Scooter Pietsch's 'Windfall' Opens Bay Street's Summer Season

What would you do with a dollar and dream?

It’s safe to assume that most everyone fantasizes about winning the lottery at some point in their lives. But for those who toil away in unfulfilling jobs, the stakes can feel quite a bit higher — and when the boss is a tyrant, that dollar and a dream can come with a liberal dose of desperation as well.

The concept of money and what people will do in order to get their fair share of it is the premise behind “Windfall,” a new comedy currently enjoying its East Coast premiere at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor.

Written by Scooter Pietsch, the play follows a group of five office workers who pool their resources in order to bet on the lottery, with hopes of escaping the drudgery of their daily existence and a maniacal boss.

Pietsch is an Emmy-nominated composer, songwriter and TV producer. But he also is a playwright who recognizes a good story when he sees it.

Recently, he took time out from “Windfall” rehearsals in Manhattan to talk about the play, which is a concept that grew out of conversations he heard at a music studio where he worked.

“When the lotto would get to an astronomical number, the employees would get together and say, ‘We should all go in together and share the winnings,’” Pietsch recalled. “When it was only $5 million, we wouldn’t do it — it had to be ridiculous money.

“It started from that idea — greed and the question of what would you do if you have an opportunity to get money under any means possible?”

So Pietsch took the lotto pool premise and relocated it to middle America — specifically, an office in Columbus, Ohio — where a group of workers spend their day doing the most mundane task he could think of: computer data entry. To make their lives even more miserable, Pietsch subjects his hapless characters to an abusive boss named Glenn Brannon, played in the Bay Street production by Spencer Garrett.

“All the employees are living paycheck to paycheck. Their evil boss, Glenn, gets a lot of work out of them,” Pietsch explained. “Though in terrible physical shape, Glenn is probably in good financial shape. The others want to get out — they think the lotto will change their lives and that money is the answer to everything.”

But, of course, money may have the ability to make life better, but it rarely makes it less complicated. Soon, the darker perspective of the workers’ relationship emerges when cash is on the line.

“This play is about the quest for people who want money and how that predominates everything in media, and stories about people who are wealthy,” said Pietsch.

Directing Bay Street’s production of “Windfall” is Jason Alexander, best known as the Emmy-nominated actor who enjoyed a nine-year stint playing George Costanza in the hit television show “Seinfeld.” Though the play is new to Bay Street, it’s not new to Alexander, as he was at the helm as director for its world premiere run back in 2016 at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock.

When asked if there have been any alterations to the script since the Arkansas production, Alexander responded, in a phone interview, “There have been no major changes, but every production requires some tweakage — suddenly you find you need a line to cover a piece of business, or on one stage it takes three seconds to cross and another it takes 12 seconds, or you change a joke because the sensibility has changed.

“Every cast and production illuminates a play in a different way,” he added, “and you never do it the same way twice.”

When asked what sort of challenges this production poses and if he brings a specific directing philosophy to the job, Alexander noted, “I don’t know that I have a particular directing style. Every piece dictates its own needs.

“This play has a lot of movement and physical requirements. At Bay Street, we’re doing it in a three-quarter thrust theater — the audience is almost completely surrounding you — so the requirements of staging are different than when we did the play on a proscenium stage.”

The very fact of having already worked on a production of “Windfall” is illuminating, and both Pietsch and Alexander have an innate familiarity with the play that has now allowed them to build on what came before.

“We both understand the play more and are getting more out of it than we got before,” Pietsch noted. “It is a savage comedy and very funny — there’s a lot of great physical comedy, and there are a lot of great messages here. We dug deeper and balanced the comedy more — that comes from having done it before.”

Also different this time around is the cast, of course, and Pietsch notes that, on occasion, he will change a word or two if it makes for a better fit for the actor who is now playing a specific character.

“No actor is being asked, or should be asked, to do someone else’s performances,” Alexander added. “This group of six is totally different from the previous six. The worst thing for an actor is when someone replaces someone in a show, and the stage manager says, ‘Do exactly what the other guy did.’ That’s the best way to destroy creativity and disenfranchise someone’s work.”

For Garrett, who plays Glenn, the difficult boss in “Windfall,” being the bad guy on stage can really feel good.

“I play a lot of bad guys — I’ve played them most of my career,” Garrett admitted. “This is an amalgamation of every single bad guy rolled into one horrible person. It’s the most delicious character.”

Garrett is also fortunate in that he is being directed in this play by Alexander, an actor who brings the wealth of his own experience to the project and who knows all about the skills needed for a comedic ensemble.

“I’ve rediscovered a lot of my joy as an actor and I’m getting a master class from a comic actor,” said Garrett. “The greatest directors have all been actors, and Jason’s directed this before, so his instincts are spot on. He knows the tone and tenor and where it needs to crescendo or not — and I’m doing the best job I can listening to his wonderful insights.”

Alexander finds that ultimately, being an effective communicator is key to being an effective director, and having experience as an actor helps with that communication.

“The goal is to make the piece on the page happen as best you can on the stage,” he said. “How do you make an ensemble — take people of different backgrounds and approaches, and make a family?

“I speak the vocabulary of acting,” he added. “Every department has its own vocabulary. I’m a blithering idiot behind the camera, but for actors, I know their experience and can speak the same language. I think actors who direct and are at all articulate have a good time getting stories told.”

“Windfall,” by Scooter Pietsch, directed by Jason Alexander, began with previews on May 31. Opening night is Saturday, June 4, and the play runs through June 19 at Bay Street Theater on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor. The cast includes Spencer Garrett as Glenn Brannon, Ro Boddie as Galvan Kidd, Badia Farha as Kate Rearden, Abigail Isom as Hannah Higley, Talia Thiesfield as Jacqueline Vanderbilt and Dylan S. Wallach as Chris Hart. Tickets start at $49.99. Also available are mainstage subscriptions. Call 631-725-9500 or visit baystreet.org to purchase.