JOB

by Max Wolf Friedlich

A Mockingbird Too production

Director: Zac Bridgman

Season: 15-19 September, 2026 at The Mockingbird Studio, Belconnen Arts Centre

The performance will run for approximately 80 minutes with no interval

MOCKINGBIRD’S 31st PRODUCTION

By Arrangement with ORiGiN™ Theatrical, on behalf of RIGHTS HOLDER

Synopsis

EVERY CLICK HAS CONSEQUENCES.

A gripping psychological thriller that will leave you questioning everything you think you know.

Jane has been suspended from work. Before she can return, she must undergo a mandatory assessment with a therapist determined to uncover the truth.

What follows is anything but straightforward.

Written by acclaimed playwright Max Wolf Friedlich, Job transforms a seemingly ordinary conversation into a breathtaking psychological duel where every question becomes a weapon and every answer raises the stakes.

Funny, unnerving and relentlessly suspenseful, Job is one of the most talked-about new plays of recent years. It holds a mirror to our hyper-connected world, exploring online identity, cancel culture, surveillance, artificial intelligence, corporate responsibility and the fragile line between our digital and real selves.

An unforgettable theatrical experience that grips from its opening moments and tightens relentlessly until its astonishing conclusion. Provocative, intelligent and deeply unsettling, Job will leave audiences arguing long after they leave the theatre.

“A slick, cleverly crafted drop-tower ride.” — Vulture

“Muscle-tensing and entertaining.” ★★★★ — The Guardian

This production of Job contains strong language, discussions of mental health, workplace trauma, psychological manipulation, and references to suicide, violence, online extremism, and disturbing digital content. The play explores themes that some audience members may find confronting. Viewer discretion is advised.

From the Director:

JOB is a play about what happens when work becomes something much more than work. When Jane is suspended from her job at a major tech company, she is sent to a crisis therapist, Loyd, who must decide whether she is fit to return. What begins as a professional assessment quickly becomes something far more complicated. Questions of mental health give way to questions of identity, morality, technology, and power, until neither character can quite tell who is assessing whom.

Written by Max Wolf Friedlich, JOB first premiered Off-Broadway before transferring to Broadway in 2024, where its sharp, unsettling exploration of modern work and our relationship with the internet found an audience far beyond the small room in which it began. Funny, uncomfortable, and increasingly unpredictable, the play refuses to offer easy answers. Instead, it asks us to consider what happens when our work becomes inseparable from our identity, and when the digital world we inhabit begins to shape how we understand ourselves and one another.

What particularly drew me to JOB is the way it constantly shifts the ground beneath the audience. Just when you think you understand one character, something changes. Just when you think you know who has the power, that power moves somewhere else. The play asks you to listen closely, make judgements, and then question those judgements almost immediately. Our production embraces that intimacy. With only two actors and a single room, there is nowhere for the audience to hide and nowhere for the characters to hide either. The tension lives in the smallest things: a pause, a look, a change in distance, a sentence delivered slightly differently. As someone with a background in film, I love that theatricality. There is no camera to tell you where to look. The audience becomes the camera, choosing what matters and constantly editing the scene in their own minds.

Working with Richard Manning and Jayde Dowhy has been an absolute privilege. Their intelligence, generosity, and willingness to take risks have been essential to discovering the strange and often contradictory people at the heart of this story. JOB demands enormous precision while leaving room for genuine unpredictability, and watching them navigate that balance has been one of the great joys of this production.

We would be absolutely lost without the extraordinary support of the people behind the scenes. Anna Hemmings has provided both invaluable Assistant Direction and a frankly heroic amount of motherly care throughout the process. Riley Winnett has brought the world of the play to life through thoughtful and atmospheric lighting design, while Aoife McFoley has provided the calm, steady operating that keeps everything moving when the rest of us are inevitably making things more complicated than they need to be. And of course, Christopher Baldock has once again been an enormous part of the process, designing the set, guiding the production, and continuing his long-standing role as my directing sensei. I would not be the director I am without his patience, wisdom, and willingness to teach me everything he knows.

Most of all, I hope JOB leaves you entertained, unsettled, and perhaps questioning a few things you thought you knew. I don’t need everyone to leave with the same interpretation. In fact, I’d much rather you argue about it afterwards.

“The internet is a place. And we are citizens of it.”

