Working

Oral historian Studs Terkel conducted interviews with over a hundred people in the early '70s in which he talked with them about their jobs -- what they did all day, what their work meant to them, and how it made them feel. The result was a best-selling book called Working, and in 1978 composer Stephen Schwartz helped to adapt Terkel's book into a theater piece, which used songs and monologues to express the thoughts and frustrations of the ordinary people with whom Terkel had spoken. Working is a television adaptation of the play, produced for PBS in 1982, which features performances by Rita Moreno, James Taylor, Patti LaBelle, Barbara Hershey, Barry Bostwick, Scatman Crothers, and Charles Durning.