Outside, the world is breaking apart. But in here, a group of lonely city dwellers gather to find comfort and connection. Abe Koogler’s Staff Meal is a kaleidoscopic comedy about a mysterious and beautiful restaurant, where the food is delicious, the service is warm, and some strange power keeps the darkness at bay. You are safe here – at least until closing time.
Featuring
Jess Barbagallo
Server
Stephanie Berry
Audience Member
Susannah Flood
Mina
Hampton Fluker
Waiter
Carmen M Herlihy
Server
Greg Keller
Ben
Erin Markey
Vagrant
Susannah Flood has been seen on Broadway in The Cherry Orchard (Roundabout). Select Off-Broadway and NY includes The Counter, Make Believe (Second Stage); The Effect, Tribes (Barrow Street); Scenes From A Marriage, Love & Information (NYTW); Mr. Burns (Playwrights Horizons); The Sonic Life of a Giant Tortoise (PlayCo); Fulfillment (The Flea); As You Like It (The Public/NYSF), Bird in the Hand (Fulcrum); Baby Scream Miracle and Plano, both for Clubbed Thumb, where she is an affiliated artist. TV: Kate Littlejohn on For The People (ABC/Shondaland), also Law & Order: SVU, Chicago Fire, Deadbeat and Mary Laws' upcoming Daylight Daycare (Annapurna for Hulu). Susannah is the voice of Laeticia Saltier on Julian Koster's podcast The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) (Night Vale Presents/WNYC). BA: UC Berkeley. MFA: Brown/Trinity. Go Bears.
Staff Meal has received generous support from the Venturous Theater Fund, a fund of Tides Foundation, the Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Playwrights Horizons' season productions are generously supported by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
Creative Team
Jian Jung
Scenic DesignKaye Voyce
Costume DesignMarsha Tsimring
Lighting DesignTei Blow
Sound DesignSteve Cuiffo
Illusion DesignRyan Gohsman
Production Stage ManagerAshton Pickering
Assistant Stage ManagerKaye Voyce is a costume and set designer active in theater, opera, dance and performance. She received her BFA and MFA in theatrical design from New York University in 1994. She is represented by Rachel Viola at United Talent Agency.
Ryan Gohsman (Production Stage Manager) (he/him). Playwrights Horizons: Staff Meal, The Light Years, Antlia Pneumatica, Detroit, Maple and Vine, ‘10-11 season Fellow. Broadway: Here Lies Love (also Public Theater; consultant for National Theater, London). Select Off-Broadway/NYC: Little Shop of Horrors (current revival); Mary Jane, Hundred Days (NYTW); Pretty Filthy (Civilians); anatomy theater, Thumbprint (PROTOTYPE); Signature. Select Regional: A View from the Bridge (Long Wharf); Aquanetta (Bard SummerScape); Barrington Stage; Westport. International: London’s Royal Opera; Edinburgh International Festival; Holland Festival.
Koogler’s brilliance as a playwright is how he captures the real while hinting at the eternal. Just when it seems like he is trying to strangle your heart with tension, he goes ahead and breaks it with simplicity.
Koogler’s characters are earnest, idiosyncratic, and suspicious of hierarchy. Often bitingly funny, Koogler’s plays…reveal larger truths about the economic and racial systems under which we all live.
