Darryl Stamp on Creating ‘DUMBED DOWN’
BY DARRYL STAMP
Darryl Stamp has been a member of Plan-B Theatre’s Theatre Artists of Color Writing Workshop since its inception in 2017.
In 2019, his short play "Roar" premiered as part of Plan-B’s ...OF COLOR. In 2020, his short play "Mis En Place" was commissioned by Plan-B at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown as part of the national Play at Home initiative. It is now part of the COVID-19 Response Collection housed in the Library of Congress. Also in 2020, Darryl produced and directed a reading of an earlier version of DUMBED DOWN as part of that year's all-virtual Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival. In 2023, his play GO HOME COME BACK premiered at Plan-B and, in 2024, his monologue "American Survival Story" premiered as part of Plan-B's FULL COLOR.
Darryl has been an adjunct acting instructor for Weber State University since 2019 and a teaching artist for Plan-B’s Playwriting With Young People (grades K-6) and Playwriting With Young Adults (grades 7-12) programs in Salt Lake City schools since 2022.
A retired high school teacher, DUMBED DOWN reflects on and is inspired by Darryl's 25-year career as an educator.
I come from a family of high school graduates.
None of my immediate family members earned a college degree, so I didn't have an empowering educational support system. I attended elementary, junior high, and high school in Brooklyn, New York. Each of these schools were teeming with students from diverse ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds.
Only one teacher—an English teacher in junior high school—saw any potential in me. In seventh grade I wrote a story about a show I had watched on television. I titled it, "The Elevator." This was before I knew anything about plagiarism and there was no capability to record and save programs. My English teacher gave me an A and wrote at the top of it, "Excellent! You could be a writer someday." He obviously hadn't seen that T.V. show!
I didn't realize until decades later that I had a grasp of syntax and diction as a seventh grader. I still have that essay. It's the only thing I wrote before some poetry about racism for a literary magazine at a college I failed to graduate from.
Mr. Cooper was the only teacher in elementary, middle school, and high school to see any potential in me.
Without a bachelor’s degree, I worked as a line cook, waiter, insurance investigator, standup comedian, a Kansas Department of Corrections halfway house employee, and an actor.
Eventually, I earned a graduate degree in education and became a teacher myself.
I spent my first four years teaching at an inner-city high school. The faculty was mostly Caucasian. My first year was especially difficult, and I was ready to quit by Halloween. Our student body was about 55% African American, 35% Latino, and 10% Caucasian. But being well trained, innovative, patient, having a sense of humor, and seeing a bit of myself in my students, I was able to relate to the them and help them realize their potential. In four years, my students went from saying, "Yo! Mr. Stamp, you so stupid!" to "Yo bro, I see what you did there, that was a sarcasm joint!"
That initial eye-opening teaching experience, coupled with meeting folks who became my mentors at Weber State University after I moved to Utah, solidified my desire to continue teaching. I found myself fortunate enough to work with another diverse student body at Hunter High School, from which I retired in 2019.
My teaching experiences reinforced my belief that if you create an interesting and relevant curriculum and genuinely care about students, success is possible. Especially if you’re a competent male teacher of color (which is highly underrepresented in the field of education).
My play DUMBED DOWN is not about me. And yet, my experiences as a student, my work in the field of criminal justice, and my work with students to help them achieve academic success, career success, and societal readiness are all in it.
I think Mr. Cooper would like it too.
A FEW MORE MEMORIES FROM DARRYL
I left my job as Director of the Sedgwick County Kansas Department of Corrections Halfway House for Non-Violent Offenders in 1994, at the age of 40, to be a professional actor.
I was already doing stand-up comedy in Wichita, Kansas and around the country while traveling on business trips and vacations. This was before auditioning for and getting cast in a production of DRIVING MISS DAISY. I was hooked on theatre after that experience. Too old to go to New York, I put my belongings in storage and moved to Kansas City (Missouri) to work as an actor. I earned my union card working at every Equity theatre in the area, performing in 22 Equity productions from 1995 until I retired from acting in 2000.
I held down five part-time jobs while working as an actor. Luckily they were all acting related: patient programs at two different hospitals, Sprint’s management role-play training program, an Enhanced Experience actor at the Kansas City (Missouri) Zoo, and a summer camp counselor at Camp Shakespeare.
