Preview
Identifier
9to5Playbill_Page_11
Creation Date
2-26-2026
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Theatre and Performance Studies
Description
FROM THE DIRECTOR - Dallas Martinez
9 to 5 has long been celebrated as a sharp, fast-moving comedy with a generous heart. Beneath the jokes, disguises, and audacious fantasy of workplace revenge, however, lies a musical that continues to ask an essential question. How do power, perception, and voice operate inside the spaces where we spend so much of our lives?
In approaching this production, I was drawn to the idea of illusion. The illusion of authority. The illusion of helplessness. The illusion that people are exactly who they present themselves to be. Hart may read today as a caricature, yet his behavior is rooted in structures that once openly rewarded entitlement, silence, and unchecked authority. While policies have evolved and conversations have shifted, the patterns that enable inequity have not disappeared. They have learned new disguises.
What remains deeply resonant is not simply the defeat of one bad boss, but the awakening of three women who begin to see themselves differently. Their journey is less about punishment and more about possibility. Possibility for agency. Possibility for dignity. Possibility for imagining workplaces built on respect rather than fear, where no one is reduced to a body, a stereotype, or silence, and where dignity is not conditional.
Our production embraces the musical’s buoyant humor and unapologetic theatricality, while also inviting reflection. If 9 to 5 once functioned as a rallying cry, perhaps today it serves as a reminder. Progress is real. Progress is incomplete. And progress requires vigilance.
Publisher
Arkansas State University
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Playbill
Keywords
Dolly Parton, workplace, musical, broadway production
