According to an old aphorism, “dog bites man” is not big news, however “man bites dog” is something to report. Consequently, in the arts world, “board of directors fires staff” may be of interest, but it’s hardly novel. “Staff fires board of directors” is something else entirely, and that’s what’s playing out right now in Seattle.

Of course, that’s highly reductive, but the fact is, on April 24, the majority of the staff of Theatre Puget Sound, a theatrical service organization for the greater Seattle community, signed a letter to their board which began, “In good faith, we ask you to resign from the TPS Board of Directors. We do this because you have given us reason to have no confidence in your leadership.” It further read, in part:

We stand united to inform you that we will not continue working under your governance. Should you reject this request for your resignation, we will discontinueour employment by May 7.

TPS is now paralyzed by an atmosphere of distrust and organizational dysfunction of your collective making and perpetuation, and only a newly constituted Board of Directors working in full trust, transparency, and partnership with an appropriately supported Executive Director and staff can effectively govern the organization going forward.

This request is made solely with the best interest of Theatre Puget Sound, its mission, and its membership in mind. In the Summer of 2016 you set in motion a cascade of substantial organizational actions, the inevitable consequences of which cannot now be disguised or avoided.

TPS
 cannot function without the current staff, but it can and will function without the existing Board.

To date, the TPS board has not resigned, and evidences no intention of doing so.

TPS has been going through a good deal of transition lately. Karen Lane, the organization’s longtime executive director, left her post in November 2016, succeeded on an interim basis by Zhenya Lavy, who had joined TPS in September 2016 as Lane’s deputy. According to a report by Rich Smith in The Stranger, the board asserts that it received a letter from Lavy on April 1, “demanding that they end their search for an executive director, install her in that position, and guarantee her a certain salary. If they don’t meet those demands, then she walks May 5. They have until April 7 to respond.” Per Smith, the board did not agree to the demands and reasserted their intention to conduct a full search.

In Smith’s account, “Lavy paints her ultimatum to the board–that they make her executive director or she leaves May 5 – as a matter of survival…even after working there for a few months, Lavy claims the board hadn’t yet outlined a clear job description for her, nor had they discussed pay commensurate to the task. Because she had been working so much since she started –spending upwards of three nights in arrow sleeping in the office, she says– she’d have to leave the company by May 5 in order to save her health.”

When the staff demanded the board resignation, one employee name was absent, that of Shane Regan, listed on the company website as being in charge of “programs” while identified by Smith in The Stranger as “membership programs associate.” Whatever his title, in the immediate wake of these events, an outpouring of comment on Facebook characterized Regan as the popular, most public face of TPS. Shortly before the letter was sent to the board asking then to resign, Lavy terminated Regan, she says for cause. Rumors swirled that he was fired for refusing to sign the letter, but Regan told Smith that he was never asked to sign the letter.

Smith reported that Lavy was suspended for firing Regan without board approval, but board member Shawn Belyea, who is speaking publicly on behalf of the board, told Arts Integrity that that was not the case. While being careful not to discuss matters that about employees that are legally precluded from being made public, Belyea did not cite Regan’s firing as the cause of her suspension, referring instead to the totality of recent events. He affirmed that the hiring and firing of staff members was within the purview of the executive director.

Because the day of Regan’s firing and the staff letter was also supposed to be the day of a board meeting, Belyea cites the circumstances of the meeting’s cancellation as one reason why Lavy has been suspended, even as he notes that because Regan never signed a termination letter, his status is actually now that of being on vacation. Belyea explained:

Unless it’s stated in the bylaws that you will have x number of public meetings or all your meetings will be public or any of those things, standard practice for non-profits is not public board meetings. Nor would there typically be public notice of the board meeting. So if you go back to Monday there was an announcement put out by the staff on the TPS website that said the board meeting is open to the public. Come to the public board meeting of the TPS board. So that alone constitutes some questionable action. Posting that, then sending out a public notice specifically inviting people from the public to come to the board meeting, that is also a very questionable act.

