Somewhere deep inside the cubicle labyrinth, the meeting has started. Nobody knows why they’re there, the PowerPoint doesn’t make sense, the language is mutating into corporate gobbledygook, and someone is mainlining coffee through an IV drip. Welcome to “Mandatory Meeting.”
The electro-punk performance piece created by Beacon musician Ryan L. Havers lands at Clutter Toy Gallery inside the KuBe Art Center on March 21, bringing a staged office environment, noise-drenched electronics, and a cast of dutiful corporate drones into what Havers describes as an immersive meltdown of modern work culture.
If that sounds oddly familiar, that’s the point.
For two decades, Havers worked inside the machinery of corporate America. He spent nearly 20 years at SiriusXM, starting as an intern and working his way up through the ranks. Like many people who land in the city with ambition and a scholarship in their pocket, he initially embraced the grind. “I come from a blue-collar background—farmers and carpenters,” Havers says. “So when I got to New York City I was like, this is amazing. I can make a living here, I can build a life.”
But the climb eventually became a treadmill. The hours grew longer, the staffing thinner, the expectations heavier. “You care, you work hard, and they just keep piling more work on you,” he says. “You’re doing 12-hour days, weekends, everything. And it never plateaus.”
Photo: Jesse DeStasio and Jonathan Emmett
By the time he left the company in 2022, the experience had begun to take a toll. Havers—who is also in recovery from addiction—found himself questioning the culture he had spent so long navigating. “I started asking, ‘Why can’t I make this work?’” he says. “’Is something wrong with me?’ But eventually I realized maybe the system itself is broken.”
Like many musicians processing life’s wreckage, he turned to songwriting. What came out were furious, absurdist songs about office life, corporate jargon, and the strange psychological theater of the modern workplace.
Those songs became the foundation for “Mandatory Meeting.”
The project began almost accidentally. A Beacon show slot opened up when a band dropped out, and a friend asked Havers if he could fill the bill. With only a week to prepare—and no band assembled—he leaned into the concept. “I thought, well, these songs are about office life,” he says. “So I’ll just set up like I’m working in an office.”
He hauled a computer monitor, keyboard, and Mac Mini onto the stage and built a set around the idea of a corporate meeting gone sideways. Conference-call recordings played between songs. PowerPoint presentations spiraled into nonsense. Corporate jargon metastasized into lyrics.
By the end of the night, the show’s booker had a new label for it. “He said, ‘This is performance art,’” Havers recalls. “And I was like—yeah, I guess it is.”
Since then the piece has evolved into something more elaborate and more chaotic. For the Beacon performance, Havers is joined by co-producer Jonny Taylor and performers Elissa Betterbid, Harrison Cannon, Erin Giunta, and John Giunta, who play office workers dutifully going about their day while the protagonist unravels around them. “They’re just trying to do their jobs,” Havers explains. “Meanwhile I’m having this meltdown.”
The action unfolds inside a cubicle world populated by fictional meetings, corrupted Zoom calls, and PowerPoint slides for a ludicrous initiative called “Project Changewidge,” a bureaucratic crusade to improve corporate language by making it even worse.
Throughout the show, the office worker’s inner life spills out through music—part electro-punk noise set, part nervous breakdown.
There’s also food involved. Lots of it. “If you’ve ever worked corporate jobs, you know you’re eating lunch at your desk,” Havers says. “So there’s moments where I’m stuffing food into my mouth and basically choking on it.”
Audience reactions have been… varied. Some viewers find it cathartic. Others laugh hysterically. A few emerge baffled. “I’ve had people say it’s the best show they’ve seen in years,” Havers says. “And I’ve had people say they hated it.”
For Havers, that’s the goal. After decades of playing conventional band shows where audiences politely nod along, he’s found something more interesting in provoking a response. “Any reaction is good,” he says. “If people feel something—anger, laughter, confusion—that means it’s working.”
Before and after the performance, DJ A. Netboy will spin sets, while proceeds from the show will benefit Fuerza Newburgh, a volunteer-led organization supporting the Latino community. Industrial Arts Brewing is sponsoring the event.
And if the whole thing ends with a mild stage demolition and a room full of bewildered office workers? Consider it the most productive meeting of the week.
EVENT DETAILS
What: “A Mandatory Meeting” by Ryan L. Havers
Where: Clutter Toy Gallery, KuBe Art Center, Beacon
When: March 21 at 7pm
Featuring: Ryan L. Havers, Jonny Taylor, Elissa Betterbid, Harrison Cannon, Erin Giunta, John Giunta
Music: DJ A. Netboy before and after the show
Beneficiary: Proceeds donated to Fuerza Newburgh
Sponsor: Industrial Arts Brewing
Tickets available via this link.
