The story practically writes itself: fundraiser for anti-censorship group gets censored. Ironic headline, attention-grabbing tweet, you name it. That’s exactly what appears to have happened in the past few days as the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture’s decision to cancel a rental contract with the theatre group Planet Connections Theatre Festivity has been made public. Planet Connections was producing a one-night event, “Playwrights for a Cause,” on the subject of censorship, which would in part benefit the National Coalition Against Censorship.

“Neil LaBute’s Anti-Censorship Play Is Censored, With Chilling ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Echoes,” was the headline of an article by Jeremy Gerard for Deadline. “Neil LaBute NYC Anti-Censorship Theater Event ‘Censored’ to Prevent Muslim Outrage,” topped a piece by Kipp Jones for Breitbart News. “Sheen Center Cancels Event Featuring Neil LaBute Play About ‘Mohammed’” was the title for Jennifer Scheussler’s story in The New York Times.

In the wake of the cancelation, the situation was described in a press release:

“Playwrights For A Cause,” an evening of plays by award-winning playwrights Erik Ehn, Halley Feiffer, Israel Horovitz and Neil LaBute, and a panel discussion concerning censorship in climate science and more inclusion of LGBT, women, and minorities in the arts, originally scheduled for June 14, 2015 at The Sheen Center at 18 Bleecker Street, has been canceled by the management of The Sheen Center.

Although their management originally approved the event and accepted full payment for the venue, a recent change in management resulted in the Center’s decision that some of the speeches the panel speakers were going to make, along with Neil LaBute’s play Mohammed Gets A Boner, are not acceptable or compatible with their mission statement.  The diverse panel of speakers included Cecilia Copeland, speaking on the censorship of women in the arts; Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin, speaking on the censorship of environmentalists and climate scientists; Michael Hagins, speaking on the censorship & underrepresentation of minorities in the arts; and Mark Jason Williams, speaking on the censorship of LGBT artists.

On Tuesday, May 12, The Sheen Center canceled the entire event, including the Planet Connections opening night party which – ironically – was benefitting the National Coalition Against Censorship.

Upon my inquiry as to the cause of the cancelation, William Spencer Reilly, executive director of the Sheen Center, responded:

At the Sheen Center we are 100% for the right to free speech for every American, and always will be. However, when an artistic project maligns any faith group, that project clearly falls outside of our mission to highlight the good, the true, and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages.

We were disappointed to learn only a few days ago that one of the plays commissioned by Planet Connections Theater Festivity for the Playwrights For a Cause benefit event was called “Mohommad Gets a Boner” [sic].  We were totally unaware of this, and their Producing Artistic Director was fully cognizant that plays of this nature were unacceptable vis a vis our contract. (That contract, FYI, was with Planet Connections Theater Festivity, not with National Coalition Against Censorship.)

In light of this clear offense to Muslims, I decided to cancel the contract. Just as newspapers the world over have chosen not to publish cartoons offensive to Islam, I chose not to provide a forum for what could be incendiary material.  At the Sheen Center, we cannot and will not be a forum that mocks or satirizes another faith group.

I am confident that the programming at the Sheen Center will continue to demonstrate our commitment to meaningful conversation about important issues, and will do so in a respectful manner — to people of all faiths, or of no particular faith.

Reilly wrote, in a separate e-mail, that he learned of the content of “Playwrights for a Cause” from a staff member on May 11, saying that his staff knew of three of the plays prior to his start as executive director in late January, that he signed the contract on February 10, and that his staff only learned of the La Bute play on May 8, when they “discovered” it on the Planet Connections website.

*   *   *

Before continuing, I should note my pre-existing relationship with NCAC. I have worked collaboratively with them on several instances of school theatre censorship, most notably on the cancelation of a production of Almost, Maine in Maiden NC and most recently on a threat to student written plays in Aurora, CO. Last year, they named me as one of their “Top 40 Free Speech Defenders.” They first informed me of the cancelation of “Playwrights for a Cause” because they were seeking suggestions of where they might relocate the event, and they did not solicit me at any time to write about the situation.

*   *   *

In the wake of the cancelation, the NCAC indicated to me that the contract for the event, signed by Planet Connections, provided for cancelations pertaining to content concerns. The statement from the Sheen Center (“unacceptable vis a vis our contract”) seemed to confirm that proviso. However, when I asked Glory Kadigan, producing artistic curator of Planet Connections about provisions for cancelation in the contract, she responded,

It does say no abortions on the premises. And it does say it can’t be pornographic. However the Sheen did not cite pornography as the reason they were breaking contract. They cited religion. I do not see anything in the contract that states ‘religious differences’ as a reason they are allowed to break contract. I also can’t find a clause that states that ‘not upholding their mission’ is a reason they can break contract.

Kadigan reaffirmed this in a subsequent e-mail:

When breaking contract with us – [a Sheen staffer] stated in an email that they had a right to break contract for “religious differences/being offensive to a religion” and not upholding their mission statement. The contract does not state this anywhere that we can find. This was just something she said in an email when breaking contract but it is not actually in the contract.”

Kadigan also said there was no provision in the contract for review or approval of content. In a follow-up e-mail, after two prior exchanges, I asked Reilly if he could share the specific contract language that provided for cancelation due to material that might prove offensive to any religious group. I received no response. He also did not respond to my inquiry asking if the decision to cancel the contract based solely on the La Bute play or if the content by the featured speakers part of the decision.

*   *   *

The website of the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture doesn’t make explicit that it’s a project of New York’s Catholic Archdiocese, although it does so in a current job listing for a managing director position on the New York Foundation for the Arts website. However, there are clear public indications that the new arts center has a Catholic underpinning, via its mission statement:

The Sheen Center is a forum to highlight the true, the good, and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages. Cognizant of our creation in the image and likeness of God, the Sheen Center aspires to present the heights and depths of human expression in thought and culture, featuring humankind as fully alive. At the Sheen Center, we proclaim that life is worth living, especially when we seek to deepen, explore, challenge, and stimulate ourselves, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, intellectually, artistically, and spiritually.

“Sheen Center for Thought and Culture” is also not the complete name of the venue, since its letterhead notes that it is in fact “The Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Center for Thought and Culture.” I wouldn’t begin to suggest that the Center is hiding its affiliation with the church, but it is inconsistent in making the relationship clear.

I think it would benefit the Sheen Center enormously to clarify this, because a religious organization certainly has the right to determine what activities are appropriate in its own facilities. In making its facility available to outside groups for rent, rather than relying solely on its own productions, it behooves the Center to make clear how they might choose to assert their prerogative.

In an article last year in the Wall Street Journal, Elena K. Holy, who runs the New York International Fringe Festival, an early tenant of the Center, discussed her conversations with the Center’s leadership about content, prior to Reilly’s tenure:

The new spaces appealed to Ms. Holy, whose festival typically includes shows that would raise the eyebrows of conservative churchgoers. “We’ve had conversations about it,” said Ms. Holy. “They approached us. And my initial response was ‘Are you sure?'”

Ms. Holy said she was given no restriction on style or content, with one caveat: “They wanted to avoid anything that is hateful about a one group of people. And that probably wouldn’t be accepted to Fringe NYC anyway.”

Of course, the Fringe has the benefit of playing in more than a dozen venues, so presumably it can program its work at the Center accordingly, to avoid running afoul of its content restrictions. From this year’s crop of upcoming productions at the Fringe, I would say we’re unlikely to see Van Gogh Fuck Yourself, Virgin Sacrifice, The God Gaffe, or Popesical at the Sheen Center. I have no idea what they would make of An Inconvenient Poop or I Want To Kill Lena Dunham.

I do find myself wondering about another booking at The Sheen Center, specifically The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group Spotlight series. Since the beginning of April, and concluding next week, The Public has presented two free readings of each of ten new plays. While the titles don’t indicate any potential controversy as La Bute’s did – they include Optimism, The Black Friend, The Good Ones and Pretty Hunger – it’s hard not to wonder whether ten new plays by young writers by sheer coincidence manage to not make any statements that could be perceived as contrary or insulting to any faith. Since it doesn’t appear that the Sheen Center requires script material to be submitted in advance, is it possible that if a Sheen staff member attended a 3 pm reading in The Public’s series and heard statements they deemed to be contrary to the center’s mission, the 7 pm reading of the same script might be prevented from going on?

*   *   *

Reilly stated that the Center is “100% for the right to free speech for every American.” However, truly free speech means that we have to allow for both words and ideas that may not be acceptable to everyone. As a project of the Catholic Church, the Sheen Center certainly has the absolute right, as do all religious institutions in the US, to assert its prerogative over what is said and performed on its premises – but that is not 100% free speech for their tenants during their stay, even if the goal of restrictions is to foster, in Reilly’s words, “meaningful conversation that reaches for understanding and not polarization.”

While Reilly’s comments were not shared with her, Kadigan, in her final e-mail to me, seemed to directly confront the idea that the event was meant to polarize. She wrote:

‘Playwrights For A Cause’ is a great event in which we are building bridges. We had two Muslim actors performing that evening who were going to be on our panel.   We also have African American artists performing and Asian American writers speaking.  Women playwrights and LGBT playwrights were also going to be on the panel. Erik Ehn (one of the other presenting writers) is a devout Catholic.  Israel Horovitz is Jewish. All of these people would be on the panel so we had a lot of different opinions/voices.

The events of the past week make it abundantly clear why the Sheen Center needs to be more transparent in its affiliation and restrictions. It should not enter into rental contracts which may be canceled for content concerns unless it makes explicitly clear what lines cannot be crossed in its facility – allowing arts organizations seeking to use the facility to consider whether they want their work subject to such scrutiny, or to work in a facility that imposes such content limitations on others. That way, all parties can be fully informed in their dealings at the very start, understanding that the Sheen Center, in the words of New York Times reporter David Gonzalez, “was envisioned as a vehicle for the church to evangelize through culture and art.”

As for “Playwrights for a Cause”? I’m told by the National Coalition Against Censorship that they and Planet Connections may have a line on a new venue. I hope they do (maybe even one I suggested), and that the result of this conflict will be to fill whatever theatre they end up performing in. After all, one of the results of silencing speech, even in those rare cases where the right exists to do so, usually has the effect of spreading the original message even further.

Update May 19, 2:45 pm: Planet Connections has announced that “Playwrights for a Cause” will take place as scheduled on June 14 at New York Theatre Workshop. However, the program will no longer include Neil LaBute’s piece. The playwright released a statement regarding his decision to withdraw the piece:

Unfortunately the event was starting to become all about my play and its title and not about the fine work that Erik Ehn, Halley Feiffer and Israel Horovitz were also presenting that evening, along with the accompanying speeches and the cause of the evening itself. “I had hoped my work would be viewed on its own merits rather than overshadow our message or become a beacon of controversy. I am honestly not interested in stirring hatred or merely being offensive; I wanted my play to provoke real thought and debate and I now feel like that opportunity has been lost and, therefore, it is best that I withdraw the play from “Playwrights For A Cause.”

Howard Sherman is the director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama.

When it was all said and done, three student-written short plays, part of an evening of playlets, monologues and songs, went on as scheduled at Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora, Colorado. But in the 10 days leading up to that performance, the students claim they were told the plays and one student-written monologue were canceled. The students successfully garnered the attention of a local TV station, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama over the impending cancelation.

However, the school claimed the shows were never canceled and that the students misunderstood, but first delayed the performance of the pieces in question and then rescinded that delay, which would have pushed the plays to a later date. The school cited lack of proper process for approval, issued permission slips to the parents of all participating students and sent a broader memo to parents regarding the content of the pieces, defining them as “suitable for mature audiences.” Amidst this, rumors suggested that some contemporaneous school vandalism was the work of the drama kids. One student-written monologue was canceled entirely because the student’s parents reportedly denied approval for it to be performed.

What precisely triggered all of this activity around brief student-written plays? LGBTQ subject matter.

*   *   *   *

The cast and creators of “Evolution” at Cherokee Trail High School

Students in Cherokee Trail’s Theatre 3 class developed the “Evolution” evening under the banner of their student-run Raw Works Studio, working on them both in class and after school for more than a month. According Theatre 3/Raw Works students – including Josette Axne, Kenzie Boyd, Brandon McEachern, Dyllan Moran, and Ayla Sullivan, with whom I shared phone calls, texts and e-mails at various times beginning April 16 – they were informed by the school’s Activities Director Christine Jones on April 15 that because of the LGBTQ content in the student written works, the pieces could not be performed and would be excised from the pending performance set for April 24.

The students immediately took action, reaching out to the local media, setting up a Facebook page called “Not Original,” contacting the National Coalition Against Censorship (which in turn contacted the Arts Integrity Initiative), all over their understanding that the plays were being cut from the performance. After first speaking with Axne, I spoke and corresponded primarily with Sullivan in the first few days.

By the time Channel 9 in Denver, NCAC and Arts Integrity made contact with the school’s administration on April 16, Principal Kim Rauh had prepared a response, which portrayed the situation in a different light. It read, in part:

The student written plays will be performed at Cherokee Trail High School. The decision that was made was to postpone the date of the performance to allow our theater process to be completed.  Students were invited to meet with us to work through the process and give the necessary time to work through all of the “what ifs” and attempt to be proactive as opposed to reactive and to plan for success. With every production there is an element of both directorial and administrative review and approval. The plays were submitted after the due date for final approval for the original performance date.  We have extended the process timeline to allow the plays to be performed at a later date at Cherokee Trail High School.

Channel 9’s account of the situation, the only significant local news story, was reported on the evening news on April 16, stating that the pieces would now be performed on May 9.

