Photo by Ashley Anklowitz
One of the characters in “Working” gives the audience what it’s like to work in her job.

“Working” is a musical commentary on something that we all inevitably do for a large portion of our lives.

As Flyn Ludington’s character in one of the scenes, the project manager Amanda McKenny, says, “You always ask people who they are, and they answer with their job. ‘I’m a doctor,’ or ‘I’m a carpenter.’” Our work is our life, and “Working” is an observation of the conditions of the working world, and in turn, our lives. We see all the plights and labor, the hilarious idiosyncrasies of the office places, and the diverse characters of different careers.

The play is based on a book by Studs Terkel, which captured the commentaries of working men and women about their jobs. The hilarious, non-fictional monologues combined with the songs added for the musical adaptation, convey the hilarity and concerns that pertain to work in the modern age. Somewhere between steel workers, teachers, housewives, truckers and prostitutes you realize that these situations are absolutely true to life.

The show brought together not only the music and theatre departments of UAF, but also a diverse cast and crew consisting of long time Fairbanks theatre crew, current students, and, according to the director, Bruce Hanson, “tons of invaluable alumni support”. Paul Rios, a current UAF sophomore in the music department, said the production had “more of a family feel, with lots of seasoned vets of the trade involved.”

Director Bruce Hanson stated simply “music directing and stage directing bring in the technical difficulties of both for one director.” This isn’t to say that Hanson is taking more than his share of credit, claiming “none of this would have been possible without both department heads, Dr. Zilberkant and Kade Mendelowitz, being so open to working together, or without the support of everyone in both departments from the bottom to the top”

Hanson took on the challenge of both stage directing and music directing on this show, which also functioned as his masters thesis project in musical theatre, a synthesis between the music and theatre departments at UAF. According to Hanson, the only other time when a project like this has been presented was sometime in the late 70’s, by Fairbanks theatre mainstay Jim Bell. Hanson said that after Bell’s project “the idea had been in my head for the last 30 years.”

Both as Hanson’s masters thesis project and as a musical theatre production in itself, “Working” was a wonderful, funny, and down to earth success. The coming together of the two departments shows how much goes into production, and the amazing outcomes that can results from such collaborations.