“It’s essentially a series of monologues thematically organized by the jobs these people do and talk about, with songs interspersed,” said Peter Senkbeil, Concordia’s theater chair and director of “Working,” which opens at the Studio Theatre on campus Friday and goes through Nov. 12.

“And the musical covers everything from people who love their jobs, such as the fireman who lives for saving people, to people who hate their jobs, such as the woman working in a luggage factory, who realizes this is the only thing she’ll ever do and must, to pay the bills.”

“It’s not your razzle-dazzle musical, but it’s still powerful just the same,” said Rob Blaney, a Concordia alumnus (Class of ’92) who serves as the show’s musical director and who, unlike Senkbeil, had been involved with a previous production of “Working” two years ago for a Los Angeles youth theater.

New York City-born, Chicago-bred Louis “Studs” Terkel, 93, wrote his book “Working” in 1974.

Subtitled “People Talk About What They Do and How They Feel About What They Do” and consisting of conversations Terkel had with people in all walks of life, the book was adapted into a stage musical four years later by Nina Faso, the original show’s associate director, and Stephen Schwartz, who directed the original-cast, six-time Tony-nominated Broadway production.

“Schwartz, for whom this was the first show since ‘Pippin,’ and the other creative forces of ‘Working’ revised it five or six years ago, to make it more relevant to our times,” Senkbeil said. “For example, there were no bar codes on supermarket items and computers weren’t in most homes in the ’70s.”

The student cast of 12 assumes 24 major characters singing 19 songs that range from pop, rock, gospel and jazz to a Viennese waltz and traditional musical-theater fare.

“The show’s been an interesting acting challenge for our students, who have to play multiple characters,” Senkbeil said. “They’re really hungry to find ways to make their characters grow.”

Senkbeil and Blaney said the collaboration has been much closer than in their previous shows.

“There’s acting within the songs and music during the monologues, so we needed to collaborate more closely and more often,” Blaney said. “It’s been a neat experience.”



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