*   *   *   *

“Not Original”’s Facebook post about school vandalism

On Friday morning April 17, shortly before 8 am Colorado time, I received, in the space of ten minutes, an e-mail and phone call from Ayla Sullivan. She was deeply concerned that an act of vandalism at the school overnight was being attributed to the Theatre 3 students, even though she said it had been covered up before students arrived at the school that morning, so that not only were she and her classmates not involved, they didn’t even know the nature of the vandalism. Sullivan asked how the drama students should address this, and I advised them to tell the truth and make clear their position about whatever had occurred. Ten minutes later, the following message was posted, as a screenshot from a cellphone, to the “Not Original” Facebook page:

The vandalism we are now aware of that happened earlier this morning was not done by any member of Raw Works Studio and is not affiliated with the Not Original Movement whatsoever. Due to none of the members even seeing this vandalism, we do not know what it says and if it is even related to us. Whatever the markings say, we can not see it because it was covered as early as 6:45 this morning.

If someone wrote something that is related to Not Original through vandalizing public property, we absolutely oppose it. We do not support vandalism, violence, or hate speech. We do not support this action. We are, and have always been, a peaceful movement.

This is not the way towards change. This is not acceptable.

To date, the students say they haven’t heard anything more about the vandalism. It was a brief source of anxiety, but not central to the dispute.

*   *   *   *

On April 17, I sent a series of questions about the events of the past two days to Principal Rauh, copying Tustin Amole, the director of communications for the school district. It was Amole who responded, very promptly. Describing the reasons and process for what was happening with the plays, she explained:

All student performances are subject to administrative review prior to rehearsals beginning. The teacher is responsible for submitting material for consideration. I do not know how soon prior to that the students finished the plays. Regardless of when the materials are submitted, there is a long-standing process which must be followed.

In cases where the material may be mature or sensitive, the school meets with the parents of the students involved to make sure that they have permission to participate. We would then inform the broader community so that they are aware of the subject matter and can make a decision about whether they want to come and perhaps bring younger children.

Because I had pointed out that the new date set for the student written works (all of the other pieces were to be performed as originally scheduled) conflicted with tests for Advanced Placement and the International Baccalaureate, Amole wrote me:

In our effort to ensure that the students have the opportunity to perform the plays, we selected a date that allowed time for the process. We understand concerns about the timing, but this is the only available opportunity before school ends.

Following this exchange, I wrote again to Amole, inquiring as to the school’s specific concerns about the material, which had gone unmentioned. She replied:

The plays concern some issues around sexuality and gender identity. We would not censor the subject matter, but do work to ensure that all parents were informed and give consent for participation, and that attendees know the nature of the material. In other words you would not take children to a movie without knowing what it is about, nor are you likely to allow children to participate in an unknown activity. In the Cherry Creek School District, parents are given the option of reviewing activities, books and other materials and asking for alternatives if they object to what is assigned.

As for when the review process had begun, she responded:

The conversations with the students began when the material was submitted to administrators for review. We were looking for alternative dates to complete the review process when some of the students decided to call the media. Because they did not have that class yesterday, they were unaware that a new date had been determined. Had they waited to talk to their teacher during the next class, they would have been informed. They also always have the option of coming to the principal to express their concerns and they chose to call the news media instead. We regret that they chose not to work through our long established process.

That same day, the students told me, there were two meetings with Christine Jones, who outlined for them the plans for going forward.

*   *   *   *

After all of this, imagine my surprise when, just before 5 pm Colorado time on Monday, April 20, the NCAC and Arts Integrity Initiative received the following e-mail from Ayla Sullivan:

We have officially gotten our show back! Thank you so much for your help and support. Your belief in us is the only reason we have this. Thank you.

I wrote Rauh and Amole minutes later, to find out how the timetable had been restored to the original date. Amole replied two days later, sharing the communication that was going out to parents that day, which read in part:

I wanted to take this opportunity to communicate an update regarding the Theatre 3 production at Cherokee Trail High School, Evolution. Evolution contains a series of vignettes including songs, original student works and published scenes centered around the theme of love, some of which contain topics that may be considered best suited for mature audiences.

Because we are not putting topics on the stage, but rather actual students with actual feelings it was our desire to ensure that we had the time to adequately communicate the nature of the production with our parents and community members to help ensure the safety and well-being of all involved. The events of the past week have allowed us to do so and as such the administration, director and students have determined that we can perform the show on the originally scheduled date of April 24.

In response specifically to me, Amole added:

As of now, we do not have permission from all of the students’ parents to participate. While we continue to work to obtain the required permissions, we will honor the parent’s wishes, as per district policy. The performances of those students who do have parent permission will go forward.

*   *   *   *

Graphic design for “Evolution” at Cherokee Trail High School

On April 24, the following student written pieces were performed as part of “Evolution”: A Tale of Three Kisses by Kenzie Boyd and Brandon McEachern , Roots by Dyllan Moran, and Family: The Art of Residence by Ayla Sullivan and Brandon McEachern. The evening was, in the words of Dylan Moran, in an interview with KGNU Radio that he gave the day of the performance, about “how love evolves, both through time and within ourselves.”

On April 29, five days after the performance, I spoke with the students to ascertain how the performance had gone. They reported attendance in the neighborhood of 300 people, which while it only filled the orchestra section of their theatre, they said was comparable with other performances of this kind, and they seemed satisfied with the turnout. But had there been, when it was all said and done, any censorship of the work?

Brandon McEachern replied, “The only thing that was asked to be changed was certain curse words. There was no content change. It was just not having the word ‘shit’ or something like that. Those are the only changes they asked for the shows.”

“Certain words were allowed to fly in certain shows that weren’t allowed in others,” Moran continued. “It was very touch and go. There wasn’t any set rule. We’d be performing and it was like, ‘That one’s not OK,’ and we’d move on. Life Under Water did have changes, not as extensively as the original ones, probably because it had already been produced.”

I wondered, given the representations of Amole on behalf of the school district, whether the students had in fact misunderstood their conversation with Jones on April 15, given all that had transpired since. The unanimous reply of Boyd, McEachern, Moran, and Sullivan was that they hadn’t.

“It was very clear to us, on the day, that the show would not be happening,” said Moran. “There was no editing, there was no pushing it to a later date, there was no discussion about it. It was only when we got involved with the media that they changed their story and said, ‘No, we are going to push it back. We told them we were going to push it back, they just didn’t listen to us’.”

Sullivan continued, “There was also the sense of, when we were approached later, that Friday, which was April 17, by our activities director, that we were being guilt tripped, that we didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt and we immediately met with the media outlets and tried to make this a bigger thing than what it was – that it was our fault for misunderstanding, which never happened. It was very clear.”

When asked if it was made clear to them why there was concern over the material, Sullivan said there was a single reason given, that it was about “how the community would react to LGBT representation.” The students said it was on Friday that they were told by Jones that if they could meet all the necessary requirements by Monday, in terms of parental permission, the school leadership would reconsider the May 9 plan.

Had the students anticipated any pushback against the student written shows? “When we were going through the entire process,” McEachern said, “I didn’t think the school would tell us that these were controversial issues and it would make people uncomfortable. I just thought it would go on like a regular show. I didn’t think there would be any backlash.” Sullivan added that once the news broke, “there was nothing but support.”

Referring to sentiment within the school, Boyd said, “I think immediately, as soon as we found out, that there was an immediate buzz on Twitter, everyone from school and even from out of state, that were talking about this and how disappointed they were in the school. I think it was definitely at first – the whole situation is definitely a lesson for schools in general and even for society in general, to really look at people and look at what they’re saying versus what they’re doing. Because everybody’s always talking about equality, equality, equality but then when they actually get the opportunity, it gets shut down pretty fast. So I think it’s a big lesson, but I also think that in a positive manner other than just lessons, it really brought everyone together, because I’ve never seen this school so united.”

*   *   *   *

But what of the student-written monologue, Ever Since I Was A Kid? The students I spoke with, who explained that it had been cut because the parents of the student author had declined to give permission, spoke freely of the piece. They shared that it was a personal account of a teen who was in the process of gender transition. It suggests that this piece was, at least in part, what Amole referred to on April 22 when she wrote me that not all permission slips had been received.

I must note that I spoke to the author/performer of “Ever Since I Was A Kid” on April 20, before it was clear that  parental permission was being withheld and that the piece in question would not be performed. Because the situation had changed and I was not able to speak with this student again, I have withheld the content of our interview because, despite sending messages through the other students, I could not confirm whether the author was still comfortable with my using our conversation. The students I spoke with said their classmate was permitted to perform in other parts of “Evolution,” just not with the original monologue.

*   *   *   *

As much as I have tried to reconstruct the timeline of this incident, it is clear that the students’ account and that of the administration differ. The students say they were told originally, in no uncertain terms, that the student-written pieces were being cut. The school maintains that they simply needed time to put the work in context.

Missing from this report is any account of the circumstances from either the Theatre 3 teacher, Cindy Poinsett, or the Activities Director, Christine Jones. Because it is typical in most schools that faculty and staff do not speak to the press without approval, and because after the first response to my inquiry to the principal, all responses came from the school system’s spokesperson, I did not attempt to contact either Poinsett or Jones. Should either of them choose to contact me directly, I will amend this post to reflect their input.

I have to say that throughout this period, the students I spoke with were remarkably poised in their accounts of what took place. While as I noted, the school was very responsive to my inquiries, there is one notable shift in the timeline they created: on April 16 they said it would take three weeks to put everything in place in order to allow the student written pieces to be performed. Two business days later, everything had been accomplished that allowed the pieces to go forward as originally scheduled.

That the original “solution” would have excised these pieces from the April 24 performance and isolated them as their own event, that May 9 was initially the “only” possible date on which they could do so, suggests that the administration was responding on the fly, in response to external inquiries. If the students had misunderstood what they were originally told, why on April 15 didn’t the school simply say that all would go on as planned if the students brought in signed permission slips by April 20, as they ultimately did, instead of promulgating a new date?

I also have to wonder why, as has so often been the case when potential incidents of censorship arise in high schools, was the initial reason given for the action the assertion that an approval process had not been followed? The students say they had been working on the pieces for more than a month and were never given any deadline or reminded to get their materials in by a certain date. Is Principal Rauh suggesting that the students and their teacher had been keeping the work under wraps? Was there a disconnect between the teacher and the activities director, or between the activities director and the administration?

At the root of this incident remains the skittishness that schools have regarding any public representation of LGBTQ issues and lives to their community at large. While opinion polls show that six out of every ten Americans support marriage equality, that percentage jumps to 78 percent for people under 30. Presumably that is at least the same for the general acceptance of LGBTQ Americans overall, although to quote a New York Times editorial, “being transgender today remains unreasonably and unnecessarily hard.”

So it seems that whatever precisely took place at Cherokee Trail, it derives from the students having a more evolved attitude towards equality than the school fears the local adult community may hold. How long will students be required to get permission before they can tell true stories of their own lives and the lives of those around them? When will all schools stand up for student expression of their lives and concerns on the stage from the outset, and stand firm against those who continue to oppose the tidal wave of equality that will inevitably overtake them?

*   *   *   *

I asked several of the students what the ultimate takeaway was from their experience.

Sullivan said, “We got a lot of positive support and had a positive show, but my biggest concern is that now that our department has made a name for itself for doing original content, the administration is going to create a harder process, a new deadline. I’m concerned that student-written work will not be able to be performed the way it should, that now they will have something of a deadline process to fall back on and use that to censor other voices and censor experiences in that light. That kind of worries me, because we’ve already seen an attitude of they don’t want this to continue and they don’t want to have to deal with this again.

“I definitely feel that our principal and our activities director have found that this has created such a mess that they don’t want student-written work to continue, that they don’t want Raw Works, the studio itself, to be representative of the theatre department anymore and that they don’t want student-directed student works.”

Boyd picked up that thread, saying, “I don’t think it’s as much concern about it continuing, as much as they’re going to make it so hard to continue that we’re going to have to stop ourselves. I definitely think there’s been so much backlash on them now that they can’t just say no more original work, but I do think that the process next year is going to be a lot harder to the point that it may be impossible to put on original works.”

When I pressed the students on whether anything explicit had been said about the future for student written work, McEachern said, “Right now, it’s just a concern of ours. They have not said anything.”

In my last communication with Tustin Amole, I asked whether the events surrounding “Evolution” would have any impact on the Theatre 3 class, Raw Works or student written plays in the future, and received the following reply:

Our process will remain unchanged. As I have already explained, it is the standard process that has worked well for us for a long time.

The class also will be unchanged. Students will be able to write and perform their own work.

So for now, all we can do is watch and wait until next year, to see what stories get told at Cherokee Trail.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School for Drama.

If you have any interest in the subject of diversity in entertainment, no doubt you’re aware of the firestorm kicked off last week by TV editor and co-editor-in-chief of the entertainment website Deadline, Nellie Andreeva. An article/op-ed under the headline “Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings – About Time Or Too Much Of A Good Thing” was taken by many (myself included) as an insensitive response to a greater commitment by TV networks to casting new shows with actors representing a wide swath of racial diversity.

What you may have missed was Deadline’s apology for the article, and most specifically the headline, which was altered the next day in response to the criticism leveled at the site. In his weekly colloquy with his former Variety colleague Peter Bart on the site, Andreeva’s co-editor-in-chief Mike Fleming Jr. stated the following:

“I wanted to say a few things to our core readers who felt betrayed. That original headline does not reflect the collective sensibility here at Deadline. The only appropriate way to view racial diversity in casting is to see it as a wonderful thing, and to hope that Hollywood continues to make room for people of color. The missteps were dealt with internally; we will do our best to make sure that kind of insensitivity doesn’t surface again here. As co-editors in chief, Nellie and I apologize deeply and sincerely to those who’ve been hurt by this. There is no excuse. It is important to us that Deadline readers know we understand why you felt betrayed, and that our hearts are heavy with regret. We will move forward determined to do better.”

