupcake wrappers and pizza boxes. If the evidence in the Levin report is ignored, then Goldman will have achieved a kind of corrupt-enterprise nirvana. Caught, but still free: above the law.”(read the full article)
Hundreds protest Wells Fargo shareholder meeting in SF. Crowd chants, "You owe us! You owe us!"
US income inequality now exceeds that of Ivory Coast, Uganda, Ethiopia and Pakistan
On a happy note (for some), Texas has repeals sales tax on yachts costing over $250K
"Robin Hood" activists cross the moat at JP Morgan compound. Don’t laugh! (see the video)
Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8pm
Saturday at 5pm (August 20 & 27)
Sunday at 5pm
Tickets: $24 online (buy tickets now!)
(Advance sales by phone thru Brown Paper Tickets: 800.838.3006)
$25 – $14 sliding scale at the door
Previews (July 28 & 29) and Aug 4 & 11: pay-what-you-can
Information & subscriber reservations: 510.558.1381
