Bridget Quigg tests her techy audience's empathy with social queues game.
Bridget Quigg tests her techy audience’s empathy with social queues game.

“I think one of the unsung perks of working for a startup is the opportunity to pick your job title,” Seattle comedian Bridget Quigg told the audience at Theater Schmeater Friday night. “Engineers should be thinking, ‘Supreme Leader of Code Manipulation for the Dark Side.'”

She was ramping up for a round of the “Job Title Guessing Game” during her one-woman show, “Techlandia.” An audience member pulled slips of paper from three bowls and came up with some results that were comically close to the wacky titles you see floating around on startup business cards.

Bridget Quigg.
Bridget Quigg

“Strategic Craftsman for Quantified Architecture” and “Advanced Journeyman for Talent Direction” were a couple of the highlights.

Quigg performed in front of a full house at the intimate 50-person theater. She satirized everything from the ruthless competition among recruiters to land coveted engineers to founders who “work so hard you worry they might actually die.”

The show featured a combination of monologues, characters, songs, and satirical news videos. The digital marketers in the crowd got a particular kick out of her original song, “Just Click,” about using all manner of trickery to get people to engage online.

“It was fabulous,” said Gina Bremer, lead data analyst for PayScale. “It was a mirror into all of our lives. We have ladies from my company here and we could all relate to it in a great way.”

The show contained a few opening night stumbles but Quigg performed before a warm and forgiving audience. Her vignettes were punctuated by a tour of the fictional startup Big Bop Software, led by a perky recruiter character named Brenna. She introduced the audience to extroverted salespeople, violently unfriendly engineers, and other satirical characters around the office.

The tour was well-received but Quigg’s most resonant moments came when she dialed it back and addressed the audience as herself. In those simple monologues, she was able to tap into the funny, relatable, and at times absurd experience of working in the Seattle tech scene.

Quigg draws on 11 years of startup experience to roast the Seattle tech scene. Techlandia is her fifth one-woman show, though it’s the first to focus on the tech world. Also read our earlier interview with her.

“It was a lot of fun,” she said after opening night. “I feel like the audience was full of tech folks that liked being teased.”

Techlandia runs every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday through March 12. Tickets and more details are available here.

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