THEATRE + COMEDY

Theatre Southwest presents Other People’s Money by Jerry Sterner.  Directed by Mimi Holloway.  Running April 9 through May 1.

Seemingly torn from today’s headlines, an amoral corporate raider schemes to take over a vulnerable company and throw everybody out of work, while romancing the lady lawyer bent on foiling his best-laid plans.

Other People's Money,  was a Broadway flop in the mid-'80s but has new relevance in the recent financial meltdown. It's essentially a Frank Capra story—good folks battling hollow-hearted scoundrels, complete with hopelessly old-fashioned dialogue, but with a contemporary gloss and a twist in its tail. Here the bad guy isn't nasty Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life but Larry "the Liquidator" Garfinkle, a heavyweight corporate raider who targets and dismembers companies that he considers are "worth more dead than alive."

His chosen prey is New England Wire and Cable, a publicly traded but community-minded business that is the main employer in a small Rhode Island town. Crusty old Mr. Jorgenson runs the firm the way it's been run for 73 years: conservatively. Faced with Garfinkle's high-tech assault, he turns to Kate Sullivan, a local girl turned savvy New York attorney who relishes the opportunity to go a few rounds with the champ.

Theatre Southwest is supported in part by grants from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance and from the Houston Endowment.