During Anita Spano’s time in corporate America, every meeting was mandatory — but there was at least always cake.
That was the kind of email the Brookline resident would frequently receive from managers at a previous job. One day, she was in her office’s kitchen eating cake and on a whim began belting “It’s mandatory but P.S. there will be cake” to a spontaneously created tune. Everyone laughed, and thus the seeds were planted in Spano’s musically inclined brain for what would eventually evolve into “Corporate America, The Musical.”
Spano used her vast knowledge of corporate shenanigans to write this original musical with music from Marisa Horak and the steady directorial hand of Mt. Lebanon resident and veteran Pittsburgh actor Tressa Glover. “Corporate America, The Musical” will be performed exclusively on Sunday and Aug. 27 at The Linden Grove in Castle Shannon. Tickets are available for $20 via retrored.net.
“If someone would have told me 10 years ago I would’ve been doing this, I would’ve never believed them,” Spano told the Post-Gazette. “I have no words. I’m just thrilled beyond belief ... that people are interested in seeing it.”
These days, Spano works as a marketing specialist for a commercial real estate company. Her passion for theater came later in life and was spurred on by Glover, who Spano met in 2015 and immediately clocked as “somebody I’d like to get to know.” She ended up in an acting class taught by Glover, who despite being on strike with SAG-AFTRA has stayed busy thanks to theater projects like this and her “Yinz Are Good” podcast that is set to put out its 100th episode on Aug. 21.
“Yinz Are Good” was launched as an excuse for Glover to highlight positive stories of Pittsburghers making their communities better. She still records “Yinz Are Good” installments from an entry closet in her house that she transformed into a studio and has “so much gratitude for all of the guests and people I’ve met along the way” since the podcast’s inception in summer 2020.
Glover was more than happy to help Spano out with “Corporate America, The Musical,” which features a seven-person cast that includes Spano and local creatives Jeanne Donovic, Andrew Mours, Emily Shawgo, Nancy Shawgo, Katy Williams and Corey Nile Wingard. It follows a nameless woman (Spano) attempting “to get through the craziness of a corporate takeover,” which happens to be the exact scenario Spano was experiencing while writing this story.
“Corporate America, The Musical” has been in the works since late 2015, according to Spano. Inspiration wasn’t hard to find in her own work life, like how she turned the realization that someone had left a pair of stilettos in an office donation bin into the song “Stilettos for the Homeless.” Others also had thoughts on what other elements of corporate culture were ripe for parody.
“Whenever I tell someone I’m doing a corporate America musical, everyone has stories to tell me,” Spano said. “I’m happy to hear them.”
When she finished writing “Corporate America, The Musical” in 2016, Spano found herself with a lot of songs that needed music. She was eventually connected with Horak, who set her lyrics to melodies, and Steve Cuden, a Pittsburgh-based playwright who kindly critiqued her first real attempt at getting a musical from page to stage. In 2019, Spano approached Glover to help smooth out the show’s rougher edges and, eventually, direct the whole thing.
“Being part of this creative process and being with the person whose idea is coming to fruition, I just feel really lucky to be a part of it,” Glover said. “It’s a really wonderful experience and as an artist, I feel this is what we should be doing. We should be encouraging each other and helping each other in any way that we can.”
Folks attending either showing of “Corporate America, The Musical” will be able to grab a full dinner off The Linden Grove’s menu while also being treated to a full two-act musical featuring Spano’s riffs on the kind of “hot-air jargon” ubiquitous to corporate offices and her pointed commentary on how companies like these sometimes (and often unintentionally) “become a circus.”
Though Glover has been a part of new shows debuting in Western Pennsylvania before, “Corporate America, The Musical” was her first time in the director’s chair on a musical premiering in her own backyard. She suspects that this production will help a lot of folks realize that they’re “not alone in their feelings” about the things they’ve experienced while working in similar professional environments.
“You go to see a show, even if the characters are wildly different from you, there’s always something in it that you’re going to connect with,” Glover said. “With that said, this show in particular is going to be relatable for a whole lot of people.”
Spano said that her goal was to use corporate America as “the vehicle to tell the story” about a woman “who is afraid to hit F7,” she said in reference to a document-saving shortcut in WordPerfect software. Her character’s journey involves grappling with nostalgia for the way things were while finding “the courage to hit F7, close her document and move on with her life,” Spano said.
In Spano’s ideal world, though, audiences would have to follow the corporate playbook when it comes to checking out “Corporate America, The Musical.”
“It’s mandatory,” she deadpanned before also facetiously adding: “P.S. There will be cake.”
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jaxelburgh.
First Published: August 17, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: August 17, 2023, 5:58 p.m.
