How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (La Jolla Playhouse)

A satire of big business and all it holds sacred, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying follows the rise of J. Pierrepont Finch, who uses a little handbook called How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying to climb the corporate ladder from lowly window washer to high-powered executive, tackling such familiar but potent dangers as the aggressively compliant “company man,” the office party, backstabbing coworkers, caffeine addiction and, of course, true love.

Susan Hilferty on How to Succeed…

In the opening we wanted to create an anonymous community of worker bees entering the high rise building where window-washer J. Pierrepont Finch (Matthew Broderick) will quickly cut through the three-button suit ranks to emerge as CEO. I put all of the men in their gray suits-the uniform of the 1960 businessman-but I allowed the women to retain their individuality yet to appear as a group by making it rain and having the secretaries don variations of a yellow slicker.