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HIGHLIGHTSFRANKENSTEIN

MARCH 23-APRIL 23

LIZZIEJULY 13-AUGUST 20

A companion guide to “Ideation”

by Aaron Loeb

Jan. 19-Feb. 19, 2017

George Psarras, Sunny Moza, Lisa Mallette, Tom Gough and Max Tachis. All photos of City Lights’ production of Ideation are by Taylor Sanders.

RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURNMAY 18-JUNE 18

Synopsis

In this gripping dark comedy and psychological thriller, a group of corporate consultants are brought together to work on a mysterious project. At the heart of the room is a whiteboard: this project is so secret that all ideas must be hashed out by hand, and no digital files can be kept.

The consultants soon find themselves trapped in a world where ethics are an afterthought and the lines between right and wrong blur. Amidst office in-fighting and paranoia, they must work their way through moral quandaries that challenge their values and beliefs.

Winner of the Glickman Award for excellence in playwriting, and a New York Times Critics’ Pick.

CharactersThese descriptions are drawn from Aaron Loeb’s script for Ideation:Hannah (Lisa Mallette*): Carries the aura of authority. Technically, she is the boss as she is the most senior person in the room, though in this context it’s her job as boss to facilitate, not control. She has an MBA and is an expert in logistics and finance.

Brock (George Psarras*): A backslapper. Played football in the Ivy Leagues. Good-looking, avuncular, a little bit sadistic. He has an MBA and is an expert in organizational structures.

Ted (Tom Gough): A road warrior for many years. A family man, he lives in a very large suburban house. He’s a civil engineer and an expert in transportation processes.

Sandeep (Sunny Moza): The youngest of the consultants. He grew up near Delhi in a wealthy, highly educated family. Completely assimilated, perhaps overcompensating. He has a PhD in industrial engineering and is an expect in manufacturing processes.

Scooter (Max Tachis): In his early 20s, getting his MBA. He’s in an entry-level position, working for Hannah. When he finishes his grad work, he will get a job like Sandeep’s.

JD: The CEO of this company. He has a severe attitude, projecting brilliance and scorn. His face is never seen.

*Member, Actors’ Equity Association

George Psarras, Lisa Mallette, Tom Gough and Sunny Moza.

THE INSPIRATION BEHIND ‘IDEATION’Ideation is a fascinating mix: of the horrifying and the noble, of everyday office politics and painful ethical questions. It takes a mind like Aaron Loeb's to meld it all together.

The Berkeley playwright is a favorite at City Lights, where we've also presented his plays First Person Shooter and Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party in recent years. He has a way with both whip-smart dialogue and plot twists that keep the dramatic tension at just the right height, with welcome dashes of humor.

It's not surprising that Ideation has a mystery at its core. With a background as a video-game designer, Aaron is well-schooled in creating puzzles. He was vice president at Electronic Arts, managing the development of "The Simpsons: Tapped Out," "Monopoly Slots," and other games. Today he balances writing with a full-time gig as president of Studios and Live Services at the game company Kabam.

"I write nights and weekends, and when I travel," he said. He and his family also see plays whenever they can, whether at the nearby Berkeley Rep or in New York or Chicago.

Ideation brings with it a vivid family connection. During the play's run, City Lights is partnering with the Center for Justice & Accountability, a human-rights organization in San Francisco (see the next article for more on this). That's no accident. Aaron's wife, Kathy Roberts, is the legal director at CJA, and the center's work provided part of the inspiration for his play.

A few years back, Kathy was preparing for the trial of former Somalia prime minister and minister of defense General Mohammed Ali Samantar, who would ultimately be found liable for human-rights violations. Aaron watched, horrified, as the stories came out about intellectuals being imprisoned, villages raided and cities bombed. Kathy's lead client was one of those imprisoned, and held in solitary confinement for seven years.

Aaron noted the methodical way these disturbing actions were carried out. "There was no way of doing this without lots of people going along with it and partaking in the planning. And some of the evidence that was collected and presented at trial was just regular people who were involved or overheard bits of the plan," he said.

This observation is reflected in Ideation, when the consultant characters realize how mysterious the project they're working on is. Are they just a small part of something larger? Who else is involved? And what is the real end goal?

