In Corpo

In Corpo - Created with The Assembly

In Sector 13-G of Corpo, the world’s final corporation, employees no longer look at each other when they communicate. Corpo’s three distinct communications systems are driven by technology and created to maximize efficiency and profit. They're also, as our show opens, on the fritz, after a recently thwarted act of resistance. IN CORPO is a musical about communication--its limits, possibilities, and perils. How do we behave within an oppressive system--and what happens when that system breaks down? 

IN CORPO draws freely from Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel The Castle, Herman Melville’s classic short story "Bartleby the Scrivener," and the artists' own experiences negotiating hellish bureaucracies and corporate “day jobs.” The common thread: a deep interest in the individual’s relationship to forces that curtail autonomy and limit self-expression, as well as the ways employees adapt to and against these forces through coping strategies and methods of resistance.

The show's near-futuristic office culture is defined in part through electronic music and the musical harmony of employees at work, while individual arias offer cathartic expressions of rage or hope. These songs invite us to dive into the fantasies that the characters harbor for their liberation, which eventually lead to an onstage revolt against impossible odds. As the system breaks down, the instrumentation transforms from electronic to acoustic. Throughout the show, we riff on the weird, dark humor of Melville and Kafka, as well as the autocratic absurdities of modern-day America.

PRODUCTION TIMELINE

2023 - THEATER ROW PRODUCTION

2017 - Workshop

2018 - Residency at the Atlantic Theater Company

2018 - Work-in-progress showing at Judson Church

2019 - Work-in-progress showing at WP

2020 - Work-in-progress showing at Theatre Row

2021 - Planned world premiere at Theatre Row

CREATIVE TEAM

by Ben Beckley & Nate Weida

Music by Nate Weida

Directed by Jess Chayes

Scenic Design by Nic Benacerraf

Sound Design by Asa Wember

Costume Design by Kate Fry

Dramaturgy by Stephen Aubrey

Produced by Meredith Lucio & Dutch Kills

Associate Producer Emily Caffery