‘PRNYC‘ by Mark Rose is a taut well-rehearsed script, loaded with authentic public relations jargon, easily rivaling the popular TV series ‘Mad Men’. Director’s casting and pacing is ideal for exploring complex office politics and personal relationships credibly and naturally. Well-placed desks and cross-stage scrim create efficient feng shui. The play traces the meteoric rise of ‘nice’ PETER RILEY (Michael Vicha) in a snake pit inhabited wonderfully by WAN DERSHON (Peter Wiant), single-mindedly by HEATHER INGALLS (Kelly McNees), commandingly by MYRON MANDELBAUM (Hewitt Brooks), and coincidentally by MELODY STARK (Colleen Dobbin). A major triumph.

Steve Treacy, Port Townsend Leader, 2/12/2012. Photo: (left to right) Michael Vicha, Kelly McNees, Peter Wiant. Courtesy Key City Public Theatre.

PRNYC, a modern day drama set in Manhattan PR Agency explores absurdity, power struggles, porous sexual boundaries, intense deadline pressure, conflicting messages, high stakes, obfuscation as a lifestyle, and brutal personalities that dominate the ecosystem of New York City PR agencies.

Peter Reilly works for the man known as The Beast, who reports to Simon Gurwitz, one of the most powerful men in New York. Simon has the ear of the Mayor, the Governor, Donald, Rupert, et al. What price will Peter Reilly pay to whisper in Simon’s ear and reflect the sheen of power to assuage his fears and lost identity? As Myron Mandelbaum  questions, will he “embrace The Beast or search for happiness over the rainbow?”

PRNYC is about the language we adopt to navigate difficult and highly pressurized situations in New York City professional offices. It may seem extreme to outsiders but to Peter Reilly it’s just another day in the office.

PRNYC was selected for a production in the 16^th Annual Port Townsend Playwrights Festival. It is presented at Key City Public Theatre as a one act, running approximately 40 minutes. It premieres February 9, 2012 and opens February 10 for a nine performance run, closing on February 26. It is on a bill with two other one act plays.

My hope is to try out the play on audiences unfamiliar with New York and PR, then expand the show into a full-length production, or combine it with another one act as part of the “Work America” series,  and seek a New York venue.

Background on PRNYC and the Port Townsend Playwright’s Festival: http://www.keycitypublictheatre.org/12_festival.htm | Playwriting Background:  http://markrosenyc.com/about-me/

Hello All,

As a new year dawns, we are delighted to announce a national tour for our monologue, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS, which opens this week in the Bay Area at Berkeley Rep, and will go on to major engagements in both Washington DC and Seattle, running from now until late May.

This is a very special show for us. I don’t think Jean-Michele and I have ever worked as hard as we have bringing this piece to light, or have poured as much of ourselves into the work as we have into this story. This monologue is the apotheosis of years of journalism, travel, research, investigation, sweat, and tears…and I believe it tells an untold and deeply necessary story for our time.

On the one hand is the story of Steve Jobs, his genius, his egotism, and his vision, a real life Willy Wonka whose obsessions have shaped our daily world. It explores the mysteries of the cult of Apple, the dream of a laptop so thin you can cut a sandwich with it, and the idea that if you control the metaphor through which we see the world, then in our age now, you can control the world itself.

This story of technology and its pleasures is told against the landscape of southern China, where I witnessed firsthand the true human cost of creating all of our marvelous tools. This behind-the-scenes journey into the heart of the forges where iPods, iPhones, laptops, and all our technology spills forth illuminates a place where workers throw themselves to their deaths from high-rises in modern-day workhouses, where workers die on the production line of overwork, where they sleep in cement cells with dozens of women and men crammed in rooms like labor camps—a landscape of our own making.

Today Steve Jobs announced he is stepping down from Apple for health reasons. It is almost impossible to imagine Apple without him, and there’s a palpable sense of loss and change as the tech industry struggles to know what this will mean for its future.

We stand at a crossroads, and it is my sincere belief that this story, capturing both his genius and his stubbornness, his brilliance and his ridiculousness, can help turn our attention to how the tech industry can grow up and begin to take responsibility for its decisions. Now is the best moment for us to look deeply and actually begin to see there’s something more significant than the next iPhone’s release, the next keynote presentation. Now is the moment to start waking up.

This is the best work I have ever created, and I hope you’ll consider coming to be part of the story.

Be seeing you,

md

THE AGONY AND

THE ECSTASY OF

STEVE JOBS

Created and Performed by Mike Daisey
Directed by Jean-Michele Gregory

At Berkeley Rep in the Bay Area
January 23rd to February 27th
http://berkeleyrep.org

At Woolly Mammoth in Washington DC
March 23rd to April 10th
http://woollymammoth.net

At Seattle Rep in Seattle
April 22nd to May 22nd
http://seattlerep.org

Stone Soup Theatre Downstage
4029 Stone Way North
Seattle, WA 98103
(206) 633-1883

Directions to Downstage Theatre
Buy tickets here (Brown Paper Tickets)

“Nicky Silver’s absurdist 1993 tragicomedy deftly sketches the disintegration of Philadelphia’s Duncan family, an elite clan hobbled by extremely bad judgment, narcissism, and emotional deafness the way the dinosaurs were hobbled by a dust-filled atmosphere….Andrew Tribolini seems so effortlessly creepy you wonder whether he’s even going for creepy.” — Seattle Weekly, April 28, 2010 review

Ben Brantley, The New York Times, 10/21/1993, review of NY premiere of Pterodactyls.