2014–2025 · 53rd New York Film Festival — The Elinor Bunin Film Center
Temping
Somewhere in a filing cabinet in Delaware or Indiana, there is a table that shows how long we’re expected to live. Most of us will never see it. But what if your job was to update these tables, to record the beginnings and ends of thousands of lives? What if you found the formula to predict your own lifespan?
Sarah Jane Tully, a 53-year-old actuary, is taking her first vacation in years, and you’ve been hired to cover for her. TEMPING, the strange and comic tale of an employee’s inner life, is performed for an audience of one by a Windows PC, a corporate phone, a laser printer, and the Microsoft Office Suite. Filling in at Sarah Jane’s cubicle, you’ll update client records, send emails, and eavesdrop on intra-office romance. Each performance is unique, depending on which tasks you accomplish and which of your co- workers you decide to trust.
Congratulations, you’re the new temp! Get ready to work. With no live performers, the piece interacts with the single audience member and challenges them with themes of human interaction through technology, isolation, and death. Contrasting the anonymity of an Excel spreadsheet with furtive moments of human intimacy, Temping brings you deep into the heart of corporate America.
Presentations
- 2015
- 53rd New York Film Festival — The Elinor Bunin Film Center · New York
- 2015
- University of Maryland
- 2016
- The Future of Storytelling Festival · New York
- 2017
- American Repertory Theater · Cambridge, Massachusetts
- 2019
- Mediating Performance Experiences — University of Ottawa · Ottawa, Canada
- 2020
- Dutch Kills Theater Company and The Wild Project · New York
- 2021
- Ann Arbor Summer Festival · Ann Arbor, Michigan
- 2022
- Edinburgh Festival Fringe — Assembly · Edinburgh, Scotland
- 2023
- Electric Dreams — Adelaide Fringe · Adelaide, Australia
- 2023
- Edinburgh Festival Fringe — Assembly · Edinburgh, Scotland
- 2024
- Edinburgh Festival Fringe — Assembly · Edinburgh, Scotland
- 2025
- Welt/Bühne Festival — Residenztheater · Munich, Germany
- Writer
- Michael Yates Crowley
- Playwright
- Michael Yates Crowley
- Design
- Asa Wember
- Producer
- Chas Carey
- Director
- Michael Rau
- Scenic Design
- Sara C. Walsh
- Operators
- Julia Cavagna, Sophie Crockett, Anne Dyas Little, Jack McGuire, Charlotte McPherson, Levi Morger, Alley Scott, Alec Silver, and Asa Wember
- Photo
- Michael Rau
Code and Technical Projects
Press
“Es ist eine sehr nahegehende Erfahrung.”
“One of the best shows of the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.”
“Extraordinarily interesting and strangely fun.”
“This is one you shouldn’t miss.”
“Immersive, innovative, thought-provoking – temping is live performance as you have never experienced it before.”
“Glimpses of human frailty punctuate the mundane office routine, and seemingly simple tasks trigger moving reflections on the lives of strangers and one’s own mortality… Temping is intriguing, amusing and surprisingly thought-provoking. To say much more would be a breach of workplace confidentiality!”
“temping. is a singular experience in that there is no audience and no live performance. It’s simply you, in an office, getting on with the job. It may sound tedious on the surface, but Michael Yates Crowley has written a surprisingly fun, funny and emotionally deep immersive experience and, under the smooth direction of Michael Rau, it comes to life at a controlled but engaging pace… There’s unlikely to be anything else like temping. this season and nor should there be, because when the seemingly frivolous turns profound, it deserves to stand out.”
“An intriguing mystery.”
“Temping is like nothing else I’ve seen at the Edinburgh Fringe.”
“An amusing satire of office politics and a moving meditation on mortality.”
“Jewel-like… a quietly moving, slightly unsettling, miniature masterpiece of a show.”
“Aside from the beauty of its storytelling, Temping is near flawless in its execution.”