Working Theater

Fish

Fish

The broken pieces of public education are laid bare in Fish, a world premiere drama by Kia Corthron presented by the Keen Company. Set in an unnamed high school, the play captures the ails of urban education, the poverty-stricken neighborhoods in which they sit, and the resulting challenges students experience as they try to keep their heads above water.

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Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson

Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson

In 2000 Rob Ackerman made an impressive debut with Tabletop, a play about the cutthroat world of television commercials. Centered around a dictatorial director hell-bent on the perfect close-up of a fruit drink topped with a swirl, the play raised a number of issues about art, commerce, and workplace politics. Ackerman’s newest work, Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson, in an excellent production by Working Theater, serves as a companion piece to Tabletop. Also set in a television-commercial sound studio, Gumballs satirically reveals the moral compromises individuals make when confronted with artistic, economic, or personal intimidation.

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Alternating Currents

A production of Working Theater, Alternating Currents is part historical pageant play, part romantic drama, and part social commentary. As part of the company’s Five Boroughs/One City initiative, Adam Kraar’s play, directed by Kareem Fahmy, evolved from interviews with residents of Queens as part of the company’s mission “to create theater for and about working people.” Currents is set in the present at Electchester, an actual complex of 38 buildings in Flushing. But Electchester’s best days were around its founding by Harry Van Arsdale, a benevolent overlord who walked the grounds following construction in 1949.

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