DOING SCHOOL by
Gladly would they learn and gladly teach, if only they were not so damned busy doing school.
Spring 2019 at a high school near you: the students are stressed and chugging Dayquil. Or they’ve withdrawn in the face of stereotypes and prejudices. The teachers? Pretty much the same. DOING SCHOOL (formerly titled GAP) tells the stories of four high school juniors and their teachers, affected in...
Spring 2019 at a high school near you: the students are stressed and chugging Dayquil. Or they’ve withdrawn in the face of stereotypes and prejudices. The teachers? Pretty much the same. DOING SCHOOL (formerly titled GAP) tells the stories of four high school juniors and their teachers, affected in...
Gladly would they learn and gladly teach, if only they were not so damned busy doing school.
Spring 2019 at a high school near you: the students are stressed and chugging Dayquil. Or they’ve withdrawn in the face of stereotypes and prejudices. The teachers? Pretty much the same. DOING SCHOOL (formerly titled GAP) tells the stories of four high school juniors and their teachers, affected in different ways by their class, race, and gender. They are going through the motions at a diverse public high school in a progressive American city, a microcosm of the speeded-up world beyond the school bounds. Interrupted by bells and buffeted by competing demands on their time, they strive to live up to – or sometimes down to – the expectations of others. As they navigate an uneven playing field, they risk losing themselves. What will save them? Better “Time Management”! … Or maybe not. Maybe there’s another way to close the gap between who they wish they were and who they have time to be. Maybe there's a way to rescue each other?
Set one year before the COVID pandemic, DOING SCHOOL reveals the fissures which will gape even wider when education moves online and scarce resources become even scarcer.
A scene and two monologues from this play (under the title GAP) are published in the Applause Books anthologies DUO and ONE ON ONE. The published scene served as the screenplay for a short film, also called GAP, directed by Ryan Coogler; the film won the Jack Nicholson Award at USC and was a finalist in BET's Lens on Talent competition.
Two additional monologues appear in anthologies from Applause Books (2021) and Smith & Kraus (2020).
Spring 2019 at a high school near you: the students are stressed and chugging Dayquil. Or they’ve withdrawn in the face of stereotypes and prejudices. The teachers? Pretty much the same. DOING SCHOOL (formerly titled GAP) tells the stories of four high school juniors and their teachers, affected in different ways by their class, race, and gender. They are going through the motions at a diverse public high school in a progressive American city, a microcosm of the speeded-up world beyond the school bounds. Interrupted by bells and buffeted by competing demands on their time, they strive to live up to – or sometimes down to – the expectations of others. As they navigate an uneven playing field, they risk losing themselves. What will save them? Better “Time Management”! … Or maybe not. Maybe there’s another way to close the gap between who they wish they were and who they have time to be. Maybe there's a way to rescue each other?
Set one year before the COVID pandemic, DOING SCHOOL reveals the fissures which will gape even wider when education moves online and scarce resources become even scarcer.
A scene and two monologues from this play (under the title GAP) are published in the Applause Books anthologies DUO and ONE ON ONE. The published scene served as the screenplay for a short film, also called GAP, directed by Ryan Coogler; the film won the Jack Nicholson Award at USC and was a finalist in BET's Lens on Talent competition.
Two additional monologues appear in anthologies from Applause Books (2021) and Smith & Kraus (2020).