Open Admissions by Shirley Lauro

by Shirley Lauro

Full-length drama for 4 men, 7 women. Publisher's (Samuel French, Inc.) "This drama for a racially and ethnically mixed cast explores equal opportunity in college admissions. Calvin Jefferson, a sophomore at an urban college not unlike New York's City College, reads at the fifth grade level but always gets Bs. He is only dimly beginning to understand is that it will take more than a sheepskin to make him competitive in the real world. It will take basic skills he lacks. Calvin begs his speech teacher, an overburdened, underpaid and under appreciated victim of the system, for help. She does try but it is likely too little, too late.On Broadway, Open Admissions received one Tony nomination, two Drama Desk nominations, a Theatre World Award, The Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, and was adapted by Ms. Lauro for a CBS TV Special starring Jane Alexander." Frank Rich of the NY Times wrote, "Shirley Lauro's drama is a rarity for Broadway these It thrusts us onto the front line of an agonizing contemporary social crisis and refuses to show us the easy way out. Though Mrs. Lauro tells of the conflict between a white woman teacher and a black male student in a public New York college, she refuses to present the usual blacks and whites in either the racial or moral sense. Both her characters are decent people; both are casualties on a battleground that neither of them has made."

Genres: Plays

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a challenging play for my adolescent student actors to learn and perform. They were playing characters older than they - one a college student and the other his professor - with experiences alien to their own.

The play centers around racial issues built from assumptions. Though it is over 30 years old, now, it is as topical now as then.