UPDATE: Anybody who is interested in Mike Daisey’s work should first listen to the retraction prepared by This American Life here.
at the New York Public Theater, Mike Daisey has done a rare thing for a professional writer and performer. He has released the full text of his controversial exposé of working conditions in China’s electronics factories, inviting anyone who is interested to read, adapt, re-publish or perform it, in whole or in part.
The show, which debuted last January at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, helped draw worldwide attention to the low pay, long hours and, according to Daisey, underage workers in Foxconn’s Shenzhen factories. Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, assembles roughly 40% of the devices sold under such U.S. brands as Apple (AAPL), Cisco (CSCO), Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Intel (INTC), Microsoft (MSFT) and Motorola Mobility (MMI).
and the publicity generated by Daisey’s monologue, which was excerpted for radio and broadcast in January on PRI’s This American Life.