Up the Down Staircase

Cast: 12m., 18w. (smaller with doubling.) "Hi, Teach!" are the first words to greet attractive Sylvia Barrett. There's a special happiness in walking into the still-empty classroom and for the first time writing her name on the blackboard. Students pour into the classroom—cautious, testing, challenging. Simultaneously, there's a blizzard of paperwork, warnings, contradictory orders, indecipherable instructions. Frantic, Sylvia begins to fear she doesn't even understand the language. An experienced teacher translates: "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in wastebasket. "Let it be a challenge" means you're stuck with it. "Interpersonal relationships" means a fight between kids. And "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble. Soon Sylvia finds herself the most involved person in the school—involved in the start of a romance and in a near war with a discipline-over-everything administrator, but, most of all, involved in the unexpected, sometimes heartbreaking problems of her students. The simple stage arrangement makes the play easy to produce and serves to convey a sense of the whole school. One critic said, "Seldom has a humorous work been at the same time so important."

Bel Kaufman grew up in Russia, learned English at age twelve, and went on to a distinguished literary, academic, and teaching career. She has won many awards for her writing and public speaking, addressing educators and students here and abroad. She is the granddaughter of the celebrated Yiddish humorist Sholom Aleichem.