The Big Leap

Class trips are the best holidays of all. You go on an adventure with your friends, get up to lots of mischief and the adults are always in the minority. But Karl’s long-suffering class teacher, Frau Heller, has laid down some strict rules for their trip, the most important being, «Three strikes and you’re out». Last year Karl’s father had to pick up his son in the middle of the night after he’d broken the rules for the third time, so this time Ecke is joining his son’s class trip to help supervise him and his friends. While it initially seems that this trip will be more peaceful, the first day sees someone putting green ink in the soap dispenser and itching powder into all the shoes. Karl is completely innocent, though, as the real culprit Tami, the new girl who no one seems to know. On the face of it, Karl has no reason to care what happens now. But then he has an unsettling thought. Surely no one would deliberately try to get picked up on the first day – or would they?

Bursting with wit, sensitivity and a lot of music, Thilo Reffert’s play is about the courage to try new things and the friendships that give us new courage. And the adult characters in this play also realise that following the rules is not always what’s most important.