Jason Alexander directs new show in Sag Harbor 

There’s some major star power at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, but don’t look for it on stage.

Jason Alexander, an actor indelibly connected with the bumbling, neurotic George Constanza of “Seinfeld” fame, directs the East Coast premiere of the dark comedy “Windfall” by Scooter Pietsch, which runs through June 19. It’s a logical progression for the Emmy-nominated actor, who recognizes how attached he is to this “hapless character,” one he says he’s “not terribly interested in repeating. The blessing and the lesser blessing of my career,” he explains, “is that I’ve become so equated with George, but there aren’t that many variations of George that I can play.”

So while acting is still in the cards — "I love acting, I just don’t want to do what I’ve done before” — Alexander says at the moment he finds directing more engaging. “Even if they asked me to direct ‘The George Costanza Show,’ my job is not playing him, my job is figuring out the world around him,” he said during a recent interview at the Manhattan studio where “Windfall” rehearsals were underway. “Every directing job is immediately a little more challenging, there are so many things I have to play with.”

There’s a lot of problem solving, working with the writer, the creative team, and the actors “to coordinate our mutual vision,” he says.

A GAZILLION CHARMS AND CHALLENGES

Alexander, 62,  has a history with “Windfall” (no connection whatsoever to the recent Netflix film). He directed the play’s premiere at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre in 2016, along with several readings in New York City and Los Angeles. He was introduced to Pietsch by Bryan Cranston, who’d been in another of the playwright’s works.

“The play has a gazillion charms and a gazillion challenges,” says Alexander.

It’s a cautionary tale about five workers in a small data processing office who, fed up with their maniacal boss, pool every penny they have to buy tickets for a $500 million lottery. When a win seems within their grasp, they realize how little they trust each other and, as Alexander explains it, “turn on each other like wolves.”

While it’s a fun romp for the audience, he says there are “touching moments where these characters resonate as very real people.”

He welcomed the chance to create those moments as well as getting to stage the broad comedy and demanding physical stunts. “For a director,” he asks, “what more could you want?”

Bay Street artistic director Scott Schwartz describes the play as a cross between “The Office” and Martin McDonagh (author of bloody works like “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” and “The Lieutenant of Inishmore”). “It’s a play about money and greed,” says Schwartz, “about haves and haves not, and the desire to become a have if you’re a have not and how that can twist you and distort you.” Not only does the play feel right for the times with so many people struggling financially, he says, but it’s also “laugh-out-loud funny.”

True, says Pietsch, though he worries that the comedic aspects of the play will overshadow the “important moments I’m trying to convey.”

What might those be? The idea that “happiness and contentment might not come from money,” he says, “that we should attempt to be satisfied with what we have and what we are instead of looking for external sources to bring us happiness.” And that money may not be the answer to your dreams, says Pietsch, whose own dreams include bringing this play to Broadway.

He also has a few things to say about the lottery, which he calls a “scam tax that plays on the underprivileged.” There’s a lot of false hope against impossible odds, he’s says, noting that “by and large, rich people don’t buy lottery tickets.” In the end, though, it’s about greed. Says Pietsch, who is primarily a composer, “I think you’re always safe when you deal with one of the seven deadly sins.”

A HORRIBLE BOSS

Spencer Garrett, who plays Glenn, the off-the-charts tyrant of a boss, brings it down to the eternal cliché: “Money is the root of all evil.” And no question, Glenn is evil incarnate. “He’s unlike any character I’ve ever played,” says Garrett, who portrays announcer Chick Hearn in the HBO Max series “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.” “You’re such a sweet guy,” he recalls Alexander telling him when he asked about taking on the role of this “big, bilious, obnoxious lout.” It’s a stretch, acknowledges Garrett, but “I loved the challenge of it, I said let’s give it a shot.”

Glenn is a nasty, manipulative, slave driver of a boss with a medical condition that causes him to choke on his own food. “The guy’s really a pig,” says Garrett, “a horribly damaged guy who’s been beaten down by life.” He terrorizes his staff with diabolical games and continuous threats to their job security. And before you ask, Pietsch maintains he did not base Glenn on any boss he’s ever had, though Garrett says he’s used a couple of troublesome directors “whose names I won’t mention” in shaping his portrayal—“a little theatrical payback,” he jests.

“The character is a tour de force for a comedic actor,” says Alexander, because he’s over-the-top, manic and has this incredible physical condition to carry. “Theatrically, it can be really fun to be abusing.”

Part of the challenge for Alexander is staging the ramifications of Glenn’s behavior, which in Act 2 come down to some heavy-duty violence. Let’s just say you’ll be surprised at the potentially lethal weapons found in a typical office. There will be blood, promises Alexander, and staging the action safely is a priority.

“We hope no one will get hurt,” says Alexander, who is experienced in martial arts and fight choreography, which he studied in college. (Presumably, that background will come in handy with one of the several projects Alexander has in the works—directing a stage version of 1989 film “The War of the Roses,” tentatively planned for the 2023-24 Broadway season. Remember the chandelier.)

Both Garrett and Pietsch have nothing but praise for the way Alexander has staged all the violence—and for his work in general. “I don’t think it’s a done deal that just because you’re a good actor you’re a good director,” says Pietsch. “He is. He understands the actors…he knows how to help them find their characters and get the point of the play.”  Watching him work with everybody, says the playwright, “is a master class. It’s a real joy.”

“It’s not like coming to work,” says Garrett, describing Alexander as a “generous, giving, intuitive director…obviously a comedy master.”

Garrett applauds Alexander for his insight and his sense of fun and play. Even with the masks we have to wear, says Garrett, “you can tell he has a smile on his face from 10 to 6 every day.”