We had two options in this situation as a board. We have to go to the place where it has been incorrectly posted that the public is invited, where we know from other sources that people have been invited and told that the meeting is public. So we are faced with two choices: we have to go in and tell everybody, no, the board meetings are not public and then close the doors and exclude all these people, or we have to cancel the board meeting and do a separate executive session and start doing some investigation into why these things are happening and what is the agenda of the group that is doing them. All of these things happened on the day of the board meeting, so we did not have a lot of time to respond…

There’s a whole series of actions there that we need to investigate exactly who made those decisions, how those decisions came to be made, what the impact of those decisions are, what the legal ramifications of those decisions are, how these things were communicated to the staff, how these things reflect what the staff believes, what are the staff’s understanding of the situation of their decisions – there’s just a tremendous amount of fact finding that we have to do, partly because none of these actions were taken by the board.

Arts Integrity attempted to reach both Zhenya Lavy and staff member Catherine Blake Smith, identified by The Stranger as “membership and communications specialist,” but received no replies. A Facebook post by by former executive director Karen Lane, cited in The Stranger, backed the call for the board to resign.

In the staff’s resignation request, mention is made of legal counsel advising the staff, which led them to proffer the steps by which the board could resign and a new board take over without jeopardizing the company’s not-for-profit status. Belyea said the board has consulted several attorneys on not-for-profit procedure and human resources procedures, and was also being counseled by Josef Krebs at the consulting firm of Scandiuzzi Krebs, with additional support their City of Seattle liaison at the Seattle Center, where TPS manages multiple rehearsal studios.

Bottom line? It’s a mess. It’s also a very public mess, not simply because of the reporting in The Stranger, but because Lavy sent the request for the board’s resignation to a wide cross section of the Seattle community, including the media, leaders of other arts organizations, community philanthropists and more, and even included a pair of internal e-mails by the board. In addition, Lavy attached the theatre’s whistleblower policy, adopted only at the end of February.

This situation will play out for some time in Seattle. Belyea said the board’s investigation of events was not yet complete when speaking on April 20; a public forum on the situation is scheduled for April 27. It is described as follows on the company Facebook page:

The purpose of this meeting is to dialogue with members concerning recent events at TPS and to provide details regarding the upcoming search for the next Executive Director. Part of this discussion will be for the Board to hear feedback on how best to ensure members are meaningfully involved in the ED search process.

It’s worth noting that with Lavy’s circulation of the whistleblower policy, a flaw in that policy may be exposed. While it seems primarily structured to address issues that arise within the staff, within the board, or between the two, it doesn’t seem to speak to when the two constituencies find themselves in the position of questioning the performance of one another as complete entities. While the policy does allow for circumstances where an executive director’s complaints are lodged against the whole board, in which case they are to consult outside legal counsel, the policy does not suggest that such consultation precipitate the removal of the board. Indeed, the board that has the ultimate legal and fiduciary responsibility for the organization.

The circumstances that led to the brinksmanship at TPS are certainly specific to the organization and the individuals involved, both staff and board. Parsing every gory detail won’t serve the larger national arts community, though The Stranger is on the case for those who want more information, and for future study by arts management educators and students. However, the bird’s eye view of the contretemps should serve as a reminder for boards and executive and senior leadership of arts organizations to examine their practices and policies, because while the situation is rare, it demonstrates how a rapid cascade of events can put an arts organization at risk. That it holds the organization up for public examination, while embarrassing, is not necessarily a problem in and of itself, because it forces the organization to address what have surely been long festering concerns and structural issues.

To be sure, there is crisis at Theatre Puget Sound. As of this writing, the organization’s website lists only two staff members; one week ago it listed five. However, while who has acted properly or improperly, and who has the best interests of TPS at heart – and most likely everyone does, just as everyone probably shares some burden of blame for what evolved – are important questions, certainly a thorough reexamination of the organization’s purpose, structure, leadership and governance is vital. It’s regrettable that it took such an adversarial situation to bring it to the fore.

P.S. While it may now be a footnote in regional theatre lore, in 1976, Adrian Hall, artistic director of Trinity Repertory Theatre in Rhode Island, did essentially fire the theatre’s board when they sought to fire him after a controversial season. He replaced them with a board that supported his artistic vision. But that was 41 years ago, and Hall had personally founded the company. Few have tried it since, or at least few have tried and succeeded.

This post will be updated if the parties concerned respond to Arts Integrity’s prior inquiries, and as events transpire.

An earlier version of this post misspelled Josef Krebs’s first name. It has been corrected above.

