The Teachers Lounge

Oxford School of Drama, October 2025

It was my pleasure to return to Oxford to direct 3rd year students in an adaptation of the German Film, The Teachers Lounge directed by İlker Çatak, who co-wrote the screenplay with Johannes Duncker .  I have recently been experimenting in adapting films to stage settings and The Teachers Lounge lended itself so well to this exploration. Set in a secondary school over the course of a few weeks the school experiences some thefts and the administration sets about trying to deal with this. The school serves as a microcosm, with wider world issues of racial profiling and socioeconomic divisions playing out in miniature. The focus is also on idealistic but fallible teachers who, through an impulsive misstep, upset the delicate balance of their workplace.

A wonderful project to explore in a large studio space. The audience sit in traverse along the length of the studio walls and the many locations of staff room, class room, headmistress office, playground, gym, school corridors are played out in the central area but also behind the audience. Movement between all the spaces helped create the energy and dynamics of a busy and fraught school day and my third year students enjoyed the challenge of creating students, teachers and parents with great detail and nuance.