That’s a clear statement, and admirable, but I have lingering questions, about both the form and the content of the apology itself.

1. If Andreeva and Fleming recognized the problems quickly, why did they wait five days before apologizing, and only then via comments in a piece headlined, “Bart & Fleming: A Mea Culpa; Frank Sinatra Re-Cast; Tent Pole Assembly Line”? If they feel so strongly, why wasn’t this a standalone statement signed by both editors-in-chief, clearly marked as such, rather than included in a tete-a-tete that discussed other, irrelevant matters?

2. If Andreeva apologizes for the handling of the subject, why hasn’t she linked to the Bart & Fleming piece with the apology from her Twitter feed (for a start), where a link to the original piece, under its original headline remains if you scroll back a few days? Why hasn’t she taken any ownership of “her” apology? By not doing so, it’s easy to wonder about the sincerity, and even the source, of the apology.

3. Fleming responds to a question from Bart about why the piece wasn’t taken down, saying:

“It was 12 hours before I awoke to numerous e-mails, some by people of color who are sources, who trust us, who were rightfully incensed. At that point, the damage was done. I don’t believe you can make an unwise story disappear and pretend it didn’t happen.”

However, while Fleming acknowledges the change of headline, he fails to comment on internal edits to the piece, which included moving the third and fourth paragraphs much deeper in the article, perhaps putting them in better context. I also noted the addition of a phrase about “a young Latina juggling her dreams and her heritage” which I hadn’t spotted in the original. Why aren’t those changes made clear in the note on the bottom of the original piece? It seems an effort to say that all that was wrong was the original headline.

4. While it’s commendable of Fleming to not pretend that the original article never happened, I’m surprised that if you read the piece online now, there’s no evident link to the apology. To leave the article standing without that context, given how it is supposedly perceived internally at the site per Fleming’s own account, once again suggests that the apology is something less than thorough.

I have no doubt that people will be scrutinizing Deadline’s coverage of diversity, especially when Andreeva writes about it, for some time to come. Giving Fleming the benefit of the doubt as to his intentions, he needs to take a few more steps to demonstrate the depth of his commitment – and Andreeva needs to stand up and take responsibility for what she wrote and acknowledge the flaws. Otherwise, she’s left her partner to clean up her mess, and we’re all still wondering where her heart really lies.

Howard Sherman is senior strategy director at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts and director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama.

If you happen to know of any young people who you’re trying to dissuade from careers in the creative arts, you might want to casually leave around two new books for them to find. Scott Timberg’s Culture Crash: The Killing Of The Creative Class (Yale University Press, $26) and Michael M. Kaiser’s Curtains?: The Future Of The Arts In America (Brandeis University Press, $26.95) both paint dark pictures of the state of the creative arts and where they’re headed, enough to send one right into investment banking if it remains a choice.

Timberg, a former arts journalist at the Los Angeles Times who writes the “Culture Crash” blog for ArtsJournal, predominantly focuses on the music industry and the state of legacy media and journalism, with nods to architecture and literature, while Kaiser, former head of the Kennedy Center and now leader of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, concentrates on the world of symphonies, opera and dance. As an avid consumer of music and journalism, my interests run closer to those explored by Timberg; professionally my background comes closer to the disciplines discussed by Kaiser, but (troublingly) neither book spends much time at all on theatre, my actual profession and leisure time avocation as well.

As a result, neither book reveals a great deal to me that I’ve not read about before, or experienced personally in some cases. But while both are published by academic presses (perhaps its own comment on broad-based interest, or lack thereof, in arts and culture), neither seems targeted at industry insiders. Instead, they are surveys of where we are now and how we got here, with a limited amount of prescriptive suggestions for how the tide that favors mass entertainment over the rarified or personal might be turned or at least survived in new forms. Both place a great deal of blame on technology for the woes they recount.

Of the two, I was more drawn to Timberg’s book, which, no doubt due to the author’s experience as a professional writer, is the more elegant, immersive read, peppered throughout with specific stories that support his thesis of cultural decline, a vision notably counterpointed with Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class (with a book cover designed to evoke that oft cited book). Timberg particularly worries about the loss of a wide range of social influencers who could guide existing and potential audiences to works that might interest them, from knowledgeable record store clerks to professional (paid) reporters and critics. While it’s a valid point, Timberg falls prey to making it seem, at times, as if he’s bemoaning his own employment status and that of his many colleagues who have been decimated by the contraction in print journalism, never more so than when he cites the decline in the popular portrayal of critics as having slid from George Sanders as Addison DeWitt in All About Eve in the 1950s to Jon Lovitz as Jay Sherman in the cartoon The Critic in the 1990s. That said, he does make strong points about the fracturing of a common culture even as a blockbuster mentality has overridden many creative industries, a seemingly oxymoronic concept. He also cites a wide array of sources, both from other writing and newly conducted interviews, and his fields of interest are admirably broad.

Kaiser’s book resembles a series of lectures about the state of the performing arts – a look at a golden era in the latter half of the 20^th century, where we are now, where we may be in 20 years time, and how we might make things better. Unfortunately, the lectures seem to spring wholly from Kaiser himself, as he quotes no experts, provides no data, and doesn’t include either an appendix or bibliography. It seems we are to take what Kaiser tells us simply on faith, even such sweeping statements as “While the outlook for the performing arts is dire, museums have better chances for survival” or “Theatre organizations should fare better than symphony orchestras.” In the case of the latter statement, much as I would dearly love it to be true, it flies in the face of recent studies from the National Endowment for the Arts, cited by Timberg but AWOL from Kaiser’s survey. Given how much of his brief book is taken up with prognostication, its unfortunate that Kaiser doesn’t extrapolate from existing data; in imagining 2035, it’s surprising that ongoing demographic shifts, especially in regards to race and ethnicity, in the country play so little role in his thinking. That’s not to say he doesn’t have some interesting observations, among them the thesis that while the end of Metropolitan Opera touring gave rise to more regional opera companies in the 80s, the success of the Met Live cinecasts may now be undermining those very troupes.

Reading the two books back to back, I was struck by the fact that both hit some similar themes (the loss of shared cultural language and experience, the impact of electronic media) yet diverge in their exemplars. While Kaiser’s book also doesn’t include an index, I did a fast pass through to see whether certain areas came up frequently, and found 14 references to The Kennedy Center and eight to the Alvin Ailey Dance Company (both of which Kaiser led) and a whopping 19 mentions of the Metropolitan Opera – all organizations which appear nowhere in Timberg’s index, which lists its greatest citations for areas of discipline rather than particular purveyors (the film industry, the economy, the indie music scene to name three). Both books may focus on the state of culture and its future, but their respective attentions are essentially balkanized.

If I were teaching a survey course in arts leadership, I might well assign both books early in the semester, albeit with a restorative break between them to replenish some sense of optimism. But both are merely starting points for a conversation, each in their own way raising areas of concern, yet stinting on any semblance of how those concerns can be addressed, battled or even embraced. To be fair, Timberg is a reporter, recording and interpreting, but Kaiser is training arts leaders, so its more incumbent upon him to offer something prescriptive. We can bemoan the fact that Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts are a thing of the past, or long for the one on one counsel of record and bookstore employees, but that’s not likely to bring them back. If our cultural appreciation and literacy has fallen, can it get back up – and if so how? That’s the book I need to read. Soon.

Vandalized “Women of Purpose” (photo courtesy of Kate Czaplinski, Trumbull Times)

Last night, a painting hanging in the town library in Trumbull, Connecticut was defaced, while in the same building, the library board was holding a meeting about the display of said painting. I wish I could say I was surprised that this happened, but to be honest, I’m not. I’ve been expecting it. I believe this was the inevitable result of a series of events that broke into public awareness two weeks ago, when the town’s First Selectman ordered the painting removed.

Let’s review the timeline:

• A collection of paintings entitled “The Great Minds Collection,” commissioned by Trumbull residents Richard and Joan Resnick has been on display at the Trumbull Library since the fall of 2014. It had previously been on display at nearby Fairfield University.
• In mid-February, the Bridgeport Archdiocese made it known publicly that they were displeased about one painting in the collection, “Women of Purpose,” because it included in its depiction of influential women both Mother Teresa and Margaret Sanger. The library itself received eight calls of complaint and a religious order in India notified the town that any use of Mother Teresa’s image was a copyright violation.
• In response to the copyright claim, which experts – save for the town attorney – agreed was specious, the First Selectman Timothy M. Herbst ordered the librarian to remove the painting to protect the town. He said he required an indemnification from the Resnicks against any copyright claims that might arise from the painting, which the Resnicks had already provided verbally and were happy to commemorate in writing. This action generated significant press attention throughout the state.
• When the First Selectman then said he required indemnification against any claims that might arise from possible damage to the collection while in the town’s care, publicly chastised the librarian and library board for not having secured one previously, and accused the librarian of ethics violations in her dealings with the Resnicks.
• The Resnicks agreed to sign an indemnification agreement against damage to the collection, but balked when the town reportedly proffered language that could have made them responsible for such instances as one of the paintings falling off the wall and causing damage or injury, as well as requiring that the Resnicks foot the bill for repairing and repainting library walls when the exhibition concluded.
• On Friday, March 6, the town added a rider to its own insurance policy covering the paintings and “Women of Purpose” was rehung at the library.
• Five days later, someone defaced the image of Margaret Sanger.

As quoted in the Trumbull Times, First Selectman Herbst responded to last night’s vandalism by saying, “I think this proves exactly what we have been saying for the last three weeks.”

Here’s what’s faulty with Herbst’s argument: this wasn’t a public issue until he made it one. By demanding the removal of the painting, by sending a barrage of communications to the Resnicks and others and by simultaneously releasing them to the local press, he elevated dispute into controversy, all the while saying he was doing it to protect the town. His tactics likely led to the painting becoming a target, in a way it hadn’t been before.

Why didn’t Mr. Herbst simply ask the Resnicks for indemnification, working through the established channels of their relationship with the library? Why, if the town had such language ready for works that might be displayed in town hall, wasn’t that immediately offered to the Resnicks? Why did Herbst accept the sole legal opinion that encouraged removal of the painting, instead of seeking further guidance from an intellectual property lawyer? Why if the concern was for the safety of the paintings while in the possession of the town did he demand only that the single painting, the one which had been the subject of complaints, be removed, when surely his liability concerns pertained to all of them?

While I don’t deny that some of the responses from the Resnicks and their attorney were part of the escalation of tensions, the fact is this could have all been handled quickly and quietly as part of an administrative process. Instead, by selectively removing the one painting that had received some complaints – an act of censorship, not protection – this was transformed into a culture war: of art, of ideas, of expression and of religion.

In all of the discussion of the painting itself – and I respect the beliefs and opinions of all of those who are distressed by it – I haven’t seen anyone make the argument about the fact that in this work, Mother Teresa and Margaret Sanger are at the opposite ends of the frame. I’m not art critic, but one could validly say that while all contained are influential women, the great nun and the family planning pioneer are literally as far apart as they can get, opposite ends of the spectrum. Might that not reflect their divergent views? It’s one simplistic interpretation, I know, but might it not be a valid one? Does their mere presence in the same image declare that one endorses the tenets of another?

I am impressed that Dr. Resnick has stated that he will not press charges if the vandal is caught, which is a generous statement that shows his desire to return the conversation to one of ideas, not vindictiveness. That said, Mr. Herbst must be held to his statement to the Connecticut Post that, “”We’re going to nail the person who did this and Police Chief (Michael) Lombardo and I are mutually committed to holding the person who did this accountable.” Without that investigation, without someone held responsible, the town sends the message that vandalism is an acceptable form of debate anywhere in the town of Trumbull, let alone inside a town property.

It’s unfortunate and infuriating that we’re seeing the many faces of censorship in Trumbull. It’s also unfortunate that the actions of town officials set it in motion on the pretext of municipal protection, rather than handling what was obviously a potentially charged situation with finesse and with care for the protection of open public discourse and the expression of ideas through art.

 Howard Sherman is Director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama.

Note: crude or ad hominem attacks in comments will be removed at my discretion. This is not censorship, but my right as the author of this blog to insure that conversation remains civil. Comments will not be removed simply because we disagree.

Remember Trumbull, Connecticut?

That’s the town where a new high school principal canceled a production of the student edition of the musical Rent in the fall of 2013. The resultant outcry from students, parents, town residents, the media and interested third parties (including me) was such that three weeks later, the show was reinstated. It was produced at the high school in 2014 without any incident.

After my advocacy for Rent, I hate returning to the subject of the arts in Trumbull, for fear of being accused of piling on. That said, there must be something in the water supply in Trumbull, because it’s right back at the center of an arts censorship controversy again. Timothy M. Herbst, the town’s first selectman, has ordered the Trumbull Library to remove a painting by Robin Morris from a current exhibition, “The Great Minds Collection,” commissioned and loaned by Trumbull residents Richard and Jane Resnick. The painting in question, “Women of Purpose,” features representations of a number of famous women, including Mother Teresa, Betty Freidan, Gloria Steinem, Clara Barton and Margaret Sanger.

The Bridgeport Archdiocese of the Catholic Church has already made its dismay over the painting known, due to the juxtaposition of Mother Teresa with Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood. Library Director Susan Horton says she has received eight messages complaining about the painting, all from men. It is not yet known what complaints may have gone directly to Town Hall, prompting Herbst to pull the painting (the Resnicks’ attorney has filed a Freedom of Information Request to determine whether his client’s property is being unfairly singled out).