The shutting down of a high school play at East Newton High School in Granby, Missouri last week may have set a new low in bad timing for such incidents. The show was not canceled after casting, during rehearsals, just prior to opening night or following the first performance. No, at East Newton the show was canceled roughly 10 minutes into the second act on its first night. Why? Because two parents, watching the show, demanded that their child be pulled off the stage.

The reasoning? As one of the parents claimed on Facebook, “The play consisted of extreme amounts of cursing, drug use and sexually explicit content. There was language speaking about dildos, pornography, virgins and cherry popping. A student flipped off a teacher.”

With the cast member taken from the stage, a hasty explanation of the remainder of the show was offered. The school would not permit the show to have its second performance, even if a replacement actor had been found in time.

What was the show with this offensive content? A stage adaptation of the widely-loved John Hughes coming of age film The Breakfast Club, released 32 years ago. But therein lies another problem, namely that there is no authorized stage adaptation of The Breakfast Club. The production at East Newton was a wholly homegrown affair, save for the source material itself.

It’s impossible, unless one saw the truncated performance or was involved in the production, to debate whether the material was or was not appropriate for high school production. To what degree the words or actions on the East Newton stage were simply transcribed from the screenplay and copied from the film, or were altered, amended, edited and so on, may never be widely known. The film itself was one of only two of the “golden era” John Hughes to be rated R by the MPAA (the other being Trains, Planes and Automobiles).

The drama teacher, new to the school this year, told Arts Integrity that, regarding authorship, “A local teacher edited the show.” He also acknowledged the lack of rights, writing, “We were unable to obtain rights, the show has never been released as a play. I did a lot of research and found that there is no one to obtain the rights [from]. So we did some creative donation to make it closer to legal.” Asked to explain what “creative donation” meant, he replied, “We weren’t really charging admission. We put out a suggested donation to the drama club.”

As is often the case when shows are shut down by school officials, a campaign to get it restored began quickly, with a former drama club president, now a college student, leading the charge. He rallied support on social media, instigated a lengthy Facebook chain, coined the hashtag #LetThemPlay and even shared a tweet from the school superintendent showing a senior citizen audience attending what apparently was an extra performance or dress rehearsal. He noted that there were no red flags raised about the show’s content then, only when the parents complained – and cited the fact, corroborated by the drama teacher, that all of the students involved in the show had been required to get written permission to participate in the show from their parents in advance.

Another teacher at the school posted to Facebook that she was responsible for the adaptation. She wrote on Facebook about the school principal seeing part of a performance, or possibly a rehearsal, two evenings prior to the suddenly shortened one, noting that while that presentation was also cut short, in that case by a tornado alert, the principal recommended cuts to the text in order to address content issues, which were willingly implemented.

The situation generated coverage in the local media, but as of now, there are no plans for additional performances of The Breakfast Club on or off the East Newton campus. It leaves one sympathetic to the students and even their supporters, because they were denied the opportunity to see their work come to fruition. The principal commented to the local press that with additional changes, the show might yet be brought back. But continuing on with the show would sustain the copyright violation. This is an unwinnable scenario.

The lesson here is one of failed communication all around. It’s possible to applaud the school administration for the initial impulse to trust and work with the drama teacher and his wife to come up with a good show for the students, however all of those parties failed to understand the basics of copyright and licensing, since no script was available. That shouldn’t be taken as permission to go ahead and cobble together your own adaptation, but rather to either create a wholly original work, or to legally license preexisting material. The fact that a Hollywood movie company is unlikely to discover a scofflaw adaptation in a small town (and indeed, several other “original” stage adaptations of The Breakfast Club can be found via a careful Google search) makes no difference. Neither does asking for a donation instead of charging a set admission. What happened in Granby absolutely qualifies as public performance of dramatic material.

That parents apparently signed a permission slip approving their child’s participation in a school show and then rescinded that permission mid-performance suggests that either the form didn’t indicate why permission was being sought or that the parents weren’t paying sufficient attention to that information. While it’s impossible to assess from afar how school appropriate (or not) the play was, these parents had to know that by removing their child mid-show, they were effectively ending the evening for all concerned, cast, crew and audience alike. The school’s rapid decision not to allow the second performance served to back the parents’ assessment.

There are multiple adults who shoulder blame for what happened at East Newton. In recounting this situation, names have been omitted, since everyone here has lost out in one way or another. There’s no need to provide an easy route for shaming any of the parties –though the former drama club president’s efforts were admirable, if underinformed about the full scope of the issues at hand. Local news accounts can be found for those eager to push into the details or to verify this account.

