Marking James Anthony Tyler's professional debut, Dolphins and Sharks is a play about power conflicts between colleagues, set against a background of racial discrimination, pay inequality and ruthless capitalism.
We are in a copy shop in Harlem, New York, where African American Isabel (Shyko Ammos) and Dominican descendant Xiomara (Rachel Handshaw) have been working together for many years, becoming good friends and allies against the white exploiter company owner Mr. Timmons. When Xiomara is promoted as a shop manager, though, the balances suddenly change, as she dutifully bends to the requests of the absent Mr. Timmons, imposing unreasonable policies to her co-workers.
With the luring promise of a pay rise, Xiomara gains the connivance of the newly-employed Yusuf (Ammar Duffus), whose current salary is below legal minimum and doesn't even enables him to pay his rent, after a degree in Philosophy has left him jobless.
