Alfred Uhry's WITHOUT WALLS to be Developed and Produced by Lisa Dozier Shacket

Tony, Oscar, and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy, Parade) has granted producer Lisa Dozier Shacket the option to develop and produce his long-shelved play WITHOUT WALLS, marking an exciting new chapter in the storied writer’s career.

Originally drafted in the early 2000s, WITHOUT WALLS is a three-character play set in a progressive private high school on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in 1976. It tells the story of a beloved theater teacher and his two favorite students as they navigate the complexities of mentorship, trust, and personal growth. Uhry revisited the play in 2023 at the encouragement of longtime friend Matthew Johnson Harris and has since rewritten more than 65% of the script.

“WITHOUT WALLS is loosely based on an incident that occurred when I was teaching at The Calhoun Learning Center on the Upper West Side of NYC in the 1970s,” said Uhry. “When I revisited the script, a strange thing happened. Somehow, the intervening years had sharpened my perspective, and thanks to my friend, Matthew Johnson Harris, I saw how relevant the material has become today. I revised accordingly, and now I am delighted that a new friend, Lisa Dozier Shacket, is making plans to bring it to New York.” 

Shacket, whose producing credits span Broadway, Off-Broadway, and national tours, has long admired Uhry’s work. “It is the absolute honor of my career to collaborate with Alfred Uhry on bringing a new work of his to the New York stage,” said Shacket. “As a child living in a small town in Kentucky, Driving Miss Daisy changed my life—it was the first time I learned about Broadway and the power of the American theatre. WITHOUT WALLS is a gorgeous exploration into mentorship and the challenges teachers face every day trying to protect their students.”

The project is being developed with the full support of International Literary Properties (ILP), which manages Uhry’s estate and oversees his literary works.