The Forty Hour Club

About the Artist

The Forty Hour Club
A COMMITMENT TO COMMUNITY THROUGH THEATER.

Founded by Playwright and Director Michael Gorman and a collective of independent artists, The Forty Hour Club is a production company based in Rockland, Maine dedicated to creating productions that ask the question “To what consequence?” The productions focus on the economic, environmental and systemic challenges facing working communities, and the paramount issue of sustainability.

Formed by artists drawn predominantly from the trades, The Forty Hour Club embraces the collaborative spirit of the job-site to tackle major issues and bring an authentic working world perspective to the stage. A true reflection of the adage “No job too big or too small”, The Forty Hour Club’s productions have graced stages as lofty as The Ellen Stewart Theater at La MaMa in NYC, where Gorman is also a playwright in residence, to the gritty loading docks of The Commercial Fish Exchange in Portland, Maine, and every level in between.

Through its unique working class identity and direct physical approach, The Forty Hour Club seeks to frame a window into our nation’s deep economic and cultural divide and open a portal into the “Phantom World” of rural America. At its heart, the work explores the phenomenon of invisibility—that there is a whole class and culture of people among us, that feels, for all intents and purposes, invisible—the addicted, the imprisoned, and the abandoned members of our disenfranchised working communities.

Of timely importance is The Forty Hour Club’s epic ongoing project “Chasing the New White Whale—Harpooning Addiction”—an evolving series of environmental installations, readings, presentations, and performances that addresses the opiate crisis in commercial fishing communities in New England. Working with community members in recovery and groups from prisoner re-entry programs, the project serves as a creative tool for restorative justice and healing. As an innovative “Arts and Advocacy” model, the project has the capacity to resonate on a much larger National and International level, and we are currently planning a tour that will include the historic fishing port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, as well as scheduled locations in Maine.

In addition to the company’s theatrical and advocacy work, The Forty Hour Club is also currently developing a documentary film based on Mike’s decades long dedication to writing about and presenting work about addiction, as well as other related projects.