In 2000, I tore my patella tendon while hiking with my now-wife Mindy on my second visit to Utah. I’m sure playing semi-professional football had already done some damage. Back in Kansas City (Missouri), while laying in bed with a brace on my knee, I saw a newspaper article about the Kansas City (Kansas) Teaching Fellows program to enter the teaching profession, specifically to learn to teach in communities of need. I was recruited, interviewed, and auditioned (while still on crutches because of my patella) with an iambic pentameter lesson plan I learned working at Camp Shakespeare. I was accepted into the program and spent two years earning my Secondary Education M.S. degree in English Language Arts at Pittsburg (Kansas) State University. For the first time in my life, I made the Dean’s/President's List with a 4.0, graduating with honors.
After graduation, if I taught at least four years at a Title I, inner-city, low-standardized-test-scores high school, my tuition would be paid in full by the Teaching Fellows program. By Halloween of my first year of teaching at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, I wanted to quit and pay my own tuition!
On my first day of school while heading to the office before my first class, a kid threatened to kick my ass because I asked him to take off his hat (no gang hats, jerseys, or gang colors were allowed). I walked away thinking I could go to jail for beating the hell out of a student on my first day of school. The principal brought that student (a freshman!) to my room. He told the student I played football and boxed (both true) and the kid apologized.
All teachers were expected to be available for metal detector duty for two days in the fall and two days in the spring. Students fought inside and outside of class almost daily. There was drug use inside and outside, gang violence, and sexual assaults. I broke up a couple of fights: one in my classroom and broke up another fight in a stairwell surrounded by 15-20 students, and just barely missed being punched in the back of my head. I was transferred to the college-bound community of students (same behaviors but with intellectual potential) and teachers.
After four years at Wyandotte I knew I could teach anywhere.
I got married, moved to Utah, and eventually found myself teaching American Literature at Hunter High School in West Valley City.
My play DUMBED DOWN is inspired by my experiences teaching at Wyandotte and Hunter. At both schools I created a classroom environment that was welcoming, supportive, and caring. Drawing on my professional experience as an actor and stand-up comedian, my lesson plans were creative and taught in a fun way while following state standards. My students listened to and created music, poetry, board games; they role-played, did improv, watched videos, and participated in structured debates. My students knew that I genuinely cared about them. I wanted to know about them and their families outside of the classroom. I made allowances for mistakes and corrections, I let them know that I knew what it was like to struggle, and what it took to succeed in the classroom: show up, bring paper and something to write with, pay attention, do the work, do your best, care about failing, care about succeeding.
My classroom management style disciplined students humanely (which was emphasized during my grad school training). I made it my job to try to connect with them as individuals. I rarely sat behind my desk. I arranged student desks in a U-shape, despite having 40 students (sometimes more) each period, each school year. This created room for demonstrations, group activities, and connection.
Sidebar: As one of only three African American teachers out of more than 100, I voiced my concern at an “active shooter” faculty meeting about possibly being mistaken for a shooter, which no one had previously considered. “That’s a good point.” is what I remember being told, along with “Have your I.D. visible.” Yeah, thanks a lot.
The character of Mr. Simon is a stand-in for me.
Isaiah is inspired by a Wyandotte student who didn’t attend school much and knew how the suspension game worked.
Malcolm and Craig are inspired by several students at Wyandotte and Hunter that I went the extra-extra mile to reach.
And Principal Davis is inspired by my principal at Wyandotte, who tolerated a lot from students because he cared about trying to save them from the inevitable.
As a child from a single parent family growing up in Brooklyn, I knew what it was like to struggle, fail, and succeed. I saw myself in my students. So I gave everything to them I wished I would have received. I've put money in students lockers, given away parts of my lunch, stayed after school to talk to students, listened to their problems, and made referrals to trained staff on their behalf. I've been told that I've cared for some students more than their parents. I’ve had students who wished that I also taught 12th grade! I regularly have had more parents show up to see me at parent/teacher conferences than any other teacher, causing me to be the last teacher to leave because parents wanted to meet the Mr. Stamp their children talked about. I've been invited to weddings, and I still recognize some of their birthdays, wedding anniversaries, promotions, missions, births of children, and take joy in knowing many of them have become good human beings.
TICKETS
DUMBED DOWN by Darryl Stamp receives its world premiere February 12-March 1, 2026 at Plan-B Theatre in the Studio Theatre at The Rose. Please click here for details and to purchase tickets.