The Yale Club of Hartford cordially invites you to a streaming production of Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy on Monday, November 2, 2020 at 7:30 pm. Although the theater is dark, we can still watch an online version together. In addition, TheaterWorks has arranged a “Talk Back” discussion via Zoom immediately following the show with Co-Directors Jared Mezzocchi and Elizabeth Williamson. Tickets are $20.20 to watch through the TheaterWorks online platform, and we suggest an additional contribution of $20 in appreciation of the Talk Back discussion. To order, click here or use the button below. Additional ticket options and more details are below.
We look forward to "seeing you" on Nov. 2!
Here is what critics are saying...
Russian Troll Farm starts seven months before the 2016 election and moves chronologically forward to Election Day. The first of the four acts is the longest and most entertaining, most deserving of the play’s subtitle, A Workplace Comedy. Gancher introduces the five office workers, and cleverly reveals their conventional office dynamics and petty intrigue, despite the unconventional job they’re doing.
The five characters in Russian Troll Farm might be invented, but the innocuous-sounding Internet Research Agency where they work, in an office building in St. Petersburg, actually exists. Through fake news, incendiary memes and outrageous conspiracy theories manufactured by dummy social media posts, the Russian company tried to sow discord in the U.S. and get Trump elected in 2016…The play is also intelligent, well-acted, well-designed, and imaginatively staged online.
- Jonathan Mandell, DC Theatre Scene
Our ability to care about people as awful as these says a lot about human susceptibility to the emotional manipulation the trolls practice, and more than I care to admit about similar uses of theater itself. But it’s just that kind of insight that makes Gancher’s play so urgent, smart and chewy… “Russian Troll Farm” is one of the first new full-length plays I’ve seen since theater moved online that is rewarding as a text, makes the most of excellent actors and approaches full engagement with the new, hybrid form.
- Jesse Green, The New York Times
To purchase tickets for the live stream on Monday, Nov. 2 at 7:30 pm,
click here or on the button below. Yale Club members will receive special pricing of $20.20 with no additional service fee, and an invitation to the Talk Back discussion. We suggest adding an additional contribution of $20 to demonstrate your appreciation of the extra Talk Back discussion. Instructions for participation in both events will be emailed to you. Streaming of the performance will be through the TheaterWorks website. Post-performance Talk Back discussion will start around 10 pm through Zoom.
If you are already a TheaterWorks member and will watch the performance through your existing membership account, you can still register for the Talk Back discussion by clicking here or on the button below or by sending an email to Josh Demers at TheaterWorks at josh@twhartford.org. The Talk Back discussion will start around 10 pm through Zoom.
If you cannot participate at 7:30 pm on November 2, you can still stream Russian Troll Farm at any time through November 9 for the regular TheaterWorks pricing of $20.20 plus $3 service fee by clicking here or by clicking the button below or by going to their website at https://twhartford.org. You can still register for the Talk Back discussion by sending an email to Josh Demers at TheaterWorks at josh@twhartford.org. Streaming of the performance will be through the TheaterWorks website. Post-performance Talk Back discussion will start around 10 pm through Zoom.
Additional Critical Acclaim for Russian Troll Farm
They’re a team that might have been put together from a sitcom template: the sad-sack manager, the snappish supergeek, the handsome wolf, the gruff supervisor and the bright-eyed newcomer. Together in their cramped quarters they banter, flirt, scheme and celebrate.
But these are not characters fromThe OfficeorThe Mary Tyler Moore Show…they are the five “trolls” inRussian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy, Sarah Gancher’s trenchant new play about state-sponsored interference in the 2016 presidential election… and are, like the employees of Dunder Mifflin and WJM-TV, just doing their jobs.
- Jesse Green, The New York Times
TheaterWorks' tricked-up “Russian Troll Farm” rushes to relevance with a pre-election panic of wild internet posts, personal revelations and all the stuff you expect from good theater. Despite a lot of technical flourishes, “Russian Troll Farm” feels like in-your-face live theater. You can see the actors sweat. Their constant swearing and anxiety is unfiltered in real time.
- Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant
In 2016, playwright Sarah Gancher started to notice tweets with strange misspellings, and odd comments showing up on her Facebook feed. When she later read about the Internet Research Agency, it all made sense. "I realized that there's this whole building full of people in St. Petersburg where there are people that are paid to sit there and write fake news and to write Facebook posts and create memes," she says. "Their job is to pretend to be different people, to stage fights. They're essentially playwrights. They have my job." So, Gancher, who's a fan of workplace comedies, started to create a play, both dark and funny, that imagines the lives of five people who work on the troll farm.
With COVID-19 making physical productions impossible, the creators have conceived the play for Zoom – but not in the typical Brady Bunch boxes. While the five actors are in front of lights and cameras in their apartments, co-director and multimedia designer Jared Mezzocchi is creating the illusion that they're all sharing the same space, whether in the office, or in some fantasy realm. "It's a blend of filmmaking strategies, television strategies and theater strategies," he says. "And I think the easiest way to explain it is we're using Zoom as a multi-monitor system to be pulling from, like a TV studio would, of multi-cameras."
- Jeff Lunden, All Things Considered, National Public Radio
