←Recommendations of TEACH

This play was one of our finalists in the 2018 Headwaters New Play Festival at Creede Repertory Theatre in Colorado. I loved complexities of a relationship versus abuse and how they are often intertwined. In the age of Me Too, this play resonates and for anyone who has had this experience (myself included) it's spot on in its nuance. It's well written, powerful, and full of life.

This play is fantastic. It's a complicated look at a relationship between a student and teacher. It examines a lot of questions: When does a relationship become too intimate? What role does gender play in our opinion of those relationships? And what's changed in how we interact with each other over the past ten years? It is layering these questions is a mature and subtle way. If you're thinking of doing Oleanna - do this play. It's better and more nuanced.

What an intense, clever, and impacting script. Donna Hoke takes us to school and teaches some powerful lessons...some of them are taught simply through Hoke's magical use of theatricality [ the gender fluidity]. I found it really intriguing how the existential world of the school is a lab for the chem teacher/principal to run his experiment. This is such good work and such a great story. I'd love to see it in production.

Hoke masterfully exposes our prejudices and assumptions as the play's perspectives seamlessly shift in surprising ways. The play forces an audience to grapple with pre-conceived notions and rewards the viewer with an opportunity to leave the theatre with a newfound view of gender politics and why we view things the way way we do. A play that deserves to be seen and heard.

On one level, TEACH is a ruthless exploration of how gender and sexual preference impact power dynamics in psychosexual relationships. But only a few minutes into the play and the examination falls away leaving behind a story about people’s lives with consequences that matter. I know how I feel about imbalance of power in romances. But what I enjoyed most about this play, is that Hoke doesn’t. Or at least, she doesn’t show her hand. She just shows her heart. Staging this gem would be an engaging experience for both theaters and audiences!

good play

As a teacher in a modern high school I have wanted to tell people about the ideology, paranoia, stilted relationships I found there and how difficult it was actually teaching today's students in this environment. Now I don't have to, Donna Hoke's subtle mastery will tell you all you have to know about the optimism and the despair in our school system. She does it in a compelling and challenging way that takes a complicated situation and makes it real. There is more to say but the real answer is seeing Teach on stage.

Donna's work is all great, but this one takes her to another level. The seamless gender fluidity between characters makes this he said/she said/he said/she said story a joy to read. A great opportunity for some younger talented actors in your community to shine. Now, to find a producer to let me at this wonderful piece of art.

TEACH offers a riveting examination of gender and power dynamics between a teacher and student as issues of attraction and nurturing, responsibility and manipulation come to the fore. Hoke's exploration of gender in having a male and female teacher figure and a male and female student figure interact in varied configurations is far, far more than a theatrical device, although it is also spectacularly effective as a device. The cautionary figure of the principal who never gets beyond manipulation and self-absorption provides a compelling foil and effectively represents systemic shortcomings. All in all, a work that demands to be staged.

Beautifully complex in its crafting, and featuring Hoke's razor-sharp wit, TEACH explores the edges between what we think and what is — Digging into the way our perspectives and identities shift and tilt and bend. The piece features terrific contemporary roles for younger actors, but all the characters feel so developed and real. The whole world of the High School feels available: I can hear the bells, smell the cafeteria, see the shine on the linoleum floor... Within this familiar environment, Hoke exposes brittle politicking and boundary-pushing, within a system where powerful dynamics are at play.