ABSTRACT
Using Willy Russell’s 1980 play Educating Rita as a touchstone, this chapter focuses on the theatrical representation of the mentor/educator as sculptor or creator. My perspective as a two-time director of Russell’s play, as well as a teacher at the University of Illinois, Chicago, an urban school on Chicago’s Near South Side, is used to address specific issues involved in navigating this modern re-telling of the Pygmalion/Galatea drama onstage, including the general dangers and rewards of the mentor/mentee relationship as opposed to other teaching modalities; gender power issues as shown in the relationship between Frank, a man in his 50s, and Rita, a woman in her 20s; and race as a factor in the mentor/mentee relationship, as experienced in my production. Additionally, this chapter delineates differences between mentorship and teaching to parse the methods of Frank’s mentorship in regards to current practices and makes a reasoned assessment of both the positive and negative aspects of Frank’s relationship to Rita.
