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A DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE TITLE
Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy / 2w, 1m, 4 any gender (adult)
Abe Koogler
Endlessly surprising and surprisingly moving, this story of two strangers who frequent the same café is a surreal dark comedy about the stories we tell and the ways we take care of each other.
Mina and Ben, two strangers who frequent the same café, strike up a conversation and decide to have dinner together. But something strange is happening in the city outside: The streets are empty and a bird calls a warning. Amidst this unsettling atmosphere, Mina and Ben find themselves in the only place still open: a mysterious restaurant where service is an art, the chef may be a god and food is a portal to other – better – worlds. Endlessly surprising and surprisingly moving, Staff Meal is a surreal dark comedy about the stories we tell and the ways we take care of each other when the world grows dark.
Staff Meal premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on 12 April 2024. Directed by Morgan Green, the production featured Jess Barbagallo, Stephanie Berry, Susannah Flood, Hampton Fluker, Carmen M. Herlihy, Greg Keller and Erin Markey.
MINA – Female, 30s to 40s. BEN – Male, 30s to 40s. AUDIENCE MEMBER – Female, 60s to 80s. THE VAGRANT – Any gender, any age. Also plays CHRISTINA and GARY ROBINSON. THE WAITER – Any gender, any age. SERVER 1 – Any gender, any age. Also plays VAGRANT 2. SERVER 2 – Any gender, any age. Also plays PHONE VOICE and MAN.
Various locations, including a mysterious restaurant. Any time.
“Deliciously deranged.” – The Wall Street Journal
“A quietly surreal shape-shifter of a play with a tilted sense of humor and a generous, sorrowful heart. We tumble through its funny, eerie evocation of the moment that made – is still making – our present, and we come out the other side feeling, for all its ebb toward emptiness, full.” – New York Magazine
“Scenes zig and zag in a dream logic… It’s hard to describe exactly what happens in Staff Meal, much less diminish your enjoyment of its uncanny, elegiac flux. Koogler stokes our affection for the comforts of civilization but also underscores how fragile they are. Take my advice: book a table.” – Observer
“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.” – New City Stage
“Koogler’s characters are earnest, idiosyncratic, and suspicious of hierarchy. Often bitingly funny, Koogler’s play reveal larger truths about the economic and racial systems under which we all live.” – Yale Review
Staff Meal – Playwrights Horizons Trailers
Staff Meal – In Process with Abe Koogler at Playwrights Horizons, Part I
Staff Meal – In Process with Abe Koogler at Playwrights Horizons, Part II