The dog days of summer linger in Austin, and now kids are slogging through the heat on their way back to school. New notebooks and sneakers might be the only freshness kids get at the beginning of the school year anymore: while standardized testing and its accompanying monotonous curriculum is rolled out nationwide, the extraneous stuff (art, music, gym class) faces the axe. And as politicians start screaming for accountability, teachers bear the load, forced to justify their existence through cryptic in-class evaluations and larger class sizes—all at the same pay rate, of course (if they are lucky). Reflecting those pressures and frustrations, Sustainable Theatre Project have framed their production of William Missouri Downs' Dead White Males as a response to the recent controversy over textbook revisions by the Texas Board of Education (the process is not new, but mainstream media apparently noticed this year). The play looks at one year in the life of a new public school teacher. Spoiler: it does not end well. more ›