Exit Strategy
photo by ryan borque
★★★★/4 "At once poetic, political, sad, funny, timely, complex and compassionate, Ike Holter's thrilling, beautiful new play "Exit Strategy" is the story of the desperate final days of a condemned, crumbling Chicago public school.. Ike Holter has forged a riveting 90 minutes" Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
★★★★/5 "A fiery new work. This smartly paced production hugs the comic and tragic curves in Holter’s tightly packed plot [and] the bracing, juicy drive of Holter’s smartly structured storytelling.
- Time Out Chicago
"I can safely say it is the best thing I’ve seen this year so far." - Theatre by Numbers
click above for script
Exit Strategy
Righteously angry, riotously funny, and wise to the tensions between abstract policy and lived experience, Ike Holter's play Exit Strategy centers on vivid, unforgettable characters struggling to maintain faith in a vocation that is being determinedly undermined.
Drawing from the headlines, Exit Strategy is set in Chicago and tells the story of a fictional public high school slated for closure at the end of the year. Despite funding cuts, bureaucrats run amok, and apathy, a small, multiracial group of teachers launch a last-minute effort to save the school, and put their careers, futures, and safety in the hands of a fast-talking administrator who may be in over his head. The tenuous situation also raises fears and anxieties among students, and within the volcanic neighborhood that is home to the school.