In fact, Herbst won’t admit to complaints being the cause for the painting’s removal at all. He refers instead to threats of copyright infringement for depicting Mother Teresa and the lack of an indemnification from the Resnicks against any claims arising from the display of the paintings.

“After learning that the Trumbull Library Board did not have the proper written indemnification for the display of privately-owned artwork in the town’s library, and also being alerted to allegations of copyright infringement and unlawful use of Mother Teresa’s image, upon the advice of legal counsel, I can see no other respectful and responsible alternative than to temporarily suspend the display until the proper agreements and legal assurances are in place,” Herbst said. “I want to make it clear that this action is in no way a judgment on the content of the art but is being undertaken solely to protect the town from legal liability based upon a preliminary opinion from the town attorney.”

I heard Mr. Herbst in action during the Rent incident, when he went on radio several times trying to assume the role of peacemaker. Instead, he merely offered unworkable solutions that were clear to anyone familiar with the school and the town’s youth theatre troupe. It should be noted that as first selectman, he doesn’t control the school system. That is the purview of the elected school board, which is chaired by his mother, who was all but silent throughout. As before, I find his current protestations to be a smokescreen.

First, this isn’t a copyright issue, since the painting is an original work of art and no one appears to have claimed that it is in some way derivative of another copyrighted work. There is the possibility that Mother Teresa’s image may have some trademark protection, as claimed by the Society of Missionaries of Charity in India on their website, but the assertion of trademark is not proof of ownership and the organization offers no documentation of their claim; it’s worth noting that there are numerous organizations operating in Mother Teresa’s name, which suggests that policing of the trademark is shoddy at best. Additionally, the fact is that a privately commissioned painting in private hands is unlikely to constitute an infringement of rights that causes confusion in the marketplace, something trademark is meant to protect.

Second, Richard Resnick has said he would be pleased to offer indemnification to the town for the display of the painting, which would make any issue disappear. Herbst asserts he needs time for an attorney to draft something, but any attorney with even limited experience could produce straightforward “hold harmless” language in perhaps an hour’s time. Frankly, I have more than a few on my hard drive from literary agreements, since it’s not uncommon for playwrights to hold producing organizations harmless from any claims against a work that as challenged as not being wholly original to the author. The fact that Herbst has already tried to throw the town librarian under the proverbial bus for not getting such documentation is shameful, since if such protection is regularly required, why hasn’t the town’s attorney prepared a document for each and every exhibit the library has ever shown, that can just immediately be pulled out of a file? If Horton failed to get one signed, then it should be readily available for Resnick’s promised immediate signature; if it hasn’t been required previously, then the fault lies with Herbst and the town’s attorney.

When Principal Mark Guarino tried to defend his cancellation of Rent, he took refuge behind vague terms like ‘challenging issue.’ Now we have Herbst hiding under the guise of proper legal procedure, which is a flimsy excuse for what seems quite obviously an attempt to censor work which some find displeasing. In doing so, Herbst has placed himself in the unenviable situation of being damned either way: if the painting stays down, he’s a art censor (which he adamantly claims he is not) and if it’s restored he’s alienating members of his constituency who may object to the painting on religious, ideological, political or even artistic grounds. This is a fine mess he’s gotten himself into, and for someone who apparently harbors greater political ambitions – he lost the race for state treasurer by a narrow margin in 2014 – he’s placed his ideology squarely in front of voters for any future campaign, while ineptly handling a situation that is quickly rising to the level of crisis.

Regarding theological opposition to the painting, it’s worth noting that it was on display at nearby Fairfield University in 2014 without any incident. Oh, and for those unfamiliar with the colleges and universities of southern Connecticut (where I grew up), it’s important to note that Fairfield is a Catholic school. Why didn’t the Archdiocese or the Society of Missionaries in Charity raise their issues during that three-month exhibition?

Tim Herbst could make the charges of censorship go away instantly with one single document. But as he keeps throwing up roadblocks, it’s obvious that he’s not protecting the town from legal claims, but rather serving other interests. If Herbst is trying to establish his conservative cred, he may well get himself exalted in certain partisan quarters only to be vilified in others. The question is whether his actions are bolstering the profile and needs  of Trumbull, Connecticut, or those of Timothy M. Herbst, the once and future candidate?

While it’s a tenuous linkage, I’d just like to toss into the pot that Herbst’s town budget has zeroed out the annual allocation for the town’s popular summer theater operation, the Trumbull Youth Association. This is the same TYA program that Herbst suggested could provide a home for Rent if it couldn’t be done at the high school (although that wasn’t a workable alternative for several reasons). If we’re looking for patterns about art and Trumbull, one does seem to be emerging.

And just to cap this off, it has been noticed that in discussing the withdrawal of the painting from the library exhibit, the Trumbull town website reproduced the painting itself. If Herbst is so concerned about copyright infringement, didn’t he just place the town at risk once again? Seems like a contradiction to me.

Update March 4, 2 pm: I just spoke briefly with Jane Resnick, as we both called in to “The Colin McEnroe Show” on WNPR in Connecticut. Mrs. Resnick affirmed that she and her husband had always been prepared to indemnify the town against any damage that might occur while their paintings were on display in a town facility and that, while they had not anticipated the need, they would also hold the town harmless from any copyright claims that might possibly be forthcoming.

Update, March 4, 4 pm: Regarding First Selectman Tim Herbst’s efforts to zero out the budget of the Trumbull Youth Association, it has been reported today by the Trumbull Times that just last night, the town’s Board of Finance overruled the cut, and the funding was restored, against Herbst’s wishes.

Update, March 4, 5:15 pm: The Hartford Courant, the state’s largest newspaper, declares in an editorial, “Public works of art, like library books, should not be held hostage to the complaints of a few whose sensibilities are offended.”

Update, March 4, 5:30 pm: The Trumbull Times reports, via e-mails it has seen, that organized opposition to the display of the painting originated with the Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus, and indicates that a town councilman assured members of the group that the painting would be coming down as early as February 14, and suggested that First Selectman Herbst was in support of its removal. Herbst, however, denies that this was the case, and says that an indemnification agreement has been provided to Dr. Resnick and that, “As soon as the agreement is executed by Dr. Resnick, the artwork can be re-hung in the library.”

However, Herbst goes on to say that “Public buildings should bring people together to have an open exchange of alternate points of view,” which seems positive, save for the fact that it is immediately followed by, “Public buildings should not make any member of the community feel that their point of view is secondary to another,” which seems exceedingly vague and undercuts the prior statement. A single work of art rarely pleases everyone. If dissatisfaction or dislike of a work of art, or a book, can be construed as making someone feel “secondary,” what is to prevent future efforts to remove controversial content from the Trumbull Library?

Update, March 6, 12 pm: The Trumbull Times reports that Dr. Resnick has returned a signed indemnification agreement to the Town of Trumbull. There is no word yet on whether the painting has been restored to its place in the library.

Update, March 6, 3:30 pm: While the disputed painting has been rehung just now, the Town of Trumbull is now demanding a “comprehensive indemnification” for all of the paintings from their owner Dr. Richard Resnick, without which the entire collection will be taken down as of 5 pm. The letter from first selectman Herbst to Dr. Resnick’s attorney has been made public by the Connecticut Post.

Update: March 9, 12 noon: So far as I know at the moment, the entire collection is currently hung at the Trumbull Library. A series of claims and counterclaims between First Selectman Herbst and attorney Bruce Epstein on behalf of Dr. Richard Resnick have been made in correspondence, and shared with all interested parties via the Trumbull Times. They are: “Painting back up for now; but all could come down soon” (March 6, with updates); “Herbst and Horton: Chief wasn’t at meeting” (March 7, with updates), and “Resnick: I won’t be intimidated by Herbst’s demands” (March 8).

Update, March 11, 11:00 pm: At approximately 8 pm this evening, as the painting was being discussed at a meeting of the library board, an individual defaced the painting, reportedly by obscuring Margaret Sanger’s face. The Trumbull Times reported on the developments.

As of March 12, there will be no further updates to this post, but please refer to my newer post, “The Shameful, Inevitable Result of The Trumbull Art Controversy” for any additional details.

Howard Sherman is the director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama in New York.

Note: crude or ad hominem attacks in comments will be removed at my discretion. This is not censorship, but my right as the author of this blog to insure that conversation remains civil. Comments will not be removed simply because we disagree.

It is not, sad to say, news that controversy has surrounded a production of Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi. It is certainly not surprising to hear that such controversy took place on a university campus. But when one hears that Corpus Christi became the subject of controversy as a result of a production at a Christian faith-based university, the reflex is to wonder how anyone ever thought it could be done there in the first place. But the production of Corpus Christi that was to have been produced this past weekend at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia reveals a situation that demands something more than a reflexive scoff, as it reveals a great deal about the struggle between the tenets of faith and academic freedom, between traditional ways and where our society is in the 21^st century.

The basic facts are this: Christian Parks, a senior majoring in theatre at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) proposed as his senior project a production of Corpus Christi, which was, according to him, approved by the school’s theatre faculty in the spring of 2014. Since January, due to increasing concerns by the school administration over the content of the play, Parks was called into a series of meetings about the play, which escalated from expressing concern to reducing the number of performances from four to two and severely limiting who would be permitted to attend to the show being completely canceled. It seems to echo many cases of academic theatre censorship, although there appears to have been significantly more dialogue surrounding the process as it accelerated – and how the final decision was made, and by whom, seems unique in my experience.

*   *   *

For those unfamiliar with Corpus Christi, it is McNally’s 1998 play in which he reimagines the story of Jesus as told and enacted by 13 gay male friends in the present day. When it was first announced for its premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club, it was thrust into the center of controversy over its content – which few people had seen or even read – resulting in violent threats against MTC and the production, causing it to be briefly canceled and then restored, with strong protests outside the theatre during its run and security measure put in place to protect the theatre, the show and its patrons.

The play subsequently had numerous productions around the country, many which had their own controversies where it played, again, often over what people imagined to be the content rather than the play itself. It has been produced at colleges and universities, provoking similar reactions. Now, 17 years later, the play is produced intermittently, hardly surprising for any play that, in its way, had such a huge “moment” in the late 90s.

Writing of the play in the preface to the trade paperback edition, McNally describes it as follows:

Corpus Christi is a passion play. The life of Joshua, a young man from south Texas, is told in the theatrical tradition of medieval morality plays. Men play all the roles. There is no suspense. There is no scenery. The purpose of the play is that we begin again the familiar dialogue with ourselves: Do I love my neighbor? Am I contributing to the good of the society in which I operate or nil? Do I, in fact, matter? Nothing more, nothing less. The play is more religious ritual than a play. A play teaches us new insight into the human condition. A ritual is an action we perform over and over because we have to. Otherwise we are in danger of forgetting the meaning of the ritual, in this case that we must love one another or die. Christ died for all of our sins because He loved each and every one of us. When we do not remember His great sacrifice, we condemn ourselves to repeating its terrible consequences.

All Corpus Christi asks of you is to “look at what they did to Him. Look at what they did to Him.” At the same time it asks you to look at what they did to Joshua, it asks that we look at what they did one cold October night to a young man in Wyoming as well. Jesus Christ died again when Matthew Shepard did.

*   *   *

The play is set in the present day and employs language that might raise concerns within religious groups, but McNally’s message of dialogue and ritual seems particularly well suited to the discussion of faith in present day life. That said, it helps to know something about the Mennonites. Here I’ll draw from the website of Mennonite Church USA.

Mennonites are Anabaptists

We are neither Catholic nor Protestant, but we share ties to those streams of Christianity. We cooperate as a sign of our unity in Christ and in ways that extend the reign of God’s Kingdom on earth.

We are known as “Anabaptists” (not anti-Baptist) – meaning “rebaptizers.” The Anabaptist movement began in the 16th Century in Europe.

To defuse a commonly held misconception I also draw from their website the following

Mennonites are not Amish

We find that many people asking about Mennonites are actually thinking of the Amish or “Old Order Mennonites.” Mennonites and Amish come from the same Anabaptist tradition begun in the 16th century, but there are differences in how we live out our Christian values. The distinctiveness of the Amish is in their separation from the society around them. They generally shun modern technology, keep out of political and secular involvements and dress plainly.

It is important to know, however, that there is great debate within the Mennonite community about the acceptance and role of LGBTQ followers, which has historically been one of exclusion. However, as in so many faiths, there is a strong contingent of Mennonites who want to see the church change its ways, and there are groups working to bring that about. But there is no agreement.

*   *   *

Christian Parks first proposed doing Corpus Christi as his senior project two years ago, inspired by seeing a production of the play in San Francisco by 108 Productions as part of their “I Am Love” effort to bring the play and its message to communities around the country, including communities of faith.

“There is an application process,” Parks explained, describing the theatre department’s standard procedures, “where I give them the name of the script. I also give them the reasons why I’m doing the project. I also give them a budget that I had to pre-balance, so that they knew where I was going to spend my money. Then we began more discussions after the script had a read-through and that’s when the conversations about this being a student lab production entered in. That entails making sure there’s a talkback, a way for the audience to process the show after every performance and it also means the department will not collectively advertise this outside the campus.”

Parks explained that a lab production is a full production, with four performances, and that while it may not be advertised off campus, the local community may attend. He then said, “I got approval when the season was approved, in the spring of 2014. Surprisingly enough, the administration is mailed every season that gets approved and this show was on the list.”

