At the offices of the Los Angeles World Monsterbank, it’s just another average day…executives taking half-day power lunches, managers somewhere on the golf courses, celebrities being catered to and fortunes being siphoned. Greed, egomania and arrogance reigns supreme as the rich get richer and have-nots become closer to never-will-be’s. But things are about to change because World Monsterbank has hired Jeremy Piddle, college graduate, computer nerd and the menace to end all menaces. It’s not so much that Jeremy’s a bad guy, he’s just bad at whatever he seems to lay his hands on. Greed is about to have a very long and unsatisfying week. Golden Parachutes, a world premiere play by Estabrook award winning, Five Towns College playwright, John Blenn, examines the world of high finance and low scruples, big money and little people, and mixes cutting humor with keen social observation. Playwright Blenn drew on his three-decade experience as an entertainment journalist to craft a play that puts a microscopes on how sweeping villains and noble worker ants so often exist side by side, not always clear to the naked eye. Mixing astute social commentary with a deft touch for laughs, Golden Parachutes continues a tradition started in 1995 by the author with Middle Class American Productions, Long Island’s ONLY all-original theatre troupe.
The play is the 55th by Blenn to hit the stage, by screenwriter, actor, college professor, and probably, Long Island’s most prolific playwright. It follows Blenn’s work as director for multi-platinum artist Eddie Money’s autobiographical musical, Two Tickets To Paradise, and this spring’s successful revival of Blenn’s 1997 play, Those Swinging Anzelones. Blenn, was also featured in several films this year.