It seems more important that all of the parties involved walk away with some lessons for the future. Teachers and administrators need to learn what is and is not permitted with regarding adapting existing works or licensing scripts for performance, and they should share that understanding of responsibility with their students. That this teacher-adapted version of a screenplay was willingly adjusted according to administration requests shouldn’t in any way suggest that existing, properly licensed scripts can be edited at will by those in authority. Permission slips should make clear their purpose when utilized, to insure parents understand what they’re approving for their children, to avoid even later than eleventh hour reversals. Parents should understand how their actions for their children can have a domino effect on many other students, and consider how it affects everyone in that moment, not solely what it means to them and their child.

Finally, this should also not be an excuse to suspend or terminate the drama program at East Newton, or to subject it to undue ongoing scrutiny beyond that appropriate for any school activity, but rather prompt all concerned to make it stronger and indeed to hopefully present material that is something more than G rated. After all of the attention this generated locally, the East Newton Drama Club should be allowed to build on that awareness it in the future, all concerned should do better next time, and East Newton students should be assured they can appear in shows that speak to their own experiences, perform shows in their entirety, and bask in applause when it’s all said and done.

As for The Breakfast Club? The Blu-Ray can be purchased for under $7 online.

Poster for Langston Hughes’s “Mulatto” in 1935

If you happen to have been giving any thought to producing Langston Hughes’s 1935 play Mulatto at the Ames Center in Burnsville MN, save yourself some time and either move on to another play or another venue. Why? Because the Ames Center is uncomfortable with the word “mulatto,” and won’t approve it in the title of an offering in their building. Hughes’s stature, and the fact that the Black Repertory Group in Berkeley play produced the show as recently as 2015, probably wouldn’t make any difference.

How do we know this, since the scenario above is hypothetical, in addition to being awfully specific? Because the city-owned Ames Center recently vetoed a production of the play Caucasian-Aggressive Pandas and Other Mulatto Tales, by biracial actor and playwright Derek “Duck” Washington, to be produced by the Ames Center’s resident theatre company, the Chameleon Theatre Circle. The Center cited “mulatto” as the problem, saying they would only allow the play to be done if the word was removed from the title. Caucasian-Aggressive Pandas had already been a hit at the Minnesota Fringe Festival in 2016, after first being produced locally in 2015. That it is Washington’s exploration of his own heritage and his relationship to a relatively archaic racial term, one which is admittedly at its root derogatory in nature, was no defense as far as the Center was concerned. Washington refused to alter the title.

Partly as a result of the dispute over Washington’s play, but with other factors at play as well, Chameleon, a 19-year-old professional non-Equity company which has been a tenant in the Ames Center’s black box theatre since it opened in 2009, will not be renewing their relationship with the venue. Chameleon is currently seeking a new home base in the greater Minneapolis area. The future life for Caucasian Aggressive Pandas is uncertain.

*   *   *

Multiple dictionary definitions of “mulatto” designate it as both a dated and offensive word, which specifically denotes someone who is the child of one white parent and one black parent. While The Atlantic headlined an article “Mulatto is not a cool word” in 2016, they did so in writing about a website and video series entitled “Evoking The Mulatto”, which describes itself as “examining black mixed identity in the 21st century, through the lens of the history of racial classification in the United States.” At the same time, some worry about the ongoing trope of “the tragic mulatto,” explored by many sources, including The Root back in 2011. It is not as loaded as the n-word, but it’s not a word to be thrown about thoughtlessly.

*   *   *

Kirsten Wade, Matthew Kessen, Derek “Duck” Washington, Suzanne Victoria Cross and Ted Femrite in “Caucasian Aggressive Pandas and Other Mulatto Tales” (Photo by Bob Alberti)

The dispute over the play came to light when, after several months of negotiations between Chameleon and the Ames Center for their year to year contract, told Washington for certain in mid-March that the play would not be permitted to go forward without a title change. Washington had previously informed Scott Gilbert, chair for season selection for the company, that he would not change it.

