A Strategic Plan

Ross Mueller

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781760620912
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

'Failure is not on the whiteboard.'Feel like you're drowning in paperwork? Beaten by the impenetrable weight of office bureaucracy? Adrift in a sea of jargon? You're not alone. Andrew, former rock muso and new CEO of youth music organisation, Staccato, was parachuted in to save the company from oblivion. Mission accomplished, he's setting his sights on implementing a bold, new strategic plan.But the Board has unanimously scrapped the plan and neglected to tell Andrew, leaving him adrift in a world of KPIs, performance reviews and a general manager who refuses to return from his holiday in Thailand.A Strategic Plan is Geelong-based playwright Ross Mueller's contemporary satire about office life, arts funding and the perils of following your heart. Hilarious, pointed and painfully observant, it's sure to cut close to the bone for anyone who's ever tried to make a difference at work.

PRE-SHOW MUSIC

The Jam: ‘Going Underground’.

SCENE ONE: CORE BUSINESS

Lights up on ANDREW and JILL.

ANDREW is in an airlock. Noise-cancelling headphones. Stainless steel water bottle. Listening to The Shanghai Susans. Plastic bags of folders at his feet. A grey-walled corridor only big enough for three humans and a table. Fluoro light above.

JILL is in her studio. She is setting up a couple of microphones. One for a vocal and one for acoustic guitar. Fluoro light.

SIMON is also onstage, either illuminated or in darkness.

ANDREW looks at the dead light. He claps his hands. Nothing. He tries again. Nothing. Silence. LEANNE arrives. Watches him. He moves his arms wildly in the air. Nothing. He jumps up and down and waves and claps.

JILL puts on headphones and tests the microphones with claps and clicks and …

JILL: One. Chew. One. Chew. One. Chooo. One … Chew. Hello, hello. Hello, hello. / One two three four.

LEANNE: Are you okay?

SIMON: It is a fucking deathtrap.

JILL: Here we go. / Here we go. New man. Noi-man, N. E. U. Man. I got a D.I. for guitar and a second-hand Neu-mann T.L.M. one oh chew. One oh chew. Thank you, Georgie. Ho. Ho!

SIMON: And I happen to think that young people deserve a little bit better than derelict, dangerous, ex-government buildings, don’t you? Oh no, that’s right. You want to exterminate all the emerging artists in the world, don’t you? Look at these walls—!

JILL: Hah! Ready for you—

LEANNE: Andrew?

ANDREW takes off his headphones.

ANDREW: Where have you been?

Beat.

LEANNE: Monday morning. Parking is a homicide.

ANDREW: It’s polite to call if you’re running late.

The airlock scene continues as LEANNE sets up her workstation.

LEANNE: Ando. I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot but I am not late. / I am actually the best in the office when it comes time management and scheduling—I did my time in chambers with Gibson and Duncan and anybody who has survived articles with those two-time management Nazis knows how to read a clock on the wall. Gibson is the worst.

ANDREW: It is not ‘Andy’ or ‘Ando’ or ‘The Drew-ster’. It’s simple ‘Andrew’. I’m renting and I’ve got a house inspection this morning, so I had to surgically clean my bathroom before I came here because my landlord is a neo-Nazi and she has pictures of every crack. Any tiny defect—

LEANNE: So far beyond anal, he is intestinal.

ANDREW: I left twenty minutes earlier than I needed just to make sure I would get here on time.

LEANNE: So did I, and look at me. / Here I am. On time. Ready to help you win.

ANDREW: Here I am. On time. They told me nine-thirty.

ANDREW’s phone rings.

LEANNE: For a ten a.m. start and—

ANDREW: [answering] Hello …?

LEANNE: He’s answering his telephone. Good ti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• First Production
• Characters
• Scene One
• Griffin Plays and Currency Press
• Copyright Details