Legal Drama Raises Difficult Questions at Coconut Creek Arts Center

by Faran Fagen June 22, 2025

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Legal Drama Raises Difficult Questions at Coconut Creek Arts Center

Rick Prada, Ben Prayz, Carey Brianna Hart, Johnbarry Green in A Class Act.

A Class Act, Norman Shabel’s intriguing and timely play about the inner workings of our justice system, opened June 20 and runs through June 29 at the Township Center for the Performing Arts in Coconut Creek.

A major chemical company pours cancer-causing waste into the water supply, and a high-powered law firm brings a class action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of “the little people” – who might die from the poisonous water.

As the lawyers negotiate and decide whether to take a settlement or go to trial, it becomes increasingly unclear who is really winning. Who makes millions whether they win or lose? Which lawyers battle the best… or the worst? Who gets justice in the end? A Class Act examines a world in which greed pervades, the loyal suffer, and morality is always relative.

“When I originally wrote the play, we were all probably peripherally aware that there was poison being dumped in the world’s drinking waters by non-caring corporations whose only consideration was saving expenses in the production of their products,” Shabel said. “In fact, several years ago the Environmental Protection Agency warned that ‘forever chemicals’ found in our nation’s drinking water are more dangerous than previously thought, and by some estimates, this toxic family of chemicals can be found in the blood of nearly every person on our planet.”

Attorney-turned-author and playwright Shabel spent nearly 50 years as a trial and class action lawyer. He has drawn upon his experience to fashion a ‘pulled from the headlines’ look at what goes on in corporate America, in courtrooms, and behind the scenes. A Class Act received strong reviews when it played Off-Broadway in 2016.

“Courts are inherently dramatic places, and I guess I saw that connection between law and theater before I even realized it,” he said. “A Class Act depicts the dramatically war-like negotiations between those corporate non-caring pollution perpetrators and the lawyers who represent the dying public.”

A Class Act director Seth Trucks’ cast includes Johnbarry Green as Edward Duchamp, Carey Brianna Hart as Dorothy Pilsner, Murphy Hayes as Ben Donaldson, Rick Prada as John Dubliner, Ben Prayz as Ignatio Perez, Manny Zaldivar as Frank Warsaw, and director Trucks, who plays Phil Alessi. Sara Grant serves as the production’s Stage Manager.

What makes A Class Act so compelling to actor-director Trucks is that it refuses to distinguish between heroes and villains.

“Instead, we are presented with lawyers, executives, and victims, each operating within a system that rewards winning more than it does doing what’s right,” Trucks said. “As a director, I was drawn to the challenge of exploring these gray areas—of staging a story where the courtroom is not just a place of legal reckoning.”

A Class Act
June 20 – 29
Performances: Friday & Saturday at 7 pm
Saturday & Sunday at 2 pm
Tickets: $27 (Children under 15, $25)
For tickets: https://boxoffice.townshipcoconutcreek.com
Or call (954) 970-0606
The Township Center for the Performing Arts
2452 Lyons Road
Coconut Creek, FL 33063

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Faran Fagen

Faran Fagen, who teaches high school journalism, graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Journalism degree and from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in Education. He's worked at The Palm Beach Post, SunSentinel, and MLB.com. He lives in Coral Springs with his wife and two children. Oh, and his three dogs -- who all think that they're his favorite.