Roundabout Underground presents the world premiere of Exception to the Rule, written by Dave Harris and directed by Miranda Haymon, at the Black Box Theatre. The production was initially announced as part of Roundabout Theatre Company's 2019-2020 Off-Broadway season. Exception to the Rule tickets are available on New York Theatre Guide now.
Exception to the Rule is a play about six Black who attend the worst high school in their inner city, and they're all stuck in detention. Five of them are regulars, and they know the rules, norms, and survival tactics of old Room 111. The sixth — a newcomer named Erika — does not, and she shocks everyone with her arrival, as she's one of the best students at the school with college and a bright future ahead of her. Different infractions got them all into detention in the first place, but all six have one thing in common: The institution of the school wasn't built for them, and it's a lot more than the walls of the classroom that keeped them trapped in detention. An end never seems in sight, so to pass the time, they flirt, fight, chat, tease, smoke, study, and maybe try to devise an escape plan.
The premiere of Exception to the Rule off Broadway was originally meant to mark Dave Harris's New York playwriting debut. However, with the production postponed, Exception to the Rule is now Harris's second Off-Broadway play this season alone, with the first being Tambo & Bones at Playwrights Horizons. Roundabout first hosted a reading of Exception to the Rule in 2019 through its Underground program, which provides a platform for emerging writers to showcase and develop their plays before, often, going on to productions on larger stages. Now, Roundabout Underground is mounting the play's first fully-produced run of the show, with the original director of the reading, Miranda Haymon, returning.
Tickets to Exception to the Rule are available now. Book Exception to the Rule tickets on New York Theatre Guide.
Exception to the Rule crackles with humor and suspense—confronting the tactics for surviving institutions that were not built for you. How do you make it through detention? In the worst high school in the city, six students are stuck in Room 111. They flirt. They fight. They tease. Should they follow the rules and stay put, or find an escape? Are the walls keeping them in, or are stronger forces at play?
Roundabout Theatre Company has named the full cast for Exception to the Rule, Dave Harris's world-premiere play directed by Miranda Haymon. Performances begin at the Black Box Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre on April 28 ahead of a May 18 opening night.
With Exception to the Rule, provocative playwright Dave Harris takes audiences into the broken carceral system that exists within predominantly Black high schools across the nation. The only problem with this Roundabout Theatre Company production is that it gilds the lily by presenting the action as if it were a thriller, when the play is actually documentary theatre.