The employee who asks not to be identified

What would happen if an artistic creation needed to go trough a bureaucratic department before coming to be? In O funcionário que pede para não ser identificado, Michel Melamed imagines a simultaneously absurd and familiar universe one with a Artistic Works Registration and Production Department, where ideas, projects, and creative impulses are reviewed, approved, or rejected before reaching the world.

Mixing theater, music, humor, poetry and satire, the story follows an employee incapable of creating any work of her own, and so she finds pleasure in rejecting the creations of others. Until it is decided that a Complete Work of Art will be developed, from everything that was rejected by the system.

Faced with a daily life defined by metrics, algorithms, and dynamics that simplify the human experience, the author creates a work that celebrates creativity not as the privilege of artists, but as a fundamental condition of existence. More than a critique of systems of cultural validation, O funcionário que pede para não ser identificado is an homage to the human capacity to reinvent the world and imagine alternatives for it.

About the author
Michel Melamed is a writer, actor, director, and host. His artistic trajectory is marked by a movement between different languages and formats, always combining critical reflection, experimentation, and humor. Amongst his best-known works are the book and performance Regurgitofagia; the plays Dinheiro gratis, Homemúsica and Adeus à carne or Go To Brazil, besides the performance and documentary Seewatchlook.

In television, he created and hosted shows such as Recorte, Campeões de Audiência, Bipolar Show and Polipolar Show. As an actor, he appeared in notable productions such as the series Capitu and Afinal, o que querem as mulheres?. In recent years, he worked in productions such as Monólogo público, Musical pré-fabricado and Um filme argentino, cementing a unique body of work that intersects theater, literature, music and performance.

About the collection
The Dramaturgy Collection publishes, since 2012, works from Brazilian and international playwrights. The books incite the debate and the development of a collective theatrical memory of our time, marking a new register in contemporary dramaturgy. In 2015, Cobogó launched the Spanish Dramaturgy Collection, later on, the French Dramaturgy Collection (2019) and the Dutch Dramaturgy Collection (2022). The Dramaturgy Collection has more than 100 published titles, multiple award-winning plays, from more than 70 major playwrights.

Specifications
Title The employee who asks not to be identified
Author Michel Melamed
Collection Dramaturgy Collection
Publisher Cobogó
Language Portuguese
Page count 96
ISBN 978-65-5691-204-2
Cover Bruno Senise – Grave
Format Softcover
Size 13 x 19 cm
Year 2026