←Recommendations of Sticks and Stones

This wonderful layered play takes on bullying, and our educational institution's failings in dealing with it. The characters are rich, and real, and you find yourself rooting for those trying to deal with their situations. A wonderful and thought provoking play that will have your audience talking about it long after the play ends.

On its surface, STICKS AND STONES is a trenchant play about bullying on numerous levels, but Dan Taube also tackles the complicated dynamics of our flawed educational system and, even, some basic truths about how we treat each other in our at-once over-sensitive and desensitized age. This is both a timely and timeless play.

STICKS AND STONES is a richly developed drama that has a great flow through the dialogue and the action within the play. Taube takes a harsh theme and crafts something with so much emotion and humanity. It's a call to action but written in a way that's not overbearing over an audience. It's subtle and works so well within the story.

Dan Taube has written a terrific play with a difficult theme - bullying, and it's not limited to high school students. The adults are guilty, too. It's a real page turner that I couldn't stop reading until the final satisfying pages. The characters are finely drawn and the situations well-thought out and sometimes hard to read because the emotions are so raw. I recommend you read this timely play, especially knowing what a difficult time teachers are having right now trying to simply do their job.

I had the great good luck of watching this play be workshopped in our writer's group and am the richer for it. Engaging characters, a gripping story, and crackling dialogue make Sticks and Stones a timeless and timely play. As an educator I related to so much in this piece; as a human, everyone will! Read and produce this latest gem from playwright Dan Taube.

Bullying occurs too frequently and in too many venues. And too often there’s a system in place that either protects the bully or blames the victim. Dan Taube does an excellent job of shining a spotlight on these issues in a high school setting, where the bullying is not just student-to-student, but teacher-to-teacher. In STICKS AND STONES, two targets of bullying are determined not to become victims. The story will at times have your blood boiling and at other times have you cheering. A great read that deserves an audience.

Bullying is not limited to children. That is something that Dan explores brilliantly here. The formatting of the piece as it flits back and forth between the perspective of the child and the adult would make a great performance element as we, as an audience are drawn into Krystal and Lisa's stories. As the story of their journey into a new school/job plays out you can't help but feel for them and by the end, I wanted to cheer for them. My heartiest congratulations to Dan on creating a piece that will educate on the subject of bullying.

In the beginning, one might think this is another play about high school bullying, and that's an important part of it. As is the issue of how kids fare in foster care. But at this school the bullying isn't limited to the students in the halls and cafeteria. If anything, even worse bullying occurs in the teachers lounge. A timely reminder that bullying is a problem that carries on into adulthood and needs to be combatted in that arena as well. Excellent work.