Overview
Five actors, three characters, one story: Ten years ago, Ken and Chris were teacher and student. Now, as principal and teacher, Ken uses a student’s suspiciously high grade as license to grill Chris until the young teacher is forced to confront both past and present. While most plays question the audience, TEACH’s gender and racial fluid construct exposes the biases that make audiences question themselves.
Casting & Production
Casting
FEMALE CHRIS — High school English teacher, 27
MALE CHRIS — High school English teacher, 27
MALE EMERSON — High school senior, 17
FEMALE EMERSON — High school senior, 17
KEN JAMES — Principal of Roosevelt High School, 37-40
Setting
Place
The play takes place in three locales: A centrally located principal’s office at Roosevelt High School, located in a mid-sized city
A classroom with teacher’s desk and student chairs
A park with a bench and some greenery
Time
Late Spring, Present Day
Reviews
“One big aspect that’s genius in this play is that the roles of both teacher Chris and student Emerson are simultaneously played by both male and female presenting actors… Genius because this removes gender power… and allows this show to focus more on other imbalances of power. It’s a play about being human.”
—Buffalo Rising
“Remember when you were in college, and you’d see a play or a movie and talk about it for hours afterward? This is [a show] that might do that for you again.”
—Buffalo Rising
“[TEACH is] poignant and tender…and creepy and awkward. Hoke brings us into each character’s mind and spinning moral compass without losing a narrative beat. This is a play of layers and ripples—an untangling of threads that tangle themselves again behind your back. Everyone is culpable AND innocent…Hoke writes each character with such honest compassion that we can also understand how they succumb to temptation.”
— Rowen Haigh, National Women’s Theatre Festival
