←Recommendations of ACCOMMODATION

Greg Burdick's play brings so much of the struggle of current public education to the fore: helicopter parents (in this play, literally), administrators who are out of touch with the reality of the classroom, teachers from whom perfection is expected and whose personal troubles are pushed aside, and kids whom the system harms while trying to help. The action in the scenes is completely compelling, and Burdick interrupts the headlong rush of action with telling, wild, non-naturalistic interludes that engage the issues in new ways before plunging us back in. Riveting. (And makes me glad I retired from teaching.)

ACCOMMODATION gives overworked and underappreciated teachers a long-overdue and particularly satisfying voice. It highlights the increasingly impossible task we demand of our educators at the risk of ultimately teaching our children nothing. Exciting, imaginative, and necessary as educators face a rising cell-phone-toting, prescription-wielding generation. We cannot wait to see the ripples this piece makes as it develops.

My day job finds me in company with teachers all the time. I know these characters. 'Accommodation' is a telling portrait of the suspense and emotion plot that classroom teachers follow — From the wide-eyed newbies to the burnt-out master-teachers — this world is too, too real. Burdick paints the school confines with edu-frustration and plasters it over with admin-spirational "Hang in There" kitten posters. And somewhere within this charging dialogue - like Glengarry Glenn Ross in a staff room - they care for kids' development? Big ups for the protagonist - whip smart, jaded, she's OVER it. She's transcendent.

Greg Burdick's experience as a teacher comes through, giving this play about the education system an authenticity others don't always have. The setting is one I've had a particular fascination with seeing dramatized. It's incredibly difficult to do. Though ultimately sympathetic to both teachers and students, like the best of Drama there's two or more kinds of right on display, sometimes to comical effect, sometimes to tragic. Schooling has long ceased to be about learning, so what's it about? Burdick has a massive point here. This is really one of the best uses of academia as political playground I've read.