Palmer High production pokes fun at big business

PALMER — Palmer High School’s latest production is a throwback to a different era of business.

In the 1961 musical, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” playwright Frank Loesser uses the satirical book of the same name by Shepherd Mead to critique big business and the dastardly ways men (and women) might try to make their way to the top.

“I don’t usually like to repeat a play but this is a really funny play,” said veteran director Grant Olson, who led the show at Valley Performing Arts in 1998.

Having seen the show in rehearsals directed by the playwright himself as a high school student, Olson knows the story well — he also knows that, if not done correctly, the humor can be lost on some people. That’s put him in “teaching mode” for the high school version, he said, helping students hone their satirical skills with the right enthusiasm, pacing and style.

Palmer junior Jarrett Hardy shows what he knows in the role of J. Pierrepont Finch, whom he described as “mostly a nice guy” who is “very persuasive.”

“He can make anything sound like a good idea,” Hardy said.

That skill is thanks in part to Mead’s book, which Finch uses as a guide in the play to climb the corporate ladder from mailroom clerk to chairman of the board of directors of the World Wide Wicket Company in a matter of weeks.

His promotion has much to do with company president J.B. Biggley’s enormous ego — one of the things that makes Biggley oblivious to Finch’s schemes.

“He’s a very powerful and grumpy man,” said sophomore Ethan Feaster, who plays the president.

But that power proves easy to manipulate by both Finch and secretary Hedy LaRue (played by Hannah Embree), who makes only a thinly veiled attempt to make her relationship with her boss private.

When Hedy threatens to end her affair with Biggley and quit the company if not raised to a higher position, Finch capitalizes on the opportunity to help both characters get what they want.

Dressing Hedy in a skimpy “treasure girl” outfit, Finch again pitches his previously rejected idea for a treasure hunt television show to increase WWW Co. revenue at a board meeting. Claiming Hedy is just a temporary model in front of the board, Finch lets Biggley be the one to decide the contrary, apparently accepting the TV show idea just to see his scantily clad secretary on the big screen (under the guise that Hedy would provide the “hometown girl” feel viewers want).

Feaster said the era in which the paly is set is “definitely a bit more degrading toward women” than other shows he’s done, and other cast members agreed.

Junior Grace Ivey, who plays another secretary named Rosemary Pilkington, called some of the roles “very objectifying.”

“I just keep reminding myself it’s a satire, it’s OK,” she said.

A rather diminutive girl with short-cropped hair, Ivey said she usually plays childlike or matronly characters, so learning to play the sexualized Rosemary has been an adjustment.

“All she desires in life is a husband and a nice house, that suburban ideal,” Ivey said.

So when Finch enters the picture, she falls hard and fast for him.

Her best friend Smitty — played by senior Emily Yannatone — at least tries to slow the process.

“She’s seen her falling head over heels for so many guys that when it happens with Finch she’s like, ‘Are you kidding? Again?’” Yannatone said.

Olson and his actors and actresses said they hope viewers will find such shenanigans funny, and not read too much into the show’s outdated stereotypes.

“Times have changed,” Olson said. “I think women can laugh at (those portrayals of) themselves now.”

“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” opens at Palmer High School on Friday, April 22 at 7 p.m. General admission is $10, $7 for students and seniors, and can be purchased at palmermusicbooster.org.

For more information, contact music director Stan Harris at 746-8403.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.