Asked as to whether he was aware of the play’s controversial past, he said, “In the fall, I began my senior thesis, which is the theoretical part which goes along with the production. I wrote a conceptual, theorized piece using poor theatre and Grotowski and using some other things that had more to do with the ritual side of Corpus Christi. I actually had to dive into the script and look at past performances, where this had been and the controversy that has been around it. So yes, I was very aware of everything that was around Corpus Christi. But it was a lab production, so that was the clearance, or should I say the filter, in which I said that ‘Yes, this is a thing but we’re doing it as a lab production. That will be alright.”

Had Parks considered that the play might not be approved?

“It was a little iffy because I’m in a religious community and an especially close-knit one like the Mennonites. The university, according to the process we went through last year, was ahead of the church, so I knew that on the church denominational level will do whatever it does, and yes it’s going to make some conflict, but that’s OK because there’s enough people who can take care of that.”

“The process” Parks refers to was a “Listening Process” on the EMU campus in 2014, which sought to address issues relating to LGBTQ representation, particularly among the faculty. After six months, the school deferred formal action on hiring policy. Parks’s proposal was being considered by the theatre faculty during this time.

“I wasn’t aware,” he said, “that there was enough harm and enough pain and enough tension in the process that we went through, because in the spring of 2014 we approved it as a department in the middle of the listening process. It seemed, especially with the concept around the show, as if it would fit the culture that we were in and becoming.” Asked about his reference to “pain and hurt,” Parks explained that he was referring to situations that arose, “any time you have a lot of straight people talking about queer and gay bodies, and just constantly being under the microscope as they figure out what to do with us. So this show was a way of finally putting our voice at the table that they tried to do with us last year, but it didn’t really work because they still don’t understand and don’t want to understand.”

*   *   *

Parks said that conflict over the play began when he put out his audition notice at the beginning of January, which included a description of the play. Parks then described a series of meetings that he was called to by the administration beginning in late January. The first two were led by the Provost and Academic Dean; at the first, Parks said he was made aware of “concerns” and was asked to provide the script. He said that the provost subsequently stated that he never completed reading it, having stopped at the play’s nativity scene, at roughly page 20. Parks was also asked for his director’s notes and his advisor was asked for an explanation of the standard lab process.

At the second meeting, a week later, he said “We prepared a resource list and they took four or five of their resources and I took four or five of my resources and we were going to synthesize them together for people who might have more questions and might need places to go.” Parks also said that at that time, there was some concern as to whether he could field a full cast, and that the possibility of a reading instead of a full production, which would require less rehearsal, came up, but that he quickly thereafter secured a full cast and notified the theatre department that a production would be possible as originally planned. At a third meeting, this one called by the president, following a weekend meeting by the president’s cabinet, he was given a choice.

“The two decisions that they laid on the table for me was that either they would shut it down completely or, on the basis of academic integrity, they would confine the show to the classroom so that it would become a classroom endeavor which meant one performance at one time with a select group of people, a select group of classes and classes that were already dealing with subjects around sexuality conflict and faith. We compromised and went with one day instead of one performance and so there was a three o’clock and an eight o’clock performance. That is what we settled on and that each of these classes would get a ticket and only people who would be allowed to enter the theatre would be the people with a ticket, which meant that we would have to turn away anyone who came from the community and anyone who was a student but didn’t have a ticket.”

Following this decision, the restrictions on attendance were announced.

“It went on Facebook,” said Parks, “The theatre department had to tell people and that got out quicker than wildfire and what that means is that all of the justice connections that I have got whiff of it. People were angry and they went to social media to get out their anger. That is when I got called in for another meeting, Wednesday the 18^th.”

This is now just prior to the two remaining scheduled performances, set for February 21.

*   *   *

I reached out to several people, via e-mail, in the EMU administration about the Corpus Christi situation. I did not receive a reply from Heidi Winters Vogel, Parks’s advisor and an associate professor, and my inquiries to the university president Loren Swartzendruber and provost Fred Kniss were referred to Andrea Wenger, Director of Marketing and Communications for the school. I should note that Wenger attempted to schedule direct conversation between me and the provost, however his schedule and my own were in conflict, and Wenger accepted and responded to my questions via e-mail at my suggestion in the interest of expediency.

I asked Wenger when the administration first became concerned about Corpus Christi and whether it was their practice to alter academic efforts in response to complaints over previously approved content.

She wrote, “Administrative leadership became aware of the play – and its controversial history – in mid-January. It is not the school’s practice to ‘alter academic efforts in response to complaints about previously approved academic content.’ Production of the play hadn’t been reviewed or approved by department leadership or administration prior to mid-January.”

Wenger explained that, “Public performances were cancelled by the president’s cabinet when administration learned that what they had been assured in mid-January would be a staged reading with no publicity morphed into a full-blown production.” Responding to my question about limiting attendance, she said, “The student involved intended to sell tickets to this show. He anticipated off-campus interest and support even with limited publicity. The administration cut the performance schedule from four performances over three days to two performances on one day with an invitation-only audience

She further said, regarding the timing of the process, “The administration first became aware of the planned staging in recent weeks. Administration is evaluating the process of how the play was selected and vetted. EMU students are given freedom to choose productions that explore controversial topics as part of a rigorous academic program.

A report on the cancelation of the play in the school newspaper quoted Swartzendruber as citing threats of violence over the play, although he acknowledged that those had been over other productions, and none had been made at EMU. Asked about this, Wenger responded, “Given the history of this play’s controversial nature – which in some settings has generated threats of violence – EMU leadership took the action that they believed was in the overall best interests of students’ safety and well-being. Leadership had enough information to be concerned about the possibility of disruption.”

*   *   *

Which brings us to the cancelation.

The EMU student newspaper ran their story, on Thursday, February 19, with the headline, “Parks Cancels ‘Corpus Christi’ Over Controversy,” saying that the decision was his, not the administration’s. Regarding the accuracy of this account, Parks returned to the meeting of February 18.

“After hearing what was going on,” he said, “and after doing some strategic planning in my mind, that is when I went in and I knew that they were going to shut it down. I knew. And so instead of the story being written as they shut it down, I’d rather it be written as I took it down, because I refuse to be a victim. I refuse, I refuse. So that’s when I made the decision, Wednesday the 18^th, that Corpus Christi is coming down and we would not be having the performance and so I went back and told my cast.

I wondered whether Parks had jumped the gun, and asked Andrea Wenger whether the administration would have permitted the performances to go on had Parks said he was canceling them

“No,” Wenger replied. “The invitation-only performances were to be cancelled; administration believed this to be in the overall best interests of EMU students’ safety and well-being. Administration had enough information to be concerned about the possibility of disruption — especially when it became apparent that the students were proceeding with a full production versus a staged reading as originally planned.”

That statement stands in relief against a university wide communication by Wenger on behalf of Swartzendruber on February 18 which read, in part, “Despite the nature of the play, which varies from the university’s theological and biblical understandings, the cabinet sought to protect academic freedom and honor the student project as an academically engaging activity intended primarily for an internal audience,” then citing Parks’s decision as coming in the wake of the “intense reaction to the planned staging.” It doesn’t point out that the intense reaction was coming, at least in part, from the administration itself.

So no matter what had took place, and who spoke first, Corpus Christi wasn’t going to be seen at Eastern Mennonite University. The administration has responsibility for the denouement.

*   *   *

Seeking more perspective on the situation, I reached out to Barbra Graber, the co-chair of the EMU theatre department when she retired in 2005, having first started on the faculty in 1981. She had made several public postings on social media, which led me to her.

I asked her about the process that had taken place, which, when we spoke (preceding my communications with Parks and Wenger), she only had learned about the situation through friends and former colleagues on campus and what she had seen on social media. She also made clear that while she was familiar with McNally’s work, she did not know Corpus Christi.

Graber said, “It was troubling to hear that EMU pulled this play at all after it being passed through the theatre department. For the president’s office to feel that they just have the right to pull something the theatre department has already approved and that students have put their heart and soul into, you need to let the show go on. You can’t just step in and make that decision. It is a blatant misuse of freedoms, of rights, all kinds of rights violations going on there.”

“Religious people love to make decisions for other people and think they have a right to do that and they think they have the corner on what should or shouldn’t be spoken into the public arena.”

Graber, who now works with Our Stories Untold, a Mennonite advocacy group focused on addressing sexualized violence within the church and its members, that also seeks to address the church’s heterosexism and suppression of LGBTQ members, also took exception with Swartzendruber’s citing of potential threats as a reason for opposing the show, saying that Mennonites had historically always faced up to violence without flinching.

“In the name of justice we will walk into anything violent,” she declared. “We don’t shirk from violence. Because we serve a higher calling than this world, we will walk into violence. We will be these voices, we will be these peace and justice people – until it’s our own little prejudices and bigotry. When it affects our own bigotry and prejudice then we say, ‘Oh, there might be violence, we’d better stop this.’ It would be like Martin Luther King saying there’s a threat of bombing here so we’re going to cancel church.”

*   *   *

Parks had cited his inspiration for producing and directing Corpus Christi at EMU as being a production of the play by 108 Productions, best known through their “I Am Love” efforts which subsequently became a documentary film, Corpus Christi: Playing With Redemption. I reached out to both Nic Arnzen and James Brandon, who are partners in 108, I Am Love and the film, which they directed, and reached Arnzen first.

When he described that close to half of their ongoing touring performances, now a decade old, are in church-related venues, I asked about how the play reached those communities. “We basically answer the call where people are eager to see it,” he said. “Invitations often come from some spiritual leaders who are eager to broaden the minds of their congregation.”

Arnzen said that while certain Christian denominations resist the play, that once the group is in a community, they always issue an invitation to the leaders of all area churches, noting that, “We’ve had 10 years of running the play with little or no protest.” He observed that they rarely hear back after sending invitations, but that, “We’re not bitter that they’re not reaching back. We respect people’s boundaries. If I don’t respect their boundaries, how can I ask them to respect mine?”

Arnzen spoke about the many misconceptions about the play among those who haven’t seen or read it, dating back to the original Manhattan Theatre Club production. While acknowledging that they play does have “some words in it, very real language” and estimated “the f-word” appears “22 times, I think,” he was quite clear in his feeling about the overall message of the play.

“I attest to the fact that this is a very respectful retelling of the Jesus story.”

As a side note, 108’s production of the play uses a mixed gender cast, as Parks planned to do at EMU.

*   *   *

From four performances to one to two to none, Corpus Christi was not seen on the EMU campus this past weekend. There was, on February 18, after Parks’s decision – before the university administration was going to make it for him, one last rehearsal of Corpus Christi. While there was no official invitation, but apparently the theatre was packed. It became, in Parks’s word, a sit-in.

Parks has been assured that the show’s suspension will not affect his academic record, that he will receive full credits for his work and will graduate on time. I wondered whether he wanted to try to present the show off-campus, out from under the school’s authority.

He said, “I have considered it and I have considered it. The thing that is stopping me is that I have 13 actors who have lived through the I have a cast that wasn’t included in the decision making. No one sat at the table with me, no one gave their voice to what did happen, should happen, what might happen and at the bottom of the totem pole was the Corpus Christi cast. Now we have some harm and trauma that has been done and I don’t want to lead made cast members back into the hurt and trauma because now this story has it. I’ve been trying to think about how you do that and still give care to actors and not exacerbate the entire problem?”

I asked Parks whether he has any regrets and he said no. “I got to do what I love and there was some controversy about it,” he declared. “That’s OK, because I’m a queer body and that’s OK because I’m used to controversy.”

The conversation on the campus has not ended, and indeed I am told that the school community is consumed by it. There will be a student assembly for further conversation tomorrow, February 26. What will Parks’s role be at that event?

“I was invited,” he said. “I want to be the gatekeeper of the story. I want the facts to be straight.” And then his voice trailed off, in the equivalent of a verbal shrug as to what else might happen.

I will add my voice to that conversation, to the extent this is read on the campus, to say that 1) contrary to an assertion in the school newspaper, Corpus Christi has been produced on college campuses, dating back to at least 2001, however I was not able to determine whether it had been done at any faith-based university; 2) Andrea Wenger’s statement that not even the theatre department had approved the play, when Parks’s project had been approved in the spring and he was working on a thesis that was ready when the university asked for it and had announced auditions through university channels, seems highly contradictory; 3) that while there have been protests and threats against productions of Corpus Christi, my research did not reveal any overt acts against productions, only threats, and canceling it on the grounds of threats, or imagined threats, is the equivalent of giving in to terrorists, and 4) if the Mennonite Church’s practice of discernment in regards to this play is to be complete and thorough, then the play should be seen, so all discussions are fully informed by production, not merely by reading the script, or worse, hearsay, because that is how plays are truly meant to be seen.

The Mennonite Church may be wrestling with whether to welcome LGBTQ members of their church, and Eastern Mennonite University, in their handling of Corpus Christi, has proven how urgent the need to address this actually is. As someone who believes in complete equality for all people, I’d just like to suggest they have a leader in their midst who can open eyes and change minds and do so with love, respect and care. His name is Christian Parks.

I will update, correct and amend this post if circumstances warrant.

There were, in my estimation, many interesting people at the first performance of Almost, Maine in Hickory NC this past Thursday night.

Almost, Maine program cover for Hickory NC

To begin with, there was the author, John Cariani, who had come out to support the production, something he can’t do very often given how frequently his show is produced around the country. There was Jack Thomas, who produced the New York City premiere of Almost, Maine a decade ago. There was the doctor who had helped to found OutRight Youth of Catawba Valley, a support center for LGBTQ young people in this rural North Carolina region, which the performances, in part, benefited. There were the two women who were part of the local “Friends of the Library,” who knew little of the show but just wanted to support the effort. There was a high school drama teacher from the Raleigh-Durham area who had driven two and a half hours to see the show – and had to drive home that very night.

