ECHO Players will be ending their season with a hilarious comedy that is sure to keep audiences laughing from beginning to end.
Office Hours, written by Norm Foster, is being produced by Alistair McVey and will run from May 29 to June 15 at the Village Theatre in Qualicum Beach.
With a cast of actors possessing a wealth of experience and directed by Gerri Hemphill, the play will take a peek into the mores and morals of the modern office.
McVey said Foster is one of Canada’s best-known humorists and he satirizes modern office life by giving us the best and the worst of people in different situations.
The play was written so that five actors could be in every one of the six scenes but McVey admitted they had so many amazing people audition they decided to go with several actors for their production.
“Several experienced actors turned out and we though we might as well use a bunch of them. Many of them are veteran actors who have been around ECHO Players for many years,” he stated.
The funny play is filled with lots of laughs, hilarious predicaments and snappy dialogue.
McVey said Foster’s humor has a Neil Simon-like quality.
“Norm is able to make it humorous but at the same time he has a bit of an edge to his work. There is something dark behind the humour.”
The entertaining play offers a critique on the modern stress-full work place.
Foster’s depiction of the media industry in Canada has hilarious characters who struggle desperately to make an impact in a field fraught with disillusion, sexism, discrimination, fraud, infidelity and deceit.
From TV studio to race track, to the offices of seedy producers to a psychiatric window ledge, the people involved take a beating.
Foster neatly ties all the threads together with novels, date-books and horse-races and the secrets, seductions and surprises are presented with his trade-mark sharply funny and witty dialogue.
McVey said the play was written in the ‘90s and in today’s world of corporate cutbacks it has content that many people can relate to in their own jobs.
Office Hours opens on May 29 and runs for three weeks on the stage of of the Village Theatre. Tickets are available at the Village Theatre box office in Qualicum Beach. Call 250-752-3522 for more information or check www.echoplayers.ca.