Both G.J. Clayburn, Chameleon’s board chair, who represented the company in negotiations, and Brian Luther, executive director of the Ames Center, which is operated by the company VenuWorks for the city of Burnsville, agreed that part of the annual contract renewal between the companies includes the submission of titles. Luther described this process as a matter of insuring that at least 50% of the titles in the Chameleon season would, he said, “have the opportunity to sell tickets,” referencing the need for a “balanced season.” Neither Luther nor Clayburn cited any contractual language that permitted the Ames Center to simply veto work over title or content so long as this threshold was met.

In response to the final decision, Washington decided to send an open letter to Luther at the Ames Center, as well as to the mayor, the city manager and the city council. It read in part:

I was really excited by the proposal to bring the show to Burnsville as I had so many people come up to me after performances or throughout the Fringe Festival telling me they wished I could bring the show out of the city to their home towns in the suburbs. They felt it would be very valuable to their communities and that this tale of race would have a positive impact on their residents regardless of their demographic background. This made Burnsville an optimal place to launch the show after two successful runs in Minneapolis…

I’m told that members of the city took concern with the word “mulatto” being in the play’s title. Mulatto is a word that represents someone that is the offspring of a white parent and a black parent. It is deemed by many to be a derogatory word, as its origins stem from a Spanish or Portuguese work for mule, which is the cross between a horse and a donkey. The show does not ignore the word’s derogatory origins and in fact addresses them in the first few minutes of the show. In a large way discussing those origins is a lot of what the show is about. As a person who is both black and white it is a word I still hear even if it isn’t quite as present in the modern vernacular. I put a lot of thought behind this word when writing this show. Could I have changed it “Mixed Race Tales”? Possibly, but it is a show specifically about my experiences of being both black and white. I felt like saying “Mixed Race Tales’ included a much larger subset of people whose experiences may or may not have represented my own….

So when I was asked by the city if I would change the title, I said no. Not only did it not make sense for the show, it also meant it would be difficult to leverage the show’s previous success operating under that title. Before the Fringe I did have one or two people express concern about the word which I believe I was able to lessen with a few sentences of conversation.

It should be noted that all parties acknowledge that Washington had no direct communication with any city officials. He spoke with Scott Gilbert, who spoke with the company’s executive producer Andrew Troth and with Clayburn, and Clayburn spoke with Luther at the Ames Center. Did Luther communicate with city officials about the show’s title? In an e-mail to Arts Integrity, Luther wrote, “Ames Center staff handles all show and performance decisions. However, if questions arise that may impact the City more generally, we make sure City representatives are aware. The decision regarding this show was ours, but the City supported that decision.”

*   *   *

Derek “Duck” Washington in his play “Caucasian-Aggressive Panda and Other Mulatto Tales” (Photo by Bob Alberti)

As noted above, no one could cite contractual language which gave the Ames Center approval of titles due to the nature of of their content, only that a certain number would be perceived as generally marketable. In confirming that, Luther wrote, “There was no intention to censor the show, or stop it from being performed. The only concern was with the use of an offensive term in the title. Being our facility is owned by a public entity, we need to be mindful of what goes up on our marquees, in our publications, displays, etc. It is a reflection of the entire City. As you can imagine, it’s a challenge to balance the rights of members of our community (who may not wish to be subjected to language they find offensive), with artistic license. We made what we thought was the most appropriate decision for our facility.”

Despite his assertion that there was no intention to censor, that’s precisely what the Ames Center did. Indeed, as the property of a government entity, which did not stipulate conditions under which Chameleon would not be permitted produce a show beyond specific sales concerns for a portion of their season, their apparently successful effort to quash the work since they could not alter it is an act of suppression of speech.

It would be interesting to know what the Center or the City might make of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins An Octoroon, a critically acclaimed, widely produced work that utilizes another archaic and derogatory term for a mixed race individual. Even with their right to determine what’s marketable, the only programming caveat in the contract, Ames would be hard pressed to say that it’s not a popular title right now. As it happens, Chameleon performed The Vagina Monologues the year before they moved to the Ames Center. Would Luther and his staff have been similarly cautious about putting that title on his marquee? Clearly some people have taken exception to the term for a woman’s genitalia being made part of everyday parlance in the way that show most certainly has done.