Oh, and there was the guy out on the street as I entered the building who was carrying a cross and shouting about how we were all going to hell for supporting homosexuality, and that God had very specific intentions for how humans should use their genitalia in relation to one another – though he was somewhat less circumspect than I just was in his phrasing.

Blake Richardson and Jonathan Bates in the scene “They Fell” from Almost, Maine

This production of Almost, Maine in Hickory was originally to have been produced at Maiden High School in nearby Maiden NC, but the show was canceled, after rehearsals had begun, when the school’s principal buckled to complaints about gay content and sex outside of marriage, reportedly from local churches (one made itself known publicly shortly before performances began). Due to the determination of Conner Baker, the student who was to have directed the show at the high school and ended up performing and co-directing, and with the tireless support of Carmen Eckard, a former teacher who had known many of the students since she taught them in elementary school, the show was shifted to Hickory, where it was performed in the community arts center’s auditorium.

Ci-Ci Pinson and Nathaniel Shoun in “Where It Went” from Almost, Maine

There were shifts in casting due to schedule changes, due to the show no longer being school-sanctioned, due to the need to travel 15 miles or so to and from Maiden to Hickory. But nine young people, a mix of current and former Maiden High students and a few students from local colleges, made sure that Catawba County got to see Almost, Maine, the sweet, rueful comedy that is hardly anyone’s idea of dangerous theatre.

Save for Cariani and Thomas, I hadn’t anticipated knowing anyone at the show that evening, though I had been in communication with Eckard and Baker since the objections first arose at Maiden High. But I was very pleased to spot Keith Martin, the former managing director of Charlotte Repertory Theatre, now The John M. Blackburn Distinguished Professor of Theatre at Appalachian State University, who I knew from my days as a manager in LORT theatre, but hadn’t seen or spoken with in more than a decade. Keith’s presence had a special resonance for me, because nearly 20 years ago, before the cast of Almost, Maine was born, he had been at the center of one of the most significant and ugly efforts to censor professional theatre in that era, namely community and political campaigns to shut down Charlotte Rep’s production of Angels in America, a national news story at the time which saw lawsuits, injunctions, restraining orders and even the de-funding of the entire Charlotte Arts Council, all in an effort to silence Tony Kushner’s “Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” The efforts failed, but left scars.

Keith Martin

I spoke with Keith a few nights after we saw Almost, Maine, and even as he recounted – and I recalled – the fight over Angels, he told me of two other censorship cases in North Carolina in the 1990s. The first, with which I was familiar and which played out over much of the decade, began in 1991, when a teacher named Peggy Boring was removed from her school and reassigned due to her choice of Lee Blessing’s play Independence for students, which was deemed inappropriate by administrators. Boring didn’t accept the disciplinary action and brought suit against the school system, which went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately let stand a lower court decision which said that Boring’s right to free expression did not extend to what she chose for her students, an key precedent for all high school theatre and education.

The second occurrence which Keith told me about took place in 1999, when five young playwrights won a playwriting contest at the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte – but only four of the pieces were produced. The fifth, Samantha Gellar’s Life Versus the Paperback Romance, was omitted to due its inclusion of lesbian characters. The play was ultimately produced locally under private auspices and also got a reading at The Public Theater in New York with Mary-Louise Parker and Lisa Kron in the cast, but in the wake of the Boring case and Angels in America, it couldn’t be seen in North Carolina in a public facility or produced using public funds.

As we talked, as he told me firsthand accounts of situations both known and unknown to me, Keith was very concerned that I might focus too much on him when I sat down to write. It’s hard not to want to tell his story – or, perhaps, his stories – in greater detail. But since we both went to Hickory to celebrate Almost, Maine and the people who made it happen, here’s just a handful of the very smart and pertinent thoughts he shared.

Why had he made the hour-long trip to Hickory? Because, he replied, “When one of us is threatened, we as a theatre community are all at risk.”

Why is this important even in high school? “Teenagers aged 13 to 17 are, I believe, among the most marginalized voices in America today,” said Martin. “It’s ironic, because they’ve developed a sense of place, they have a spirit of activism, but they’re not yet of a legal age to give voice to their passion.”

Regarding efforts to minimize controversy in theatre production, Keith said, “Theatre has always been the appropriate venue for the discussion of difficult subjects and it provides a respectful place where people of goodwill who happened to disagree about different sides of an issue can see that issue portrayed on stage and then have a healthy, informed debate.

Is there something special about North Carolina that led to these high profile cases emerging from the state? “Angels in America was portrayed as having happened in a southern, bible belt town. But what happened after that?” Keith asked me, going on to cite the controversies and attempts to silence Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi at Manhattan Theatre Club and My Name is Rachel Corrie at New York Theatre Workshop.

The team behind Almost, Maine in Hickory NC, including playwright John Cariani

As I said at the beginning, there were many interesting people at the opening of Almost, Maine. I suspect the students in the show didn’t know, or even know of, Keith Martin, and this post is one small way of putting their work in a broader context that he embodies in their state. I have no doubt that there were other people with personal experiences and connections relating to what the students had achieved, and it’s pretty much certain that neither they nor I will ever know them fully. But just as Keith said to me in our conversation that, “these kids need some recognition that their efforts have not gone unheard,” it’s important that they know that their theatrical act of civil disobedience does not stand alone, be it in North Carolina or nationally. The same is true for everyone who had a hand in making certain that Almost, Maine was heard over the cries of those who wanted it silenced.

In one of my early conversations with Conner Baker, as we discussed her options, her mantra was that, “We just want to do the play.” She and her classmates and supporters did just that, in the least confrontational way possible, but in doing so their names belong alongside those of Peggy Boring, Samantha Gellar, Keith Martin and many others in the annals of North Carolina theatre, at the very least.

I’ll leave you with one last connection between Keith Martin and Almost, Maine. The SALT Block Auditorium where the show was produced is located in an arts center which is the former Hickory High School. Keith Martin attended that very school decades ago and performed on the stage where Almost, Maine was produced last week. The role he recalled for me when asked? The title character in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I suspect that even James Thurber’s famous daydreamer couldn’t have imagined the controversy surrounding Almost, Maine…or its happy ending. Maiden’s reactionary, cowardly loss was Hickory’s heroic gain.

“I hope that The Vagina Monologues is a point of departure – it’s not a panacea, it’s not the only play, it’s not the definitive play. It’s a play, it’s an offering.”

Those are the words of Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, spoken in the wake of the controversy that has arisen over the decision by the campus theatre group at Mount Holyoke College to abandon its annual production of The Vagina Monologues in favor of a newly written student work that is, in their judgment, more inclusive of a wider range of women’s experiences than Ensler’s influential work from 1996.

In a story first reported by CampusReform.org, writer Yvonne Dean-Bailey quoted from a campus-wide e-mail by Erin Murphy, representing Project Theatre on the school campus, regarding their decision.

At its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman…Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive.

As the story broke wide, many seized upon the school’s recent decision to begin accepting students who identify as women as being at the root of the decision by the theatre group. Some commenters to the spate of articles, all derived from the Campus Reform story, spoke of censorship. Mount Holyoke, in a statement, responded, saying in part:

A story/post in the online publication Campus Reform included inaccurate and incomplete information regarding the student-led decision to cancel a student-run production of the “Vagina Monologues” at Mount Holyoke College. The story also incorrectly connects the play’s cancellation with the College’s transgender admission policy.

The Mount Holyoke College student organization Project: Theatre notified the student body on Jan. 14 of its decision to cancel the play “Vagina Monologues” after evaluating input from peers about the production.

The students’ decision to cancel the play was made independently of the College’s transgender admission policy.

As a women’s college with a long tradition of educating women leaders, Mount Holyoke College supports and encourages students to take the lead in establishing and governing their own organizations.

In the initial rush of stories, no one spoke with Ensler about her work and the decision by the Mount Holyoke drama group. A story published last night by The Guardian was the first to reach Ensler, and also included a bit more from Murphy, although she did not agree to release to full text of her original e-mail to them. Because I have known Ensler casually for several years, I wanted to hear more from her, and we spoke this morning. I also tried to reach Erin Murphy at Mount Holyoke (using the student activity contact form on the college’s website as well as LinkedIn), but without success. Some articles have reported on various tweets coming from other students on the campus who oppose the decision to no longer produce the play, but I have opted to not cull from Twitter searching.

Playing off the title of her newest play, I asked Ensler whether the decision by the Mount Holyoke students was a case of O.P.C. – Obsessive Political Correctness.

“I think there’s so many issues running through all this,” said Ensler. “I don’t want to label it as such because there are genuine concerns that people are having that I want to be very thoughtful about.

Eve Ensler (Photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

“This is my perspective on it: The Vagina Monologues is a play. It’s one play. It was never meant to speak for all women and it was never a play about what it means to be a woman. It was a play about what it means to have a vagina. It was very specific. I don’t think I ever said that the definition of a woman – that a woman is defined by having a vagina. I think we have to be able to live in a world where talking about our vaginas is legitimate, due to the fact that three and half billion women have them.

“I wish the play was irrelevant. I wish we had reached a state where women are liberated and safe and not under this kind of ongoing oppression of violence and degradation and inequality. But that hasn’t happened yet. I don’t think we’re close.

“I think that it’s also really important that trans and transgender people have voice and have access to voice and have plays and ways of articulating their concerns and their issues. Ten years ago there was an all trans production of The Vagina Monologues and I spent quite a bit of time with trans women and we actually went away for a weekend and we shared stories and experiences and as a result they asked me to write a piece for them called ‘They Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy’ which I did and which has been an optional monologue. It was included in the V-Day performances of The Vagina Monologues for the last 10 years and trans women and trans men have been performing The Vagina Monologues for 10 years. So I feel like there has been inclusion.”

My own reaction when I read about the situation at Mount Holyoke was that the students had every right to make any decision they wished about what to produce, but that perhaps they hadn’t needed to be so negative about Ensler’s work, instead simply moving on to the new work they plan to create. Ensler’s response to how it was handled?

“I believe it’s Ken Wilber, in this wonderful book called Up From Eden, who says this really, really brilliant thing. He says that every time we evolve in our brain, our human consciousness, to the next level, we make a terrible error of not integrating the stage before, so that our evolution, our brains do not become wholly integrated.

“My feeling is that there have been many places in the world who have been doing The Vagina Monologues for years who then felt there are other voices we want to give voice to. There are other stories we want to give voice to and they took the momentum of The Vagina Monologues and the experience of that and that spurred them to create their own pieces. But they didn’t feel the need to annihilate The Vagina Monologues in the process.

“I think I have to say that we have to live in a climate and in a world where women with vaginas feel safe and free and open about articulating the stories about their vaginas. That has to remain a possibility and something that we cherish and celebrate in the same way that I would honor transgender people giving voice to their own realities. I think there’s something about the ‘either or-ness’ about it that I find problematic.”

Later in our conversation, Ensler observed, “I think we have to be careful as we’re evolving and exploding more and more voices that we don’t silence other voices. That’s the thing we always have to be very concerned about and having our attention paid to. It isn’t one thing or the other. We’ve come to the point where we want to now integrate and want other voices. That is fantastic. Go and write a play that does that. Celebrate that. I encourage that. I’ve been celebrating artists my whole life who are giving voice to new strains and pushing the edge and challenging the givens and the status quo.”

*  *  *

For perspective on perceptions of The Vagina Monologues, I asked Jill S. Dolan, Annan Professor in English, Professor of English and Theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts, and Director, Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University, for her thoughts.

“First, let me say I admire the cultural work Ensler’s play did,” Dolan wrote to me.  “When it was first performed, seeing this white woman, barefoot on a stool in a pool of light, wearing a long dress, sitting in front of a microphone, talking about vaginas in such an explicit way, felt very radical.  Not so much because what she was saying was radical, especially not to those of us who came of age with feminism, and were accustomed to a kind of frankness about women’s bodies, but because she was telling these stories Off Broadway, in a theatre venue where these stories hadn’t been told.  When the show took hold, and performances expanded to include other women, the same fascination (and, let’s be frank, titillation) continued to make it popular.  It’s still performed in regional theatres all over the country (and probably, the world).

“I much admired Ensler’s industry in making the show the center of V-Day activism. She did a lot to raise awareness on campuses about violence against women, and the play became the center of an activist project that was easy for students to latch on to, because it came pre-packaged. Ensler licenses the play with very specific rules about how it’s to be performed and who its local activist collaborators should be. I think this is where the tensions began around the play and the production—Ensler’s control came to be seen as too constraining.

“But in my own critical reading, The Vagina Monologues were always only partial. Ensler’s play represents her work interviewing women around the world about their lives and their relationships to their bodies via social interdictions, but the monologues aren’t verbatim (Anna Deavere Smith-style), nor are they ethnographic to the extent that she uses the interviews in edited form. Ensler says the monologues are ‘based on’ her interviews, but she filters them through her own perspective as a white Western woman.  That’s where much of the criticism lies; that the whole show is, in a way, a white Western woman’s perspective on female experience.  She’s been criticized for being imperialist; for being a western feminist who presumes to ‘save’ women of other cultures and experiences; and for being tone-deaf to cultural difference and women’s agency.”

I asked Dolan whether The Vagina Monologues might be losing relevancy because it doesn’t represent enough different constituencies.

“The issue about trans inclusion is really just the latest salvo here. Because Ensler is very particular about how The Vagina Monologues are staged and produced, I know of many colleges and universities that simply bootleg the show and rewrite it as they see fit. The best thing about The Vagina Monologues phenomenon, from my perspective, is that it’s clarified the importance of telling women’s stories, or telling stories of those who aren’t part of the ‘mainstream’ on particular college campuses. That people gather annually to participate in or to hear these stories has made it an important rite of passage for many students.  I know of students who were absolutely radicalized by participating in The Vagina Monologues production on campus (or by doing their own version). That’s hugely important activist theatre work.

