Flippin' In, and, Then and Now

Brenda Baltensperger is a playwright, a director of children’s
theatre, an editor of children’s fiction, and the author of Fractured
Fairy-tales.

Flippin’ In is a deftly paced play about a fast-food franchise outlet
and five of its employees: three high-school students, a school dropout
who is a single parent, and a new immigrant. To improve working
conditions, the employees attempt to start a union, only to be
outsmarted by their unscrupulous manager. When they lose the vote to
unionize, the manager returns to her old system and the workers find
themselves worse off than ever. The dialogue in this play is clever and
rings true, and the social message is clearly conveyed.

In Then and Now, four characters—two French and two English—are
sucked into a virtual reality game, similar to Star Trek, in a computer
that is intent on assimilating them, eliminating the French–English
conflict, and acquainting anglophone students with the need for
francophone rights. As the characters are taken back through history,
conflicts and battles between the French, English, and Natives are
highlighted and at times compared with present-day political events and
attitudes. This is a cleverly paced play, but the multiple historical
characters taken on by the actors could be potentially confusing to an
audience.

Flippin’ In is highly recommended. Then and Now is recommended.