— Zachery Bridgman, Director

CAST:

Richard Manning as Loyd

Jayde Dowhy as Jane

PRODUCTION TEAM:

Director: Zac Bridgman

Assistant Director: Anna Hemmings

Producer: Chris Baldock

Lighting Design: Rhiley Winnett and Zac Bridgman

Sound Design: Rhiley Winnett, Anna Hemming with Chris Baldock

Set Design and Realisation: Chris Baldock

Stage Manager, Lighting and Sound Operation: Aoife McFoley

Costumes: Cast

Photography: Chris Baldock

FOR MOCKINGBIRD THEATRICS:

Artistic Director & Head Tutor: Chris Baldock

Technical Manager: Rhiley Winnett

Company Stage Manager: Aoife McFoley

Publicity, Graphics and Photography: Chris Baldock

Associate Directors: Zac Bridgman, Steph Evans, Céline Oudin

THANKS TO:

Paul Portelli & the Belconnen Arts Centre staff, Nick Fuller & Canberra Daily,

Helen Musa & CityNews, Goodwin Village Ainslie, Australian Federal Police

MOCKINGBIRD SUPPORTERS:

Season Supporter: Sarah Byrne & Peter McDonald, Anonymous, Paul Sweeney

Season Patron: Liz St Clair Long

Director – Zachery Bridgman

From a young age, Zac knew he was destined to overthink absolutely everything. Fortunately, directing theatre has proven to be a socially acceptable outlet for this tendency.

An obsessive of film, theatre, and all things creative, Zac spent much of his childhood lost in imagined worlds before eventually finding his way back to them through Mockingbird Theatre Company. Over the past five years he has been fortunate to grow as both an actor and director under the endlessly patient guidance of Christopher Baldock, who continues to teach him things he probably should have figured out by now.

Previous directing credits for Mockingbird include Fully Committed, The Drawer Boy, Almost, Maine, and a showcase production of Every Brilliant Thing. He most recently directed Mike Bartlett’s C*CK, a stylised psychological drama performed in a boxing ring as part of Mockingbird Too’s companion season alongside BULL.

He now turns his attention to Max Wolf Friedlich’s JOB, bringing another psychologically charged two-hander to the stage, this time exploring work, technology, identity, and the increasingly complicated relationship between the human brain and the internet.

Alongside theatre, Zac has directed, written, and acted in numerous award-winning short films, including DEAD, Till Undeath, They’re Ready For You, and The Death of Me, in which he displayed admirable restraint by portraying only a mildly exaggerated version of himself: an overly ambitious theatre director.

As an actor, Zac has performed in productions including When the Rain Stops Falling, proving that his apparently endless interest in emotionally complicated people extends in both directions.

He is delighted to continue working with Mockingbird Theatre Company and to bring JOB to the stage with Richard Manning and Jayde Dowhy. He would happily accept full responsibility for whatever happens over the next 80 minutes. He would, however, like it noted for the record that the characters made their own decisions.

Assistant Director – Anna Hemmings

Anna Hemmings has been Assistant Director on 3 different Mockingbird Theatre productions this year, all under the directorship of Zac. She has enjoyed getting to understand and appreciate all the behind the scenes work required to put a show on and working with a range of talented actors. Anna is also looking forward to getting on stage later this year in Face to Face and Posh

Loyd – Richard Manning

Richard has been involved in various creative endeavours over a number of years. But only since retiring in 2018 has he ventured to the top of the stage.

Since then, he has played: Clyde Cameron in the Peter Wilkins play A Deadly Game of Marbles performed at Old Parliament House; Capulet in Will’s Romeo and Juliet for REP; Ray in Brendan Cowell’s Ruben Guthrie for Wander Theatre (for which he was nominated for a 2023 Ovations Outstanding Supporting Performance award); Alan in Mary Rachel Brown’s Rosieville for CYT. He played as Lord Burleigh in the Kate Mulvaney adaption of Friedrich Schiller’s Mary Stuart for Chaika Theatre; Steve in August – Osage County for Free Rain Theatre; Ed in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Morgan in The Drawer Boy (for which he won a CAT Best Actor in a Featured Role Award) and Richard Burbage in Shakespeare in Love for Mockingbird Theatre. He played Bishop Thiel in Ferdinand von Schirach’s GOD with Mill Theatre and also Badger in their live radio play of Wind in the Willows. Richard is very pleased to be working with Mockingbird again as Loyd in Job.

Now let’s also talk about golf! I was on the first tee, slight dogleg left par 5, wind hurting and quartering from the right…….

Jane – Jayde Dowhy

Jayde found her love for performing at a very young age, and with a background in dance, she is no stranger to the stage. She has since found her biggest passion in acting and has remained enamoured with it ever since.

Early in her acting journey, she played the greedy, corrupt Sheriff in Rockin’ Robin and the fabulously dramatic Sharpay in High School Musical. Jayde later made Mockingbird Studios her acting home in 2021, performing in the play Every Brilliant Thing, numerous monologues in showcases and being awarded Student of the Year in 2024. Jayde continues to engross herself in the rewarding challenge of finding truth and realism in every piece she portrays.

Jayde has since played Younger Gabrielle in the gorgeous play When the Rain Stops Falling (CAT Award nomination for Supporting Actress in a Play), Linda in Snatches: Moments from 100 Years of Women’s Lives, and brought her wackiness and quirks to life as #13 in The Wolves, which won Best Ensemble at the CAT Awards in 2025. She also took on multiple characters in the ensemble cast of Almost, Maine and immersed herself in film, portraying the devious, confident and cunning Daphne Flynn in the Lights Canberra Action award-winning short film They’re Ready for You as well as Sydney, an actress and writer, in the award-winning short film AVA.