We’ve all found ourselves waiting… and waiting… and waiting, seemingly endlessly, for someone who seems to have forgotten all about us. But what if that was absolutely true – you had been forgotten, and there was nothing you could do about it?
In Dave Harris’ comedy-drama Exception to the Rule, now playing at Studio Theatre, six Black teenaged students at the worst-funded high school in the city find themselves in after-school detention, with nothing but the permission of a teacher standing between them and a long weekend. They’ll pass the time flirting and fighting, joking and arguing, and interrogating the fish out of water they find in their midst: “College Bound Erika,” an academic overachiever at a school where any achievement is an uphill battle, has joined five detention regulars on this Friday afternoon.
But even though time always seems to pass slowly in detention, today that sense of trapped restlessness won’t be relieved by the ringing of the final bell. Today, they’ll wait for a teacher to dismiss them… and wait… and wait. The faculty, it seems, has forgotten about them.
The truth is, though, these kids were forgotten about by a racialized and uncaring school system long before they arrived in the purgatory of Friday detention. Trapped by systems that leave them with no way out, the only person who can escape is an exception to the rule.
Exception to the Rule is now playing at Studio Theatre until October 27. Tickets are available at studiotheatre.org and start at $38. Get 25% off your tickets with promo code DCTTD25.
