Ann Hutton

Half Moon Theatre presents Emerson High, a new play written by Jim Knable that examines the complexities of human relationships and, perhaps, how we each arrive at a personal version of morality. A 16-yearold fl ute player and her high school band teacher fall in love. Meanwhile, the band’s trumpetplayer is in love with his English teacher, who happens to be the band teacher’s exgirlfriend. Billed as “a tragic-comedy with a morally ambiguous ending,” Knable’s work provokes questions about the nature of young love, friendship and self-discovery – and the potential messiness surrounding such an alliance in its grounding in sexuality.

Knable states that he did not write the play in response to lurid headlines about high school teacher/ student scandals, but rather as an exploration into memory of his and others’ past memories of similar situations. He says, “These weren’t headline-grabbing stories…But it’s something that happens, real people go through it, and people close to those parties [teacher and student] go through their own dramatic turmoil, moral questioning, outrage and, rarely, change of perspective.”

The premise of a teacher/student sexual relationship, a supposed condition of “love” notwithstanding, is a highly charged, potentially unsavory topic that could elicit reactions from an audience that the playwright may not have intended. Knable sees his job as a playwright to show how things really are, not to cast judgment. “There are characters in the play who cast judgment, and there are characters who are judged. But this is not Lolita. The teenage girl is not a mystery vixen, nor is she a virginal victim. She’s as real a person as I could make her. And so is the teacher. And while there are characters who make questionable and probably totally wrong choices, there are other characters who make strong and admirable choices. Nobody is innocent in this play; but also, nobody is trying to be a bad human being.”

With a mixture of drama and humor, Knable’s work addresses the development of character over the arrival to a moral-of-the-story. He reiterates, “I didn’t set out to write about an issue; I set about to write a play about some characters who all meant something to me…I do think the play is fair in and of itself. It doesn’t offer easy answers. I don’t think it offers any answers at all except, in reference to Ralph Waldo Emerson: Each person is responsible for making and staying true to his or her own moral laws.”

Knable began his playwriting career at age 14, winning the California Young Playwrights’ Contest three years in a row and the national Young Playwrights’ Contest two years in a row. Along with writing plays for adults that have been produced in theaters throughout the country, he has also been commissioned four times to write touring plays for young audiences. Jeremy Dobrish, former artistic director of Adobe Theatre Company and a regular at Powerhouse Theatre, directs an outstanding cast of experienced actors in Emerson High, with Marie-France Arcilla and Andrew Dolan in the starring roles and Molly Katz and Tim Dowd playing the ancillary characters.

See Emerson High before it goes to New York City. Half Moon Theatre is a professional theater company working primarily out of the Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center, where Emerson High will be staged on Friday, November 6, Saturday the 7th, Thursday the 12th, Friday the 13th and Saturday the 14th at 8 p.m., and on Sundays, November 8 and 15 at 3 p.m. The Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center is located at 12 Vassar Street (near the train station) in Poughkeepsie. Tickets are $20 general admission and $18 for seniors and students. Visit www.halfmooontheatre.org for more information and tickets, or call (888) 718-4253.