The Consultant
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CompWare is in serious trouble after a promised merger falls through, so they do what other businesses have done to bolster their public image: they hire a consulting firm to review and streamline their business practices.
But thereâs something strange about the firm they hireâmore specifically, the quirky gentleman who arrives to supervise the project: Mr. Patoff, tall and thin and wearing a bow tie and with an odd smile that never quite reaches his eyes.
In his first interactions, the consultant asks inappropriate questions and generally seems a nuisance. Over time, Patoff gains power to the point where he seems to be running the whole company. He enacts arbitrary and invasive changes to office protocol; he places cameras all over the building, causing paranoia among the workers; he calls employees at all hours of the night; and he visits some of their homes and menaces their families. People who defy the consultant get fired ... or worse. The employees of CompWare soon realize theyâre not just fighting for their jobs: theyâre fighting for their lives.
The Consultant is a biting workplace satire with the horrific touches only Bentley Little could provide.
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Bentley Little is the author of numerous novels, short stories, articles, essays, and reviews. After earning a BA in communications and an MA in English, he sold his soul and abandoned all artistic integrity, working for eight years as a bureaucrat for a midsized city in Orange County, California. His first novel, The Revelation, won the 1990 Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award for best first novel. A Luddite with no access to the internet, he still listens to vinyl records and does not own a cell phone, an iPod, an MP3 player, or a Blackberry. He has one wife and one son.
Ramiz Monsef has spent several seasons as a member of Oregon Shakespeare Festivalâs acting company, and he is the playwright of OSFâs 2013 production The Unfortunates. He has also appeared onstage in New York and in numerous regional productions.
