Playground architects design spaces that are dangerous enough to allow for experimentation, yet safe enough to allow those experiments to fail without serious injury. But when Arthur is asked to design a bulletproof playscape for his daughter’s old school, he confronts an unsettling reality: that the world does not operate by the same rules as playgrounds.

The play follows Arthur, his teenaged daughter and a teacher on recess duty. It takes place in part on a dusty playground in Austin, and in part on the vibrant, imaginative world of Arthur’s playsets. It is a story about the persistence of care and hope despite the overwhelming strains being placed on the American educational system. It is a play about learning, growing up and grown-ups learning to play.