7 Minutes

DESCRIPTION

Based on actual events, 7 Minutes depicts an urgent meeting of the 11 women and gender non-conforming folx elected to the union council of their rural Connecticut textile factory. Changes at the factory seem inevitable when new owners take over, giving the council only 90 minutes to vote on a decision with serious consequences for everyone at the factory. Tempers flare and anxieties boil over as individual needs, perspectives and suspicions vie for position while the clock runs down.

A razor-sharp portrait of unionized factory workers grappling in real time with the power imbalance they depend on for their very livelihoods, 7 Minutes scrutinizes the individual impact of the economic forces and labor practices currently under debate in the United States. Best known in New York for his acclaimed play The Lehman Trilogy – a searing study in the unfettered pursuit of wealth by early captains of American industry – Massini tracks in 7 Minutes the lasting effects of the capitalist system they helped build on the workers of today, who bear the brunt of ever-tightening productivity demands and decades of government policy and business interest weakening the labor movement.

In June 2022, a staged reading of the production was performed at the 2022 Labor Notes Conference in Chicago.