More benignly, Aaron was also influenced by the management consultants he met at Electronic Arts. He's quick to point out that there was nothing sinister about these people. Rather, he was taken with the way they talked. "I sort of learned their style of methodical problem-solving, where you break everything down into its parts and step by step build a plan."

The Somalia situation and the consultants' style "ended up crashing together in my head," he said. Ideation was born.

A quote from a 2016 review of Ideation by Laura Collins-Hughes in the New York Times.

Playwright Aaron Loeb.

While Ideation hasn't been published yet—the plan is later this year—it has already had acclaimed productions on both coasts. It was developed in the Just Theater New Play Lab and Bay Area Playwrights Festival, then produced at SF Playhouse. (Aaron is currently working on a new play about venture capital and pitches at SF Playhouse, where he's resident playwright.) Ideation then opened at 59E59 Theaters in New York. Mark Anderson Phillips played the character of Brock in both casts and is now directing the City Lights production.

"It'll be exciting to see what he does," Aaron said. "We'll be there opening night."

Though Ideation focuses on corporate consultants who operate at a high echelon, Aaron sees the characters as universal—as well as intensely timely. True, they’re superstars paid at a sky-high level to solve companies’ problems. In addition, they face an ethical dilemma on a scale not generally seen in an office. The more they learn about their latest project, the more they question whether they are part of something high-minded or ghastly.

Still, Aaron pointed out that we all could learn about something upsetting, and have to decide whether to act. He offered a hypothetical: What if the government tells us an American city has been taken over by terrorists who will kill us all, and our leaders say we have to bomb that city to save the rest of the country?

"If you believe that it's true, it may be terrible, but necessary," Aaron said. "This is the situation that the characters find themselves in. It's a question that we all have to ask ourselves in the current society. We will constantly be inundated with imperfect information and be constantly told from now on that there's a highly justifiable reason for this terrible thing to be done. Do you believe it?"

In Ideation, the dilemma may be toughest on the character of Hannah (Lisa Mallette), the only woman in the room and the executive in charge. As is often the case in today's consulting world, she motivates not through barking orders but by carefully guiding. She's like the high-level coach ensuring that her players perform at the top of their game.

"Her whole life is built around doing this job, and not disturbing the order of things," Aaron said. Then suddenly Hannah is struck by the realization that this job may go against everything she believes in—and no matter how hard she and the team work, they may never fully comprehend the extent of the project they're part of.

He cited a current example regarding Donald Trump. "We have just elected somebody who's said that he is going to create a registry of Muslims. Did he mean it? And what are we going to do about it? … Most people who aren't Muslims may just go along: 'Aw, give him a chance,' or: 'We lost the election; that's how it goes. This is how things work; we keep going along.' But when do you decide to stop? Hannah is the one who most embodies that question."

Aaron concluded: "Ultimately, Ideation is meant to be about the problem facing all of us in contemporary society. Weirdly, some people view it as science fiction, as though they aren't already being faced with these kinds of problems regularly. I don't think there's anything science fiction about the play."

Lisa Mallette as Hannah in Ideation.

Our nonprofit partner: The Center For Justice & Accountability We at City Lights make it a high priority to support our fellow Bay Area nonprofits. During each mainstage show, we partner with a different organization, donating part of the box-office proceeds to the group and helping promote each others’ activities. During Ideation, our partner is the Center for Justice & Accountability.

CJA works to defend human rights, driven by the Nuremberg trial-era principle that some of the worst crimes are offenses against mankind as a whole. As seen in the previous article, Ideation playwright Aaron Loeb found the center’s efforts highly inspirational as he was writing the play.

On its website, CJA describes its mission thusly: “to deter torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other severe human-rights abuses around the world through innovative litigation, policy, and transitional justice strategies. CJA partners with victims and survivors in pursuit of truth, justice, and redress.”

In its first case in 1998, CJA was successful in suing a war criminal from the Bosnian War who had taken refuge in the U.S. Other cases have included representing Cambodian Americans in actions against former Khmer Rouge leaders.

CJA is at One Hallidie Plaza, Suite 406, in San Francisco. For more information, go to cja.org or call 415-544-0444.