“That said, I think students are realizing that the occasion of the show might actually give them permission to tell their own stories, or to seek out other ways of putting together activist performance work. And that’s a very good thing.  Is it a period piece?  Well, most plays are . . . and Ensler has tried to revitalize the show by adding new monologues every year.  That said, I do think The Vagina Monologues movement might have crested, partly because the play is showing its age. It’s just not as radical anymore to stand in public and talk about vaginas . . .  That’s what’s changed.”

*   *   *

Ensler has written an essay for Time magazine, coming out Monday, on the decision by the Mount Holyoke students, and she raised it in our conversation as we discussed the issue of representing more constituencies.

“I’ll share with you something that I wrote in the Time piece, because I think it’s connected to this: ‘Inclusion doesn’t come from refusing to acknowledge our distinctive experiences and trying to erase them in an attempt to pretend they do not exist. Inclusion comes listening to our differences and honoring the right of everyone to talk about their reality free from oppressing, bigotry and silencing. That’s real inclusion’. I think we have to create a world, where people with vaginas and people without them who identify as women, all of us get to address our oppressions, dreams, desires, and secrets and that we keep creating a landscape where there’s room for everyone.

So, I wondered, is Ensler concerned about the play’s perception today and future popularity, as highlighted by the decision of the Mount Holyoke Project Theatre?

“First of all, I think that looking at the dialogue that’s going on, I don’t really think that’s happening. There are 715 productions of The Vagina Monologues that are about to happen right now around the world and there are every year. My feeling is if it’s time for a new play or new plays to come into being that have new voices, that should happen. I don’t feel like anybody has to do my play. It’s great if they want to do it and it’s great if they don’t. It’s been 20 years.

“But I also want to say that I do think that women talking about their vaginas and articulating what happens to and about and around their vaginas is something that’s going to remain important to women. And if that changes, it will change. I actually think that the dialogue that’s being generated around this is good. We have to keep looking at everything and examining everything. I wrote that play 20 years ago. The world was a very different world then. Now people write plays that reflect this world.

I asked Ensler whether, if invited, she would attend the new piece being created by the Mount Holyoke students.

“Of course I would,” she replied, “and I would totally celebrate the new work.”

This post was updated on January 19 to include a link to Eve Ensler’s essay for Time magazine.

Ari Roth

I have never attended Theater J in Washington DC. I have become increasingly aware of its work as controversy over that work has risen in recent years, while at the same time I have become aware of the high regard in which the company and its longtime artistic director, Ari Roth, are held by many theatre professionals I admire and call my friends. That Roth was fired this week after nearly two decades is simultaneously shocking and wholly unsurprising, as the theatre seems to have been on a collision course with the Washington DC Jewish Community Center, of which Theater J is a resident program (as opposed to a tenant), for some time over work that some in the Jewish community perceived as anti-Israel and therefore not deserving of a place in a JCC.

I cannot judge the work itself, because I have neither seen nor read it. I cannot be seen as impartial, at least by some, because I am a theatre professional who regularly speaks out against censorship, and because I am a Jew who does not believe that my religion requires unquestioning support of the State of Israel and its political, social and military policies. I do believe in the importance of Israel for the Jewish people and its right to exist, but I also believe in the rights of Palestinians to their own homeland as well, and the right and necessity of both populations to live in peace.

So rather than opine at length, I choose to share with you excerpts from many stories about Theater J, with links to the full reports, which in turn link to yet more. I decry the pressure that Theater J has been subjected to and the manner of Ari Roth’s firing. I believe that Roth’s artistic vision will ultimately be best served at his planned new company Mosaic Theater Company – a name I love for its ability to invoke both the Moses of biblical times, as well as the ancient art form of arranging multi-colored tiles to create art, suggesting the coming together of many fragments to make a larger and more cohesive whole. As for what happens to Theater J now, I hope it doesn’t become a home for only feel-good Jewish stories, but manages to sustain itself as a place that challenges those who attend and fosters debate among them, characteristics that I was taught from a very early age were a central part of Judaism.

From “Theater J incident illustrates larger dialogue on Israel at Jewish institutions” by Peter Marks in The Washington Post, August 6, 2011:

Andy Shallal, an Iraqi-born Muslim, was deeply proud of the open conversation channel he had maintained with Ari Roth, longtime artistic director of Theater J, a highly regarded branch of the D.C. Jewish Community Center. Together with another local theater lover, Mimi Conway, they’d created the Peace Cafe, an after-play forum, complete with plates of hummus and pita bread supplied by Shallal’s popular Busboys and Poets dining spots, that had become a mainstay of Theater J’s programming.

The makeshift cafe — established 10 years ago, during the run of a politically charged solo play about the Mideast by David Hare — has been important as an outlet for debate over issues raised in Theater J’s sometimes provocative repertory, especially for an outsider such as Shallal. “It was an emotional experience for me, to walk into a Jewish community center, to grow up as a Muslim, thinking of Israelis as really scary people,” he says. “I walked through that door, and it was a very beautiful experience.”

Then, suddenly, a few months ago, a curtain was drawn. The community center’s then-chief executive officer, Arna Meyer Mickelson, told Shallal that the Peace Cafe could no longer use the facilities of the center, at 16th and Q streets NW. “She said, ‘We appreciate what you’ve done, but we can’t have Peace Cafes at Theater J anymore,’ ” Shallal recalls. “I think she was waiting for the right moment to cut the strings.”

From “Heated Dialogue, Onstage and Off, at Theater J” by Lonnie Firestone in American Theatre magazine, February 2012

Maybe it’s the temperature, maybe it’s the politics—but there’s something about plays from the Middle East. Ask Ari Roth, artistic director of Theater J in Washington, D.C., who has produced more plays from that region than any other theatre artist in America. Roth can attest that the dialogue in plays from this part of the world is “more scalding than subtle. But that’s good, arresting theatre.”

Heated dialogue has become a Theater J trademark, both during the plays and at post-show talkbacks. A focus on Israel and the Middle East is one surefire way to attract passionate audiences (and occasional detractors). Since taking the helm of Theater J in 1998, Roth has been as avid about producing work that engages with Israeli life, culture and politics as he has about producing plays about American Jewish life.

From “Where do Jewish federations draw the ‘red line’ on opinions about Israel?” by Jason Kamaras on JNS.org, September 23, 2013:

Ari Roth, artistic director of Theater J, told JNS.org that “The Admission” is all based on “actual research done by three historians,” rather than implying the “fictitious 1948 massacre” that Young Israel’s Levi described in his letter. “The Admission” was also featured in an April 2013 workshop that was underwritten by the Israeli Consulate of New York, which Roth called an Israeli “hechsher” on the play.

COPMA does not acknowledge Theater J’s slate of more than 35 plays and workshops relating to Israel over the last 16 years, said Roth, who among other plays the group has performed cited “Dai” (“Enough”), which details the experiences of 14 different Israelis in the moments before a suicide bombing.

Theater J also never actually produced “Seven Jewish Children,” explained Roth. Instead, the group held a “critical dissection” of the play, featuring readings of “Seven Jewish Children” and response plays, as well as a talk to start the event that included “what troubled me about the play,” Roth said.

The DC federation, in an April 2011 statement, said it would not fund “any organization that encourages boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel in pursuit of goals to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish State.” Theater J “stands squarely” against the BDS movement, Roth told JNS.org.

“We are all about bringing Israeli art over here, engaging with Israel,” he said. “We are a leading importer of Israeli cultural talent to Washington.”

Hanna Eady, Elizabeth Anne Jernigan, Leila Buck, Danny Gavigan, Pomme Koch, Kimberly Schraf, and Michael Tolaydo in The Admission (Photo by C. Stanley Photography)

From “Theater J Scales Back Show as Pro-Israel Critics Pressure Washington D.C. Troupe” by Nathan Guttman in the Jewish Daily Forward, October 9, 2013:

In an apparent bow to the right in the Jewish culture wars, Theater J, a celebrated theatrical group housed at Washington’s DC Jewish Community Center, will not produce a play set to open this spring that has been denounced by critics as anti-Israel.

The troupe will instead run a workshop on the play and a moderated discussion. . .

The compromise reached between Theater J and the DCJCC will likely not put an end to the heated political debate about the play. Activists from a group called Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art, which organized the pressure campaign, have made clear they will not discuss anything short of removing the play altogether. The group’s chairman, Robert Samet, told the Forward earlier that he would accept only the play’s cancellation.

Carole Zawatsky, CEO of the DCJCC, told the Forward that the decision to cancel the full production was not a result of the outside pressure. “This had nothing to do with COPMA,” she said. “COPMA is trying to shut down the conversation and we are trying to broaden it.”

The DCJCC explained the decision as stemming from their “guiding principle” that plays from Israel should be done in partnership with Israeli theater companies. And since a planned partnership did not materialize, Theater J will not present a full production in Washington. The workshop, Zawatsky said, will include the play’s author, Motti Lerner, alongside other historians, artists and political figures.

The controversy surrounding production of The Admission is only the latest in a series of attacks against the capital city’s Jewish theater company involving plays related to Israel. Theater J rejected the earlier rounds of criticism, insisting on its right to stage the plays in question as a matter of artistic freedom.

This time, however, the debate was deepened by a call from the theater’s detractors to withhold donations from the city’s Jewish federation because of its support for the artistic group.

From a letter by The Dramatists Guild and the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund to the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and the DC JCC, January 27, 2014:

We understand that a group that calls itself Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art has been formed to discourage Theatre J’s production of The Admission by advocating a boycott of your organizations and other intimidating tactics. Yes, private citizens have a right to object to the plays you produce by not funding you, and no, their actions do not constitute “censorship” in the strictest sense, but the bullying tactics of this group in order to impose their political worldview on the choice of plays you present must not succeed. As the representative of writers of all political persuasions, religious beliefs, etc., the Dramatists Guild strongly opposes their actions and agenda.

We find it ironic that COPMA’s wish to stifle the play is purportedly in defense of Israel, yet the Israeli minister of Home Security himself has said: “In the past, some plays by Motti Lerner have created stormed discourse … This discourse is taking place in the public sphere and that is where it should be. The State of Israel is proud of the freedom of expression in the arts in it and especially the freedom of expression in the theater.”

Should the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and the DCJCC have a lower standard for the freedom of expression than Israel? Surely if a state under siege since its founding can withstand criticism in the form of drama, so can your audiences.

From “For Jewish groups, a stand-off between open debate and support of Israel” by Marc Fisher in The Washington Post,” May 28, 2014:

The D.C. Jewish Community Center runs a popular music festival featuring klezmer, a cappella, Broadway, liturgical and classical sounds. This year, they invited a Brooklyn feminist punk rock band called The Shondes — Yiddish for “disgrace” — to join the lineup.

Weeks later, the center uninvited The Shondes because the band’s leader had made public statements questioning whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state.

The JCC has staged an “Embracing Democracy” series over the past year, tackling tough issues with speakers on American Jews’ relationship with Israel and the birth of the Jewish state. David Harris-Gershon was asked to speak on his memoir about how he changed after a Palestinian terrorist’s bomb in Jerusalem seriously injured his wife.

But the JCC withdrew Harris-Gershon’s invitation after discovering that he had written a blog post sympathetic to the boycott and divestment movement against Israel. . .

“A wonderful aspect of Jewish tradition is healthy debate,” says Stuart Weinblatt, rabbi at Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Potomac, Md. “But ultimately, a big tent does have parameters. It’s not inappropriate for the JCC or any institution to ask, ‘Does this play or speaker convey a narrative that helps people understand Israel’s ongoing struggle?’ There are plenty of venues willing to host productions critical of Israel. The Jewish community doesn’t need to be that place.”

“You have to push the envelope, you have to challenge,” says Gil Steinlauf, senior rabbi at Adas Israel Congregation in the District. “This is the essence of what it means to be Jewish: We welcome dissent. And I do see a move away from that welcome in the Jewish community.”

From “DCJCC Cancels Theater J’s Middle East Festival, Prompting Censorship Debate” by Nathan Guttman in the Jewish Daily Forward, November 25, 2014:

Theater J, a nationally acclaimed group under the auspices of the Washington DC Jewish Community Center, is battling a decision by the JCC to cancel its annual Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival. The theatrical festival, which in the past has included works critical of Israeli policy, was asked to accept a rigorous vetting process of artists this year to limit that criticism.

“Increasingly, Theater J is being kept from programming as freely, as fiercely, and expressing itself as fully as it needs,” the artistic director, Ari Roth, wrote to the company’s executive committee in September, in an internal document obtained by the Forward. “We find the culture of open discourse and dissent within our Jewish Community Center to be evaporating.”

Theater J and the DCJCC are not the only institutions caught between donors concerned about negative depictions of Israel and creators arguing for artistic freedom; New York City’s Metropolitan Opera is still reeling from the protests against its decision to produce “The Death of Klinghoffer”; the JCC in Manhattan came under fire in 2011 for partnering with progressive organizations, and in San Francisco, the Jewish film festival was the first, in 2009, to face pressure from donors to change its programming.

“It’s pervasive,” said Elise Bernhardt, former president and CEO of the now-defunct Foundation for Jewish Culture. “At the end of the day, they are shooting themselves in the foot.” Bernhardt said that attempts to censor Jewish art will only deter young members from being involved in the community.

