A scene from ‘Assistance’ featuring actors Kurt Suello(Nick), Jasmine Juarez(Nora) and Gelatto Aderemi(Heather).

HCC Drama Program Coordinator and longtime theatre director Debra Schultz has directed the dark comedy stage play ‘Assistance’ from Hollywood writer and recent Star Wars showrunner Leslye Headland. Loosely based on Headland’s experience working as the assistant to Harvey Weinstein during her time at Miramax, ‘Assistance’ explores the daily lives of administrative assistants who begrudgingly give most of their time to their overpowering and illogical boss inside a toxic work environment laden with co-dependent relationships and inter-office affairs.

The show premiered on March 5^th at the Black Box Theatre on the Northeast campus. One week before showing it to audiences at HCC, Schultz took the stage play to the TCCSTA Play Festival at Blinn College-Brenham. Having directed many stage productions throughout her career, Schultz saw the opportunity to direct a play that would challenge her drama students and bring them out of their comfort zones.

“I wanted something that would be a big challenge that none of the students had ever done before,” mentioned Schultz. The production allowed each of the six cast members to play characters Schultz described as “crude and disgusting.” Despite the crudeness and use of foul language, Schultz saw these elements as essential to making the audience take something away after leaving the theatre.

“As a longtime theatre person, very little offends me,” admitted Schultz. “Because I live in that world. I live in the theatre world where we want to make audiences feel uncomfortable.” Uncomfortable may be an understatement, as the play has many adult themes and evokes the horrific experiences many women faced in Hollywood, which sparked the #MeToo Movement.

Mixing comedy with a serious subject matter like workplace abuse may be considered a recipe for disaster; however, Schultz believed the comedy was needed to give the play a varied tone and make the audience question why they laughed at the inappropriateness of it all.

“The audience walks away thinking, ‘Wait, why did I laugh at that?’” noted Schultz. “That’s the goal, to make the audience think after the show is done.”

‘Assistance’ ran from March 5^th to March 8^th. While it was a pleasure for her to have directed the play, Schultz refuses to rank it as one of her favorite experiences. In fact, the director tries not to rank all the plays she has directed. For Schultz, each new project is a learning experience she’ll bring to the next endeavor and a chance to make the audience feel something again.