NO HOPE ROPE: An Original Comedy by Garret Mathews at The District Theatre

Remember high school PE when you could not climb the rope that seemed at least a mile high? Set in 1967, "No Hope Rope" lets you relive the mortification when two nerdy senior boys find they must make it to the top in order to graduate.

Garret Mathews has written five books to include "Swing, Batta" about coaching 10-year-old baseball players that got a nice review in The New York Times. He interviewed dozens of volunteers in the civil rights movement as background for his new play, "Jubilee in the Rear View Mirror," that takes place in fictional Jubilee, Miss., during Freedom Summer (1964). His other theatrical plays include "Can't Find A Dry Ball" about minor-league players on the lowest rung of professional baseball and "Raw Copy" about the oddball characters at a small West Virginia newspaper in the early 1970s.