ADVANCED DRAMA Comes to The Nevada Theatre in June

Sierra Stages will present the world premiere reading of Advanced Drama, a new play exploring the lives of a high school theatre teacher and his students as they struggle to adjust to an increasingly politicized classroom. Presented as an installation of Theater by the Book, Advanced Drama runs one night only on Tuesday, June 4 at the Nevada Theatre in downtown Nevada City, CA.

Written by local luminaries Kerri Yund, Gary Wright, and Richard Winters, Advanced Drama was inspired by a real-life incident. “It started out as a funny story I would tell at parties, about a very, very bad day I had at work,” said Winters. “An offhand comment was taken out of context and willfully misinterpreted by a student’s father who pulled his son out of my class and tried to get me fired. Once the dust settled, I started thinking, ‘This would make a good play.’” 

Winters worked with Yund on a first draft before recruiting Wright to pitch in. A playwright and former member of the acclaimed Foothill Theatre Company, Wright jumped at the chance. “I loved it,” he said. “The script is so current with the parental rights movement and the don’t-say-gay laws. I’ve written a couple dozen plays and screenplays, but I wasn’t ever as excited about any of those ideas as I was about this one.”