Get ready for a theatrical take on one of life’s most frustrating experiences—customer service. The Veri**on Play, written by Lisa Kron and directed by Susan Russell, will take the stage at Gettysburg College’s Kline Theatre this weekend.
This witty and thought-provoking production explores the universal agony of dealing with inefficient customer service, turning a mundane annoyance into an absurd and comically unsettling journey. Kron humorously suggests that, aside from birth and death, navigating customer service may be the only other truly universal human experience.
The play follows a character spiraling into a bureaucratic nightmare, echoing the real-life frustration of being trapped in an endless loop of automated responses and unhelpful support systems.
“This play takes a humorous but unsettling look at what happens when basic problem-solving turns into an endless, mind-numbing loop. It’s an attempt to make sense of a frustrating reality that so many of us have faced,” says playwright Lisa Kron.
Inspired by the real-life blog People Hurt by Badly Inadequate Customer Service, the play draws from true stories of customer service nightmares. “At first, these crazy experiences seem trivial,” Kron explains. “But they may also reveal something deeper about what’s happening in society.”
Having experienced a frustrating customer service ordeal herself, Kron channeled her aggravation into this darkly comedic and deeply relatable play.
Bringing the chaos to life, senior Nicholas Ryan has designed a visually compelling set, including a unique sculpture symbolizing the overwhelming absurdity of modern customer service. Meanwhile, senior actors Heather Stokes and Jonathan Drake will deliver performances that balance humor, tension, and emotional depth.
Director Susan Russell on Lisa Kron’s Impact
Director Susan Russell is thrilled to bring Kron’s work to the stage. “I’m a big fan of Lisa Kron—one of the founding members of the theater troupe The Five Lesbian Brothers and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Her plays are always packed with emotion, but laughter and joy always rise to the top,” Russell says.
Russell sees Kron’s work as an example of turning frustration into hope. “It’s easy for those of us with privilege to throw up our hands and feel powerless about the state of the world. Much harder is to ‘hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope,’ as Dr. King preached. Kron does just that—juggling that stone, skipping it across the water, and reminding us of the power of art to restore our faith in humanity.”
And a final warning from Russell: “There’s a lot of the ‘f’ word in the play, which makes sense—it’s about bad customer service.”
Performance Schedule
Thursday, Feb. 27 – 7:30 PM
Friday, Feb. 28 – 7:30 PM
Saturday, March 1 – 7:30 PM
Sunday, March 2 – 2:00 PM (Matinee)
Charles (Chuck) Stangor is Gettysburg Connection's Owner, Publisher, and Editor in Chief. I would like to hear from you. Please contact me at cstangor@gettysburgconnection.org.