Pick a winner

The play is designed for multiple viewings, and the cast has obviously put in the work to make those viewings highly worthwhile. The artifice justifying the repetition is that each of the eight cast members has learned every one of the roles and potentially could play a different one for each performance, which is cast on the spot every night by a process of auditioning for the audience, who select each player’s role by applause-rated elimination. Very clever, very funny and almost unbelievably demanding of each actor’s talent.

The plot of this convoluted comedy involves the staff of an art museum that is in the process of interviewing to hire a Grants Manager to join their team of administrators. Through the process of interviewing the job candidate, Merritt, played with consummate skill and hilarity this night by Anne Lester, we are introduced to each character individually, and the labyrinthine complications of interoffice relationships are revealed in infinite comic detail.

A fine plot twist makes the second half of the play a warped reflection of the first half and adds a layer of complications that has the museum director, Pinkey, played with exuberant comic abandon by Dylan Latimer at my performance, exclaiming, "We’ve gone so far, I don’t even know where we are right now!" Luckily, Avery Crozier’s brilliant script never leaves the audience feeling the same way. I not only knew where I was the whole time, but wouldn’t mind going back. Maybe I’ll see you there.