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Photo by Kim Ehly
By Aaron Krause
South Florida theater artist Kim Ehly (they/them) was “fascinated” after seeing the highly-touted Max Wolf Friedlich play JOB at the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway in 2024.
The piece left Ehly with “so many questions,” they said. Yet, Ehly wondered whether they had missed nuances due to the theater’s relatively large size; the Helen Hayes, Broadway’s smallest theater, can still seat almost 600 people. Ehly watched the play from the “very back” of the theater.
Ehly, Kutumba Theatre Project’s founder and artistic director, left the Helen Hayes with a mission – bring JOB to South Florida’s intimate Empire Stage, which seats about 50. After several weeks of vetting, Ehly’s company received permission to stage the of the play where it will run from Nov. 12-29 at Empire Stage in Ft. Lauderdale. The production will run for 80 minutes without an intermission.
“Securing the South Florida rights to a recent Broadway hit is a major milestone for Kutumba Theatre Project,” Ehly said. “After several weeks of vetting, we were thrilled to receive the green light. Kutumba is the first company in South Florida to present JOB, and we simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”
JOB is an ultra-contemporary psychological thriller “packed with high-stakes suspense and sharp humor,” Ehly said. “It dives headfirst into corporate power dynamics, generational divides, mental health, gender politics, and what it truly means to live on the internet.”
JOB takes place solely in the office of therapist Loyd, whose task is to assess whether Jane, a content moderator for an unnamed tech giant, is fit to return to her job after she experienced a public breakdown at work.
Ehly said that tension immediately “sparks” in JOB.
“It’s not a slow burn,” Ehly said. “Max Wolf Friedlich’s writing is so precise that the conflict between Jane and Loyd is built right into the DNA of the script.”
Ehly said the production’s job (pun intended) is to navigate the play’s nuances. That means finding the exact rhythm and momentum, discovering the silences, and building the crescendos.
“In this tightly contained therapy session, the challenge isn’t creating tension, it’s calibrating the shifts in power so the audience doesn’t know what to expect next,” Ehly said. “We want patrons on the edge of their seats, never entirely sure what to expect next and who to believe.”
Fortunately, Ehly said they have two bright actors to work with: Kimmie Pineda is playing Jane and Geoff Freitag is portraying Loyd.
“What made Kimmie and Geoff stand out was their honesty in the audition room,” Ehly said. “They’re both very intelligent actors who dig into the backstory and circumstances of these layered characters, which gives us a strong foundation for the work.”
Ehly, who is a therapist as well as a theater artist, said their work in therapy could benefit their work on the production by, for instance, giving them “great insight” into what Loyd might be thinking.
Ehly, Pineda, and Freitag approached developing both roles “through the lens of internal dichotomies,” the director said. “Kimmie brings Jane to life with a kinetic energy anchored by a formidable, grounded presence. Geoff plays Loyd with a delicate balance of apprehensiveness and quiet authority. Those contrasting layers make their dynamic feel dangerous, unpredictable, and completely alive.”
Ehly said they and their actors are using Empire Stage’s small space to the production’s advantage.
“Staging a two-person psychological duel requires creating an environment where every inch of space matters,” they said. “The intimacy of Empire Stage is a gift for this production. It places the audience directly in the therapy session with Jane and Loyd, leaving nowhere for anyone to hide.
“We’re using distance, stillness and shifts in proximity as tactical weapons in the constant struggle for power between Jane and Loyd. Sometimes what happens in the silence or in the character’s decision to move closer or pull away can be just as revealing as what’s said.”
Ehly said Kutumba’s commitment to the LGBTQ+ community and other underserved communities, alongside social justice, includes “bringing stories to South Florida that confront the systems shaping our daily lives” and igniting important conversations both within and beyond the community.
“JOB explores what happens when the people who control the systems that shape our lives also get to decide whose voices matter and whose experiences count,” the director said. “Jane is a woman in tech forced to seek approval from an institutional gatekeeper simply to return to her JOB.”
“For those of us in the LGBTQ+ community, for women, and for other marginalized communities, the struggle to be heard, believed, and protected by the systems that shape our lives is all too familiar. JOB asks some important questions: Who gets to make the rules? Whose voices get heard? And who is believed?”
Ehly said people watching the play may enter the theater with preconceived notions.
“A lot of people may jump to conclusions based on surface markers such as age, gender, sexuality, authority, privilege, and status,” they said. “The play keeps challenging those assumptions, forcing us to ask why we trusted one narrative over another in the first place.”
At JOB’s core, “it poses an ancient question in a hyper-modern setting: which is mightier, the sword or the pen?,” Ehly said. “Is real power held by the institutional gatekeeper who gets to write the official record, or by the person willing to use raw, disruptive force to break the framework entirely? Audiences will find themselves questioning who’s actually in control, whose reality is valid, and how quickly our own biases lead us to judge the people right in front of us.”
According to Ehly, the less you know about the play before walking in, “the better and more exciting your experience will be.”
Audiences should also be aware that the play is intended for mature audiences and contains adult themes, language, and content. Therefore, it’s recommended for audiences age 18 and older.
Kutumba’s upcoming production of JOB follows the company’s acclaimed production of Velvet Green Summer, a reimagined version of Ehly’s original play, Baby GirL. In that piece, a spirited young daydreamer goes on an extraordinary journey to find love and a place to call home.
“Following the success of Velvet Green Summer, we wanted to continue nurturing our diverse audience, from first-time theatre attendees and young adults to seasoned theater goers,” Ehly said. “I love JOB because it’s so relevant to the world we live in and creates opportunities for important conversations. The play sold out two Off-Broadway runs, fueled in large part by Gen Z and Millennial audiences spreading the word on TikTok, alongside theatre die-hards of all generations before landing on Broadway.”
Kutumba’s season will also include a world premiere of The Kitchen by Earl Crittenden in April.
Kutumba Theatre Project’s JOB will run from Nov. 12-29 at Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive in Ft. Lauderdale. Tickets are $40 ($30 for Nov. 12 preview). For more information, visit https://www.kutumbatheatreproject.org.