Both Clayburn and Washington mentioned that earlier this year, a performance by the comedian Ralphie May at the Ames Center had been controversial, with Washington specifically noting that the local Native American community had been upset over some portion of its content; no one cited the specific material to which objection was taken. But one performance should not cause the Ames Center to retreat into safety. In the case of Caucasian-Aggressive Pandas, there was the opportunity, with plenty of advance time, to contextualize the work, rather than suppressing the voice of a mixed race artist whose very work, based in his own experience, was grappling with the implications of the word he chose to use in his title. A performing arts center afraid of work and discussions about race is an arts venue out of step with creative and social conversations that pervade the country.

*   *   *

Andrew Troth, executive producer of Chameleon Theatre Circle, in an e-mail, wrote that Chameleon won’t have a singular venue for their next season and that, “Nobody knows right now what Chameleon’s situation will be after that.” He explained that Pandas is not currently scheduled as part of their upcoming season because of their vagabond status. “Part of the appeal if co-producing [Pandas] with us,” he wrote, “was the opportunity to present it outside of Minneapolis, where he has already had two successful runs of the show. Having walked away from our resident status in the Ames Center, and given the absence of alternate venues in close proximity, it is not clear that we will be able to offer that benefit in the future.”

He went on to write:

I will say this much on a personal basis: I find nothing to contradict or disagree with in Duck’s public letter. I consider him a friend, I admire his work, I was excited to include his show in Chameleon’s intended season, and I utterly disagree with the decision by management at Ames and the City to disallow it. It is my view that in deciding to move our productions elsewhere, Chameleon has exercised the only leverage available to us in response to the Ames Center’s multiple points of disagreement with our season plan.

Certainly Chameleon has stood up for their rights to produce work they feel is worthy, and will now struggle through the process of finding a new home for their work to insure its creative integrity in the future. But in the meantime, Duck Washington’s opportunity to reach new audiences with Caucasian-Aggressive Pandas and Other Mulatto Tales is on hold, as a result of the Ames Center’s effort to avoid giving offense to anyone. In doing so, they censored the work; they wouldn’t permit it on their small stage or on their signage, because avoidance was simpler than engaging with the work and supporting the artist and his collaborators.

The Ames Center may be a beautiful facility, but it has demonstrated that it is one without a core commitment to all manner of arts, only those which are broadly popular and anodyne. That doesn’t serve the arts nor does it serve their community. Because they imposed their will without benefit of a contractual agreement to permit such oversight, they have violated the free speech rights of Washington and of the Chameleon company. What will they deprive Burnsville of next?

Update, May 4, 2017: Chameleon Theatre Circle today announced their dice-show 2017-18 season, which will be produced in a number of venues in the greater Minneapolis area following, their break with the Ames Center in Burnsville MN. The season will conclude, as originally planned, with Caucasian-Aggressive Panda and Other Mulatto Tales by Duck Washington, directed by Jena Young, in the Black Box Theatre at the Bloomington Center for the Arts in Bloomington MN. The new home for Pandas is less than ten miles away from the censorious Ames Center.

Correction, April 5, 2017: Andrew Troth was originally referred to as artistic director of Chameleon. His correct title now appears above.

Despite its origin in a 1988 film from John Waters, the underground master of camp, shock and transgression, the story of Tracy Turnblad, as told in multiple iterations, has become wholly mainstream. Thanks in large part to the 2002 stage musical version, Tracy’s story of leading an effort to integrate a local TV music program in Baltimore has had America singing and dancing along for years now. Beyond its more conventional musical numbers, it offers up a craven TV producer who laments her salad days as “Miss Baltimore Crabs” and teens miming the crushing bugs as part of a dance craze. Indeed, the mildly subversive tone of the musical, while significantly less spiky than the original film, is set by Tracy’s buoyant paean to her home city, which includes shout outs to the rats on the street and the local flasher.

In spite of its popularity and its pro-integration narrative (the show is set in 1962), the musical has been been criticized by some as advancing a white savior narrative, since it portrays a white girl, albeit one who is ostracized for her weight, taking the initiative and risk to make “every day Negro Day” on The Corny Collins Show, the musical’s American Bandstand analogue.  Given that it’s explicitly about the crossing of the racial line between blacks and whites, a certain amount of disbelief met the news in 2012 that one Texas high school did the show with an all-white cast, seemingly deracinating a story about race and posing a particular challenge to truthfully representing the narrative.