Our Director: Mark Anderson Phillips

Did you see Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the innovative Jeffrey Hatcher adaptation of the classic that kicked off our 2015-16 season? (Yes, the one with four Hydes, one of them a woman.) If so, you know exactly why we’re thrilled to have Mark Anderson Phillips back directing with us again. Mark also helmed that production, imbuing the show with professionalism, flair and insight that won him an Outstanding Direction honor from the TBA Awards at Theatre Bay Area.

Mark is also a seasoned performer who has been acting professionally for more than 20 years, including playing principal roles in the premiere productions of Ideation and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Companies have included American Conservatory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, TheatreWorks, San Jose Repertory Theatre, and ACT Theatre of Seattle.

He’s also graced stages at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Joan Rivers—a work in progress by a life in progress) and the New York International Fringe Festival (Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party, also by Ideation playwright Aaron Loeb).

Mark is the recipient of three Bay Area Drama Critics’ Circle awards for best performance by a male in a leading role. He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA.

Mark Anderson Phillips, photographed by Lisa Keating.

A consultant’s life Who are management consultants, and what do they really do? Do they globe-trot like the characters in Ideation, while making obscene amounts of money? Sometimes. Can they really provide valuable outside perspectives to help turn a company around? Many do.

A few years ago, an episode of the WNYC and American Public Media Freakonomics Radio podcast, called "I Consult, Therefore I Am," brought listeners into the world of management consultants. Some consultants are overpaid, overly young, and glamorous, jet-setting around to drop pearls of high-level strategic advice. Others are old hands in their field, getting down to the nitty-gritty on a factory floor to analyze ways to improve quality control or efficiency.

Host Stephen J. Dubner interviews a range of people, including: a university economist highly skeptical of consultants, a partner in a major consulting firm, and a guy hired at 23 by one of those firms at a starting salary of $130,000 (plus a signing bonus of $20,000). Along the way, we hear management consultants compared with doctors, therapists and golden retrievers.

Dubner ultimately concludes: "Management consulting is a perfect fit for our times—for an era in which we increasingly bring in experts and defer to them, whether it's in order to gain legitimate wisdom or just plausible deniability. We seem to like to be told what to do."

Listen to the whole podcast at bit.ly/iconsultpodcast.

Where does "ideation" come from?

"Hey, let's ideate," sounds like a modern suggestion best accompanied by a pumpkin spice latte and a whiteboard. But according to Merriam-Webster, the word “ideation” — defined as "the capacity for or the act of forming or entertaining ideas” — has been around since 1818.

More recently, the 2004 book Ideation: The Birth and Death of Ideas by Graham and Bachmann took a deep dive into the term, breaking it down into numerous types of innovation, including revolutionary ideas (thank you, Marx and Copernicus), serendipitous discovery, derivative ideas, and artistic innovation (no constraints).

Many in the corporate world have also examined what they see as the key differences between traditional brainstorming and ideation. Fans of ideation say it is infinitely more visionary and free-flowing, able to address even problems that are not yet clearly defined. Ideation strategies can focus more on individuals' ideas than group consensus, incorporating more open-ended creativity.

One ideation technique is called simply "Wishing." Start with something impossible and then come up with as many ways as you can to make it work. The wilder the ideas, the better.

Sunny Moza as Sandeep, the youngest consultant in Ideation.

City Lights Theater Company presents Ideation from Jan. 19-Feb. 19, 2017. Shows are Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. (no show Jan. 22).

The theater is at 529 S. Second St. in San Jose. Details: cltc.org, 408-295-4200.

Director: Mark Anderson Phillips

Scenic Design/Production Manager/Technical Director: Ron Gasparinetti

Lighting Design: Nick Kumamoto

Costume Design: Jane Lambert

Sound Design: George Psarras

Properties Designer: Christina Sturken

Stage Manager: Michelle Marko

Assistant Stage Manager: Christina Sturken

Master Electrician: Joseph Hidde

Special thanks to RuthE Stein and Joanne Lee, and to the Silicon Valley Capital Club for hosting the first Ideation photo shoot.

Featuring: Lisa Mallette*, George Psarras*, Tom Gough, Sunny Moza and Max Tachis

*Member, Actors’ Equity Association

Highlights is researched and written by City Lights dramaturg Rebecca Wallace. Read past issues, and a digital version of this issue, at cltc.org/highlights.

Ideation by Aaron Loeb