(upbeat music) - Plan-B Theater marks Black History Month with the world premiere of "Dumbed Down" inspired by playwright Darryl Stamp's years in the classroom.

Here with more is Darryl.

Tell us about how this, your work as a high school English teacher inspired this play.

- It started from, it went from being an actor to trying not to be poor any longer, went back to school to get my degree, and get licensed to be an educator because I wanted to give back to students what I didn't get, or at least what I thought I didn't get as a high school student, and who knows, maybe college student.

- Wow.

And I hear that PBS Utah viewers might see a familiar face in the cast.

- Mm-hmm.

It's Danor, yeah.

- Yeah, Danor's in it, right?

- Danor, sorry, yeah, yeah.

- No, that's all right.

- Yeah, he plays Mr.

Simon, my character, alter ego.

Yeah.

- Oh, interesting.

- Yeah, he's the high school English teacher.

- And what do you hope that audiences will take away from this?

- I'm hoping that audiences will realize students can and will learn if the curriculum is interesting, innovative, exciting, and can make relevance with the past and the, you know, the present.

- And there's a bit of laughter in there as well.

- There's quite a bit of humor.

The students are hilarious and I saw myself in them as someone who didn't know what he didn't know.

And that relationship fostered a way for us to learn together, and hopefully, be lifetime learners.

- I love that.

It can, in some way spark empathy for people who are watching, right?

- Yes.

Yeah, that is definitely my hope.

Never stop learning.

And near the end of the play, we still see a couple of the characters, main characters, continuing to learn- - And I'm- - despite their environment and circumstances.

- Oh, I love that.

I'm sure audiences will learn a lot from this play.

You can check it out by just taking a few notes of what you see on your screen.

It is the play, "Dumbed Down," which will be at Plan-B Theater.

It opens February 12th.

And for more information, just head to planbtheater.org/dumbeddown.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I'm Liz Adeola, and this is "Contact."

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