←Recommendations of Jan Kultura, Substitute Teacher, Meets The Crowd

I can't say this is the story of an unfortunate substitute teacher because it's too funny.
And I actually learned something
I don't know whose more ridiculous: the teacher or the students. It doesn't really matter because it's an entertaining romp.

AN engaging and unique 15-minute piece: a lesson in the deeply problematic economics of crowdsourcing, wrapped up in a fascinating set of off-kilter characters. This was really fun to read and would make for a production equal parts thought-provoking and manic.

As a writer and a substitute teacher I have much appreciation for this script. Mister Kultura does a good job making the students and the audience think.

While the play focuses on crowdsourcing, it very well could apply directly to the arts as well. (Like, ahem, playwriting.) I love a play that makes you think, and "Kultura" certainly does. It doesn't get preachy, though, and the humorous names of the students heckling their sub makes for some extra fun, while the consultant, Jackie, gives a reductive, propagandistic view of capitalism. This is great writing with a strong rhetorical point -- political, economic, and ultimately existential. Well done!!

An engaging look inside creative economics within the setting of education as we understand the world we are living in. Well done.

An eccentric European substitute teacher is pitted against a siren ad executive and avatar-obsessed students in this characterful and absorbing piece of theatre. A quirky, absurdist, rewarding dramatic analysis of the crowd-sourced-based feudal order threatening to exploit the classroom and high school hearts and minds.

Ian Thal has just let us slip inside every substitute teacher's worse nightmare and we enjoyed every minute! What a tasty mix of realism with the absurd! Thanks for the great tongue-in-cheek lesson on economics!

There are myriad teachable moments in this brief hysterical play about creative economics, implicit bias and the pitfalls of public education. I would love to see this play in action and hear these words out loud. The character descriptions are some of the best I have ever read and hopefully would be included in the program!

Inventive and full of wit. Ian Thal has written a play to be savored and produced. Best ending line of a play ever!

Is there another writer as off-the-wall funny, inventive, and politically astute as Ian Thal? I think not. I love the risks he takes and the way he makes them pay off in this hilarious, but pointed short work.