Dead White Males

The Theatre Cooperative presents Dead White Males, by William Missouri Downs, directed by Thomas Martin. Award-winning playwright William Missouri Downs’ dark comic satire is about the underbelly of America’s public school system.

Dead White Males uses epic theatre staging techniques to tell the story of Janet Greenberg, a young, idealistic, first-year teacher who struggles against a school board dominated by the religious right. Janet learns how to write a “proper” self-evaluation; censor materials so that they are fit for “younger minds”, deal with countless new mandates, endless curriculum changes, and petty political games, all the while struggling under constant accountability. Janet’s mentor has a nervous breakdown while being forced to teach creationism in her science class, all of the teachers in her school are teaching subjects they know little about, and her principal is in therapy for his pedophiliac impulses.

Additional performances: Sundays 3/20 & 4/3 at 3 pm. Discussion with the audience follows each matinee performance.

“William Missouri Downs writes with candor and loving insight…clever and witty.” — Las Vegas Journal-Review