Enterprise
Play Description
Four businesspeople — Landry, Owens, Sanders, and Weaver — arrive in the morning at their skyscraper office and soon learn that their company is on the brink of collapse. At first upset and panicked at the news, they decide that this can instead be a chance to finally prove themselves — they'll come up with a proposal, a new business plan that will impress the company chairman and save both the business and their careers. What follows is an antic all-day, all-night effort, as the four race to complete the proposal by the next morning. At first they all work together. But after that effort collapses amid acrimony and finger-pointing, they break into two competing teams, each trying to outdo the other and win the chairman's final approval as they work feverishly all through the night. ENTERPRISE is fast-paced, edgy, semi-surreal comedy about business, ambition, skyscrapers, and office bathrooms.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male, flexible casting, up to 4 females or 4 males)Full Length Comedy (about 65 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
“Run GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS through a Monty Python spin cycle and you might get Brian Parks’s kinetic farce ENTERPRISE, an absurdist express train of comic corporate-speak … Four ambitious businessmen in a skyscraper — the bespectacled Weaver, the fresh-faced Sanders, the somewhat dim Owens and the experienced Landry — entertain big dreams of impressing the unseen chairman of their imperiled company with a proposal that will send profit margins into the stratosphere. But over a night the men spend collaborating, then pairing off into two rival factions, their hopes rise and fall in a stream of bluster, invective and recriminations. Their exchanges arrive in a succession of 45 rapid-fire blackouts, many introduced with pings and other audio snippets that suggest, say, a text alert, or a news-radio bulletin, or an office copier. Among the many concerns preoccupying these fatuous climbers are the suspiciousness of uncentered mimeographs; the ‘smell’ of diminishing value; the Depression–era allure of jumping out a window; and the perceived vulnerability of office toilet stalls. Conspicuously absent from the discussions are mentions of home, family or women — as spouses, relatives or colleagues. (‘Astrology is astronomy for girls,’ says Landry dismissively.) No surprise there: These men live only to compete with and impress one another (and their boss). No one else has any place in their displays of would-be brainpower and self-consuming testosterone … The true star is Mr Parks’s dialogue: If a joke doesn’t hit its mark (and some are simple non sequiturs), another one lands before you have time to notice. Mr Parks, a former theater editor at The Village Voice and an ex-chairman of the Obie Awards, is noted for the fast pace of his work. ENTERPRISE comes off a 2017 run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Scotsman Fringe First Award. The playwright’s hapless executives may not qualify for a raise, but his ENTERPRISE merits a promotion.” —Andy Webster, The New York Times
Author(s)
Brian ParksBrian Parks's plays have been produced in New York City as well as several cities across the U.S. They've also been staged internationally, in London, Edinburgh, Ireland, Adelaide, Heidelberg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Oberzeiring, Austria. His play AMERICANA ABSURDUM helped launch the New York International Fringe Festival in 1997, where it also won the Best Writing Award. AMERICANA ABSURDUM went on to win a Fringe First award at the 2000 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and became the first play produced at London's Menier Chocolate Factory theater. His other plays include GONER, THE INVITATION, IMPERIAL FIZZ, AMERICAN POODLE (SPLAYFOOT), SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE, OUT OF THE WAY, THE PROFESSOR, THE HOUSE, and THE GOLFER. AMERICANA ABSURDUM, GONER, AMERICAN POODLE (SPLAYFOOT), IMPERIAL FIZZ, THE HOUSE, and ENTERPRISE have all appeared at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, staged at Assembly. ENTERPRISE also won a Fringe First award, in 2017.
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
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by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com
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