Marin Theatre in Mill Valley kicked off 2025 with Waste, the organizations fresh take on a century-old play that will have you on the edge of your seat.
This past year, Marin Theatre’s been all over the map — and all over the history books — with an amazing range of productions. The Mill Valley theater company comes back to the here and now with the Bay Area premiere of workplace comedy “Do You Feel Anger?” by Mara Nelson-Greenberg, opening Thursday.
Directed by Becca Wolff, the show closes an adventurous, ambitious season. Stage Left described an off-Broadway production as a “whip-smart satire of contemporary workplace culture,” and The New York Times lauded it as “flat-out hilarious” and “ingenious and inspired.” The uproarious play is set in a debt collection agency and follows an empathy coach whose assignment proves difficult. Her fellow employees can barely identify what an emotion is, much less practice compassion for others.
Nelson-Greenberg’s fictitious company is “where bro culture makes empathy the alien
and women are swimming upstream through the absurdity and danger of the men around them,” said Marin Theatre Executive Artistic Director Lance Gardner. The show should resonate across a wide swath of attendees. Everyone’s had bad bosses, problematic co-workers, pointless projects and impossible deadlines.
Last seen in Marin Theatre’s “Two Trains Running,” Bay Area theater veteran Sam Jackson stars as Sofia, a newly hired “empathy coach” at the almost all-male agency — a great comedic setup. Jackson brings authenticity to her role. She actually worked as a behavioral coach for many years.
“The script is hilarious and absurd,” Jackson wrote via email. “Playing Sofia is all too familiar to me. … I have dealt with bosses who only hear what they want to hear while telling you exactly how to do your job. … I have dealt with the oversharer in the office who loves an anecdote at the exact wrong time and have dealt with ‘class clowns’ who assume that since you’re a young woman, you have no idea what you’re talking about. This show happens to be a bit of a mirror for our current political situation.”
Such mirroring was also the hook for director Becca Wolff, who discovered the script through actor friend Rosie Hallett.