From an e-mail sent by DCJCC Executive Director Carole Zawatsky to the DC JCC board on December 18, 2014:

I am writing to let you know that Ari Roth will be stepping down as the Artistic Director of Theater J. Ari has been a great leader of our theater program for the last 18 years and has grown Theater J into an award-winning and groundbreaking destination for our community. Under his guidance, Theater J has become the premier Jewish theater in the country and has gained national critical acclaim. We are so proud of the heights we have reached with Ari at the helm. While Ari will no longer be the Artistic Director of Theater J, we have offered Ari the opportunity to continue to curate the Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival and use its branding wherever his next endeavor shall be.

To all the people who have worked most closely with Ari to make Theater J the incredible success it is today, I want to assure you of our continued commitment to Theater J’s mission of presenting thought-provoking, engaging theater. While a search is underway for a new Artistic Director, Theater J will continue operating under the leadership of two people you already know well: Managing Director Rebecca Ende and now Associate Artistic Director Shirley Serotsky.

From “Artistic director Ari Roth is fired from Theater J” by Peter Marks in The Washington Post on December 18, 2014:

Ari Roth, longtime artistic director of Theater J, an organization he has built over the past 18 years into one of the city’s most artistically probing and ambitious theater companies, said he was fired Thursday. Roth said notice of his dismissal was delivered by Carole R. Zawatsky, chief executive officer of the DC Jewish Community Center, of which Theater J is an arm. The cause given, he said, was insubordination, violating what he called the JCC’s “communications protocol.”.  .  .

On Thursday night, the DCJCC released a statement quoting Zawatsky as saying: “Ari Roth has had an incredible 18-year tenure leading Theater J, and we know there will be great opportunities ahead for him. Ari leaves us with a vibrant theater that will continue to thrive.”

Roth and Zawatsky, who was hired by the JCC in 2011, clashed repeatedly over some of Roth’s programming choices, particularly as they concerned the Middle East. Earlier this year, Theater J’s world premiere of “The Admission,” a play by Israeli dramatist Motti Lerner about a purported massacre of Palestinian villagers in 1948 by Israeli soldiers, was downgraded by the center from a full production to a workshop. That occurred after a small local activist group’s campaign to stop the play asked donors to withhold funds from the JCC’s parent body.

The group, calling itself Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art, launched a similar effort in protest of a Theater J offering in 2011, “Return to Haifa,” a play that featured Arab and Israeli actors. From the highly regarded Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, Boaz Gaon’s drama — adapted from a novella by a spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, later assassinated — portrayed a Palestinian family returning to the home it had fled in 1948 that was occupied by Israeli Jews.

The latest and apparently final dispute was over the fate of Theater J’s Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival, an ongoing series of which “Return to Haifa” and “The Admission” were a part. Last month, the Jewish Daily Forward reported that the DCJCC was eliminating iterations of the festival. Roth said his commenting to the media after the article appeared was the reason given to support the charge of insubordination.

From “Ari Roth’s Firing From Theater J Is Part of a Larger Conflict About Jewish Criticism of Israel” by Benjamin Freed in the Washingtonian on December 19, 2014:

But the aggressive pushback that Israel’s critics like Roth and Judis from their fellow Jews isn’t a recent phenomeon, says Alan Elsner, the vice president of communications for J Street, a left-wing Middle East policy organization that calls itself pro-Israel and pro-peace. The group was founded in 2008 because the subject of Israel “had become so toxic that institutions, people, synagogues felt they couldn’t discuss it intelligently anymore,” he says.

Elsner believes the loud, hawkish voices that attack people like Roth are a slim portion of the the American Jewish community, but they do include some wealthy donors flexing their political clout. But those reactions, Elsner says, come at the expense of the Jewish population’s future.

“It’s a formula for driving away young people, driving away people who love Israel, but are not supportive of the settlements, and see the current government destroying the country,” he says. “The right has been in power in Israel with short breaks since 1977, and they’ve pursued building settlements and had three or four wars. The problem is, how do American Jews who support Israel and love Israel engage in a meaningful dialogue with Israel without being cast out of the tent?”

From “Ari Roth’s swift departure from Theater J follows a tumultuous tenure” by Peter Marks in The Washington Post, December 19, 2014:

As Ari Roth, Theater J’s longtime artistic director, recalled it, he sat down over a couple of lunches with Rabbi Bruce Lustig of the Washington Hebrew Congregation and the JCC’s chief executive, Carole R. Zawatsky, in an effort to undo the ire and mistrust that had soured his dealings with his boss.

“We went to marriage counseling,” is how Roth wryly describes those attempts. “We worked on our relationship.”

The meetings apparently came to naught, for on Thursday, Roth was fired by Zawatsky from the job he had held for 18 years, a tenure during which he built Theater J into one of the leading Jewish theaters in the country and one of the most important outposts for plays about Israel and its neighbors. His termination came after he refused to sign a severance agreement that would have given him six months’ salary and required that he keep quiet about the nature of his exit.

The firing, which was greeted with expressions of disbelief and widespread condemnation by everyone from Washington actors, directors and artistic directors to playwright Tony Kushner, was in point of fact the culminating event of a difficult, years-long struggle between Roth’s company and those in charge of the august Jewish institution on 16th and Q streets NW that housed it. Furious over some of his programming decisions — including producing a play based on a novel by a onetime spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and a staged reading of another playlet, Caryl Churchill’s “Seven Jewish Children,” labeled by some as anti-Semitic — activist groups and others had exerted pressure on the JCC to try to stop them.

The dismissal, though, was not merely the wrenching end to a long-simmering personnel matter involving a headstrong staffer. It was also an illustration of a growing rift in the Jewish community, over what kinds of dialogue concerning Israel can be tolerated at a multipurpose Jewish organization — and whether, in fact, programming perceived as critical of Israeli policies has any place at a center for Jewish culture.

“The work that Ari’s been doing isn’t more or less controversial than it was 10 years ago, but the atmosphere for airing different voices has changed,” said Joshua Ford, who was the DCJCC’s associate executive director until leaving in March. “That’s in part because there’s a perception that Israel is more besieged than ever, and that’s a perception with some reality to it. And part of it is that it’s very, very hard for artists and institutions just to get along in general.

“Artists need to be artists,” Ford added, “and institutions need to answer to more than just their artistic impulses.”

From “Ari Roth, Director of Jewish Theater, Is Fired” by Michael Paulson in The New York Times, December 19, 2014:

Under Mr. Roth’s leadership, Theater J has periodically produced work that has tested the Jewish Community Center. This year, the agency scaled back a production of “The Admission,” which depicted a disputed incident of Israeli soldiers killing Palestinians in 1948, and canceled a Middle East festival; in 2010 the theater scuttled a production of a play about Bernie Madoff after objections from Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and writer; in 2009 there was controversy over a play by Caryl Churchill that some saw as anti-Semitic.

Mr. Roth said he was fired after unsuccessful efforts to negotiate an agreement to allow him to do some of his most contested work as a freelancer, or to make Theater J, which is producing six shows this season and has a $1.6 million budget, financially independent from the Jewish Community Center. He said he had recently been reprimanded for speaking to the news media without permission, and that he believed the J.C.C. wanted him gone to eliminate a possible source of concern for donors during a coming capital campaign.

“This was a long time coming, but it was becoming clear that for the theater to fully express itself, not just on the Middle East but on a whole range of issues, there was a growing artistic impasse,” he said.

Tony Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide… at Theater J

At the conclusion of Friday’s evening’s performance at Theater J, the following statement from playwright Tony Kushner was shared with the audience, read by members of the company of Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, Theater J’s current production:

We know it’s been a long evening of theater, but we’d like to take one more moment of your time. We wouldn’t be standing here tonight without the hard work and fierce dedication of our friend and colleague, the artistic director of Theater J, Ari Roth. Yesterday, Ari was fired by the CEO of the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center in consultation with the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of this center. This decision is of grave concern to theater artists and audiences alike. Ari wasn’t fired, as the executive committee has claimed, because of ‘insubordination.’ That is a preposterous and cowardly whitewashing of the truth. Ari was fired because he believes that a theater company with a mission to explore Jewish themes and issues cannot acquiesce to demands for an uncritical acceptance of the positions of the Israeli government regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or to an insistence on silence. Ari was fired because he refused to surrender to censorship; he was fired because he believes that freedom of speech and freedom of expression are both American values and Jewish values. “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide” has 3 more performances. We can’t continue without expressing our shock and dismay at this violation of principles we cherish. Theater artists and administrators across the country are already speaking out in protest. We join them, and we hope you’ll join us. We call on the full Board of the DCJCC to renounce the action its executive committee has taken, and by renouncing it, demonstrate its support for theater that engages with contemporary reality in all its complexity, free of the fear of censors. Thanks for listening, thanks for being a great audience, and Ari, thanks for everything–shabat shalom, Godspeed, and good night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqTCWWaH7r0

In a New York Times Magazine article, “Can Liberal Zionists Count On Hillary Clinton?” published on Sunday, December 21, 2014 and wholly unrelated to the firing of Ari Roth at Theater J, one paragraph struck me as particularly apt to the themes and reality surrounding the theater and its place in discourse about Israel and the Middle East, echoing the observations of others:

“In many segments of American Jewry,” Zemel said, “one is free to disagree with the president of the United States, but the prime minister of Israel is sacrosanct. How patently absurd!” Zemel’s criticism of the current Israeli government pivoted to a discussion of how the Holocaust and that summer’s flare-ups of anti-Semitism in Europe reminded them all that Israel was existentially necessary. “We must love Israel even harder,” he concluded, quoting from the Israeli national anthem. “Od lo avda tikvateinu. We have not yet lost our hope.”

From “An Interview With Former Theater J Artistic Director Ari Roth” on HowlRound.com, December 21, 2014:

If you look around the country, how many plays are there on an annual basis that touch on the Middle East conflict? And then you think it’s such a rich source of drama and there are so many talented people writing about it, why aren’t they touching this subject? I don’t think they should use my example as a cautionary tale, they should use my example as a reason to do more of it. I shouldn’t be one of the only TCG theater artists engaged in this issue. It’s inexplicable to me that we don’t have a dozen other theater companies engaging in this theater subject. It isn’t the third rail, it isn’t that volatile or lethal. There’s not that much paranoid Jewish money that is so concerned about this issue being voiced. I think artists ask themselves how much do they know, how much more could they learn about the conflict and what’s my responsibility to reflect that on our stage? A lot of people could be doing this work and should be.

Via Twitter, a final observation from The Washington Post’s Peter Marks:

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Update, December 22, 2014, 1 pm: The artistic directors of a broad cross-section of U.S. theatres have sent a letter regarding Ari Roth’s firing to the Board of Directors of the Washington Jewish Community Center. It reads:

We, the undersigned Artistic Directors, are outraged by the action of the JCC in Washington DC in summarily dismissing the long-serving Artistic Director of Theater J, Ari Roth, on the morning of December 18.

The stated cause was ‘insubordination’, and it is absolutely clear that Roth was fired because of the content of the work he has so thoughtfully and ably championed for the last two decades.

Ari Roth is a capable, brilliant and inspiring leader of the American non-profit theater. The actions of the JCC, in terminating him for blatantly political reasons, violate the principles of artistic freedom and free expression that have been at the heart of the non-profit theater movement for over half a century. Such actions undermine the freedom of us all.

A free people need a free art; debate, dissent, and conflict are at the heart of what makes theater work, and what makes democracy possible. We deplore the actions of the JCC, offer our complete support for Ari Roth, urge the American theater community to protest these events in all possible ways, and call upon the full Board of the JCC to renounce this action of the Executive Committee of the JCC.

Update, December 28, 2014 11 am:

From “D.C. Jewish Community Center head details ‘insubordination’ of Ari Roth” by Peter Marks in The Washington Post, December 26, 2014:

The battle over the firing of Theater J artistic director Ari Roth took another bitter turn this week, with the circulation of remarks by his boss at the D.C. Jewish Community Center, Carole R. Zawatsky, accusing him of “a pattern of insubordination, unprofessionalism and actions that no employer would ever sanction.”

That pattern, Zawatsky charged in a letter sent by e-mail Wednesday to “Members of the Israel arts community,” included an attempt “to force the DCJCC to give up Theater J to his sole control.” She added that after that failed to occur, “he had begun to work on a new venture, while still employed by DCJCC,” and that “despite clear and written warnings” he “continued to disregard direction” from his superiors.

“Ari Roth,” she contended, “was not fired because of his politics or because of outside pressure.”

From “The Facts on the Ground at Theater J” by Isaac Butler in American Theatre magazine, December 28, 2014:

In their own ways, both Zawatsky and Roth’s versions of the story identify the same problems: an untenable relationship between the theatre and the center, mirrored or manifested by their own untenable relationship; a document outlining possible ways those relationships could change; and Roth’s future plans for a new company and decision to leave. But both use these points of evidence for radically different, somewhat incompatible interpretations of the last few years.

And if you assume the politics of Israel-related programming was the cause of Roth’s firing, a few additional ironies seep into the story. For one, Roth is hardly a radical leftist on Israeli politics: He is instead a mainstream, left-of-center, two-state-solution-supporting moderate. He has said, both in his interview with HowlRound and with me, that he willingly embraced the DCJCC’s “red line” about work that promotes BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, a movement that tries to use economic and cultural pressure to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian land).

What’s more, the work that actually landed him in hot water in the first place was a staged examination of whether or not a play by the greatest living English-language playwright was anti-Semitic—and then two plays by Israeli Jews attempting to reconcile with the events surrounding their nation’s founding.

But the past is prologue. Leaving aside the trail of events that brought Roth, Zawatsky, Theater J and the DCJCC to this impasse, the question is: What now?

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I will continue to add to and amend this post if I discover thoughtful and pertinent information I believe to be constructive to the narrative and the issues.