The Office Holiday Party Musical Extravaganza Show
Renaissance Theatre Company • Orlando, Florida
An original musical by Donald Rupe
by Carl F. Gauze
Ah, the workplace holiday party: a gathering no one really wants to attend, in a place they’d prefer to avoid, serving virtually no one beyond the organizer. We’ve all attended one or two of them, but this show makes up for it, because you do not work there. The company is “Gripp and Pfister,” a national brand that does something you have no interaction with, need for, or idea what it would accomplish.
We check in out front and receive a wrist strap and nametag. I pull “Clarence” for some reason, but I don’t even know a Clarence in my real life. Anonymity does have its positives. I find a table near the bar occupied by several women I had not met before, and they wave a subtle message: “Don’t even THINK about it.” I had no intention, so that was all cool.
Our MC and her aids direct the action. We play games, sing songs, and enjoy ourselves while eating all the crinkly Christmas candy in the little plastic cups. On our table, some elements of the cast remain constant. The ultra-religious couple attempts to convert the drinkers and lovers to good, upstanding Christians, lonely Greg Coleman just wants a friend, and our bubbly bookkeeper tries to make everyone happy, no matter the tragedies lurking at home. It’s a mix of congeniality and awkwardness, just like at home.
Up in the rafters, we find a three-piece band that sounds like a quartet and keeps us on the verge of dancing. Drinks are stiff at the bar, as are today’s prices. The staff is friendly and always in character, and if you ever worked an office job, these are all the archetypes, rendered larger than life.
At the end of the show, we get a positive note. The G&P management was about to close this Orlando operation, but the big boss had so much fun at the party, she has given the operation another year. I suspect they will struggle on like this, appearing annually to remind us of how much we hate our coworkers when we aren’t being paid to like each other.
