←Recommendations of Why Are You Like This? (The Audience Services Play)

The community of national & local readers for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in 2021 enthusiastically recommends WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS? as a Semi-Finalist at Playwrights Foundation out of 755 plays. We highly enjoyed this comedy (which is much needed right now!) and found it to be relatable to anyone who has worked customer service jobs. We were compelled by this play's promise centering global majority and LGBTQIA+ characters pushing back on white privilege. We hope this play is widely read, finds dedicated collaborators, and moves swiftly towards production. #BAPF2021

Hilarious and painfully real. This play needs to be on stage soon and often!!

Why Are You Like This? is bitingly funny. Sartre said Hell is other people and Bohannon proves it once again. I found myself laughing, cackling out loud while also recognizing myself in the situation. This is such an honest takedown of what it means to work in customer service. Underneath the humorous and sometimes absurd customer interactions we are met with folks swallowing their pride and dignity to survive in a world that doesn't respect their humanity who have to do so with a smile. Crack this play open along with your favorite beverage and get ready to laugh.

Bohannon writes an amazing cast of characters who are just trying to earn a living while navigating the never ending cycle of a call center. I watched through the character of Max's eyes contend with the relentless entitlement, privilege, and arrogance of the world flooding through their headset. A hilariously, refreshing reminder that the customer is not always right...in fact, they are usually never right.

Hoo boy, I've never worked in a call center (thankfully), but having done a number of front-of-house audience services jobs over the years, I related hard to this play. It nails the consistent indignities, baffling encounters, and strange camaraderie that these kinds of jobs create, anchored by a likable cast of characters. Now if only I could stop cringing from all the memories...

Funny, human, and so absolutely on point in the way it captures white privilege in action in customer service. Anyone who has ever had a comparable job will find their frustrations so clearly affirmed. Each human (callers included) is so well rendered and the atmosphere/location is a character in and of itself. The overall effect is of looking at a glorious and underrepresented cross-section of the working world, and the subtle and nuanced dramatic action is comprised of well-crafted small seismic shifts between people. A wonderful ensemble piece!

I love this play and cannot wait to see it on stage once that's possible. All of the characters are immediately recognizable and the humor throughout the play underscroes some incredibly deep character moments. I truly cannot recommend this play enough.

This is a hilarious look at privilege and capitalism with characters that scream to be embodied and enjoyed. I had a fantastic time watching a reading of this play on Zoom, and I know that on its feet Why Are You Like This? will play even funnier! The politics and pressurized atmosphere of an opera company call center is a brilliant setting for Bohannon's humor which is character-based and deep.