The Lesson, by Eugène Ionesco

The Lesson: Ionesco’s razor-sharp absurdist play where teaching turns to domination—a close-quarters experience, funny, then quietly devasta
About this Event

In The Lesson, education isn't enlightenment. It's rehearsal.

Eugène Ionesco's savage absurdist masterpiece tracks the moment teaching becomes domination, and language becomes a blunt instrument of power. What unfolds is funny until it isn't.  

The setting is a parlor. The hour is afternoon. A professor and a student. A lesson that begins in politeness and ends somewhere else entirely. Between them, a blackboard — the oldest technology of authority chalked over and erased, chalked over and erased.

Ionesco wrote The Lesson in 1951. It has not aged. What it describes is present in every institution that has ever called itself a place of learning: the seduction of the pedagogical relationship, the violence hiding inside grammar, the smile that precedes submission. The play is over before you understand what just happened.

Come expecting a lecture. Leave having received one.

Bites & Cocktails: A curated experience by Chef Jeremy Plyburn of The Grape Rebellion, 

• Food & Cocktails are included with your ticket.
• Classics, absurdly reimagined.

Featuring,

Sturgis Warner* & Sophie Kelly-Hedrick* & Catherine Luckenbach

*denotes a member of Actor's Equity Association 

Music from B Monea’, New York City cellist, composer, and sound designer whose genre-bending work blends classical virtuosity with cinematic, psychedelic soundscapes. A performer at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Apollo Theater, she has collaborated with artists ranging from Shawn Mendes and Liam Gallagher to Busta Rhymes and A$AP Rocky, creating immersive musical experiences where classical, jazz, rock, and hip-hop collide.

The Lesson · Instructions

• Your ticket is all-inclusive and includes food and cocktails.
• Doors open on time. The Lesson begins on time. Do not be late
• Seating is limited and arranged as part of the performance environment.
• The parlor is small. This is intentional.

Directed by Christopher Paul Meyer

Experience Director, Topher Kage

Managing Producer, Sean Christian Taylor

Casting by Jenn Haltman

Tech Direction by Joshua K Boniello

All performances have limited capacity and may sell out. Tickets may be released through the waitlist as available. Walk-ins are welcome to inquire; seating is not guaranteed.