"BACK TO CLASS" Staged Reading

Join us for a developmental staged reading of BACK 2 CLASS, a brand-new August play written and directed by Dr. Austin Dean Ashford as part of The American Calendar Cycle.

In the suffocating heat of August, teachers, parents, administrators, and board members gather inside Jefferson High to vote on a district-wide artificial intelligence program promising safer hallways, lighter teacher workloads, personalized tutoring, and the kind of measurable progress the state demands. But Jefferson is already a Smart Campus. Its cameras recognize faces, its systems track attendance and behavior, and its automated voice speaks with more confidence than the people working inside it.

When a citywide blackout locks the group inside the school, the technology designed to protect them becomes another system they cannot control. As the heat rises, secrets surface, professional manners collapse, and the meeting explodes into a sharp, funny, and emotionally charged battle over Black education, class, money, access, parenthood, surveillance, and who gets to decide what the future should look like.

Blending comedy, poetic language, Afrofuturist imagination, ensemble storytelling, and raw community debate, BACK 2 CLASS explores what happens when innovation arrives before trust. Through smart locks, predictive discipline, automated alerts, overlapping arguments, buried relationships, and one mother demanding justice for her son, the play asks: Can technology help repair a failing school—or does it simply give an old system a newer way to classify, control, and leave children behind?

This is a full staged reading—a live workshop performance where the script is still being shaped. Your presence matters: your laughter, your reactions, and your feedback help strengthen the next draft.

• Full staged reading
• Run time: approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes
• Brief talkback with the cast and creative team following the reading
• Drinks and light refreshments available—arrive early or right on time

If you love bold new theatre, Black dramatic writing, Afrofuturist storytelling, school and community dramas, layered conversations about technology and class, and work that carries humor, heat, politics, and heart at the same time—this night is for you.