September 10, 2026 · daily scene
The Last Class
Given circumstances
- Character
- Teacher
- Setting
- Your classroom after final bell, chairs already stacked, your name half-erased from the board.
- The moment before
- They said congratulations. You said thank you, like you had anything to do with it.
- Scene partner
- A former student, now seventeen, standing in the doorway with a college acceptance letter
Direction
You're the reason they applied, and you both know it, and you're pretending you're not. The pride is huge and has nowhere to go.
Script
I knew you'd get in. The essay about your grandmother, that's what did it.
(they say something about you)
Stop. I read a draft and told you it was good. That's my job. You're the one who rewrote it nine times.
(beat)
You don't owe me updates. You don't have to come back at Thanksgiving and tell me how it's going. That's not why I do this.
(listening)
But if you do come back, I'm in room 211 now. They're making me teach sophomores. So I'll need the morale.
Written for Act It Up. Free to rehearse and perform for practice, classes and self-tapes.
Record this scene with a teleprompter and a scene partner who reads the other lines.
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