Ahead of Plan-B Theatre’s world premiere of Darryl Stamp’s Dumbed Down, which will open this week, audiences should be mindful to see the story not arising primarily from the familiar (and lazy) trope of the school-to-prison pipeline, but to see it on a broader sobering scale of a messy education system with impacts that are being felt in every community in this country.
In Dumbed Down, Kevin Simon, an African-American English teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School (the historical irony behind the school’s name is noteworthy), knows first-hand the systemic challenges his students (Malcolm and Craig) face and the potential with a mentor who understands them and knows how to open the doors to knowledge. There also is Isaiah, a former student who is a few years older than Malcolm and Craig. Finally, a beleaguered school principal acknowledges Simon’s mission calling for relevant educational experiences, not discipline or testing, to be emphasized and prioritized.
at Wyandotte High School.
Of the many diverse roles Stamp has taken during his life, including stand-up comic and professional actor, it is his dedication to teaching that has become his most consequential experience in the spotlight. His experiences in the classroom have fed his muse to create Dumbed Down.
More than thirty years ago, at 40, he vaulted into acting from his job as director of the Sedgwick County Kansas Department of Corrections Halfway House for Non-Violent Offenders. He already had credits for his work as a comedian and within five years of making a career switch, he landed roles in nearly two dozen Equity productions in and around Kansas City, Missouri.
A former semi-professional football player, he suffered an injury during a hike and was accepted into the Kansas City, Kansas Teaching Fellows program to be trained to teach at a Title I, inner-city, low-standardized-test-scores high school. The fellowship was enticing: teach four years and the cost of tuition would be paid in full. However, as he explained it, “By Halloween of my first year of teaching at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, I wanted to quit and pay my own tuition.” By the time he finished his four years, he was confident that he could teach anywhere. Later, in Utah, he taught literature at Hunter High School in West Valley City.
Overflowing with love and heart for students and the quest to always be intellectually curious: the teacher in Dumbed Down is Stamp’s stand-in for the stage. Recalling his experiences of growing up in a single-parent family in Brooklyn, he said, “So I gave everything to them I wished I would have received. I’ve put money in students lockers, given away parts of my lunch, stayed after school to talk to students, listened to their problems, and made referrals to trained staff on their behalf. I’ve been told that I’ve cared for some students more than their parents. I’ve had students who wished that I also taught 12th grade!l” These memories animate many interactions in the play.
As a playwright, Stamp has always drawn from his life experiences and his exuberant love of literature, films and songs. His scripts consistently incorporate precise and relevant examples to propel the narrative and character arcs. For example, his 2023 play Go Home Come Back (which had its world premiere with Plan-B) was inspired in part by Heaven Can Wait (1978), in which Warren Beatty plays a pro quarterback killed in an auto accident, and Defending Your Life, a 1991 film written by and starring Albert Brooks who plays an advertising executive, also killed in an auto accident, but who must defend himself in a celestial trial to determine if he is fit for reincarnation.
In 2019, his short play Roar (which premiered along with three others in a Plan-B production) stood out for its focus on the art of stand-up comedy. In comparing expectations against virtually every other creative artist, the character of the stand-up comedian in Roat is unique, as she writes and performs her own act. We often believe comedians have an on-stage persona that is interchangeable with their real-life personality. This is misperceived, in my opinion. The woman understood better than her father how successful comedians can handle the contradictions between their true personality and on-stage persona. She finds the strength to defy the constraints imposed on the experiences of her life and her relationships. Comedy is her way of expressing this, something that her father could not achieve in his career.
In Dumbed Down, as he has explored with his other scripts, Stamp trains the light on the critical moment of an unexpected opportunity for a second chance to correct the imperfections, mistakes and temptations that can thwart and stifle the opportunities and relationships we consider the most important for ourselves and others closest to us. However, the tension in that challenge to act accordingly is more formidable than what we have estimated is the risk and the lessons ultimately come at a greater price.
An earlier version of Dumbed Down was performed virtually in 2020 as part of the Great Salt Lake Fringe during the pandemic. In that version, Stamp’s concise script balanced the narrative challenges with a firm yet understated grasp. Simon understands the dynamics in his classroom, as restless students seem more focused on their cellphones, while others nod off at their desks, or the endless parade of students asking for a hall pass. However, there are flickers of hope as well. In one scene, Simon asks the students about pathos in Patrick Henry’s famous “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech with the question: “What did Henry mean when he said that their cause was a matter of freedom or slavery?” Elated by the student’s correct answer, Simon demonstrates how a teacher could connect with his students: “What Jax was trying to say without the F-bomb,’ was that the colonist’s freedom was at stake. They didn’t want to be like slaves, because a lot of rich people already owned slaves, and they knew how, uh, messed up that was. Was that right, Jax? Nice job! Take the hall pass and go get a drink. Of water. I’m just messing with you. Hey, don’t take all day!”
Since 2020, Stamp has expanded upon the narrative and sharpened the characters into a script with an urgent relevance that has been magnified significantly. For instance, the treatment of the character of the high school principal is more charitable in the practicalities and difficulties that a person in such a role faces. As Stamp explained, the character is based on the principal at Wyandotte, “who tolerated a lot from students because he cared about trying to save them from the inevitable.” Isaiah is inspired by a Wyandotte student who didn’t attend school much and knew how the suspension game worked, he said, adding “Malcolm and Craig are inspired by several students at Wyandotte and Hunter that I went the extra-extra mile to reach.”
Among the guiding cultural references in Dumbed Down are Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and the 1966 film adaptation by François Truffaut. In one classroom scene, Craig picks up on the theme of slavery while Malcolm adds, “There weren’t Black people in that old movie about that book either.” Thanks to Simon’s skilled Socratic method, both students begin to realize how technology is used to divert its users from having to engage with what really matters and affects their independence and agency in their lives. They also become aware of the potential fallout of an education that is being “dumbed down” not because they are incapable of learning, but because of far greater forces that have ramifications in schools everywhere.
This is also an issue for students (and their parents or guardians) whose lives and circumstances might seem to be light-years away from those Malcolm and Craig endure every day. Embedded in the narrative of Dumbed Down is Simon’s recognition of the enormity of the task that conscientious educators confront in 2026. Malcolm and Craig are talking about video games with easy in-depth command, but both display that same facility in connecting the dots of the lesson Simon has presented them. Driving home the point of Fahrenheit 451, the teacher says, “I have no idea what you just said, but you just can’t play your life away. An overload of mindless technology is what keeps citizens in the novel distracted and subservient!” A teacher could conceivably speak the same line in every U.S. high school today. Students deserve better and the question remains are we doing enough to support the Kevin Simons who still see teaching as one of society’s greatest callings.
Directed by Jerry Rapier, the production features Danor Gerald as Kevin Simon, Jacob Barnes as Malcolm Thomas (and smaller roles as the principal and a correctional officer), Alex Smith as Craig Wilson and Chad Brown as Isaiah Rogers. Performances will run from Feb. 12 through March 1 in the Studio Theatre at the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts.
For tickets and more information, see the Plan-B Theatre website.