No Child

No Child is a one-woman show about the challenges of being a teacher in New York’s toughest schools — think navigating ingrained generational poverty and crime, teenage pregnancy and hormone fuelled hyperactivity, all before the little lunch bell. Though the subject matter doesn’t exactly scream funny, when actualised by one-woman powerhouse Nilaja Sun, whose eight years spent teaching in the US school system informs the performance, the effect is at once hilarious, humanising and heartbreaking.

Since premiering off-Broadway in 2006, the play has received international critical acclaim and returns to Melbourne after eight performances in last year’s Melbourne Festival. Amidst the public debate that surrounds the government’s implementation of the Gonski review, No Child offers a sobering portrait of what can happen to the individual when the system fails them.

Image via theatreworks.org.au