Consequently, the casting of a March production of Hairspray at Princeton University, in which Tracy was played by a biracial student and her mother, Edna, was played by a black student, was both surprising and informative. It demonstrated how this musical about integration can be explored anew, 15 years after its debut and 30 years after the original film. The production, which played for five performances in a studio theatre on the campus, was the senior thesis project of two students, Alex Daniels, who played Tracy, and AJ Jones, who directed (only her second time directing). Princeton does not have a theatre major, but does offer theatre certificates for a concentrated course of study. The production was entirely student driven, except for its musical director and its sound designer.

In an interview with Arts Integrity subsequent to the run, Daniels, who describes herself as ethnically biracial and racially black, and Jones, who identifies herself as white, explained the thinking behind their production.

Daniels began by saying, “When I was a freshman, way back when, I was having a conversation with someone about dream roles of mine and I mentioned that I really loved Tracy and that she would definitely be a dream role. That person was like, ‘That’s not possible. You’re not white. You could never play Tracy.’ And so that comment really hit me in a not so great way. Why should the color of my skin limit me from any possibilities? I brought it up with AJ and from there we thought, why not? This script and this show seem to be catered to having a person of color in this position struggling with these issues.”

Expanding upon the inception story of their Hairspray, Daniels said, “When Alex told me about this comment, I started thinking more about Tracy possibly being biracial and it made a lot of sense, especially given her role in the show, bringing these two groups together. It changes the relationships with all of the characters in the show and gives them all a little more depth as well.”

In the production, Daniels appears in facial makeup that is noticeably lighter than her own skin tone. The rationale for this was described by Daniels as addressing, “How is Tracy going to fit into this world when she very clearly is not white? I personally cannot pass as white. Then we had the conversation about what if she’s trying to pass. What if she’s using makeup to lighten her skin, using whiteface in order to make it through every day in this community. So that’s where this conversation came in. We also just felt that the story of passing was something we wanted to talk about, the extent to which African-American, biracial females, and definitely men as well, went to belong in this community to reap the benefits of being white.”

Jones noted, “We spent quite a bit of time testing a lot of different types of makeup. We decided to have it only on her face because we wanted to make it clear to the audience that she’s not white, that she’s passing as white. We discussed whether other characters in the show know that Tracy’s trying to pass, and we came to the conclusion that yes, they have to be suspicious, but they can’t really know for sure, they can’t really say anything about it, because of the power of this white face that she has on.”

*   *   *

At this point, it would be fair to question whether this color conscious casting of the roles of Tracy and Edna was contrary to the authors’ intent for the show. Arts Integrity asked that very question of Music Theatre International, which licenses the show, specifying what the production had done in regards to those roles. In reply, MTI president Drew Cohen said that the company does not place casting restrictions according to race on its customers, and pointed out specific material answering questions about racial casting for Hairspray, in the form of a letter from the four authors of the show, as well as John Waters. It reads, along with instructions for using it, in its entirety, as follows:

The use of make-up to portray black characters in your production (e.g., blackface) is not permitted under this Production Contract. By signing below, you agree to inform the director of your production that such use of make-up is strictly prohibited.

If your production of Hairspray features actors who are portraying characters whose race may be other than their own, you may elect to include the below letter from the creators of Hairspray in your program. You are not permitted to edit the letter in any way. 

Dear Audience Members,

When we, the creators of HAIRSPRAY, first started licensing the show to high-schools and community theatres, we were asked by some about using make-up in order for non-African Americans to portray the black characters in the show.

Although we comprehend that not every community around the globe has the perfectly balanced make-up (pardon the pun) of ethnicity to cast HAIRSPRAY as written, we had to, of course, forbid any use of the coloring of anyone’s face (even if done respectfully and subtly) for it is still, at the end of the day, a form of blackface, which is a chapter in the story of race in America that our show is obviously against.

Yet, we also realized, to deny an actor the chance to play a role due to the color of his or her skin would be its own form of racism, albeit a “politically correct” one.

And so, if the production of HAIRSPRAY you are about to see tonight features folks whose skin color doesn’t match the characters (not unlike how Edna has been traditionally played by a man), we ask that you use the timeless theatrical concept of “suspension of disbelief” and allow yourself to witness the story and not the racial background (or gender) of the actors. Our show is, after all, about not judging books by their covers! If the direction and the actors are good (and they had better be!) you will still get the message loud and clear. And hopefully have a great time receiving it!

Thank You,
Marc, Scott, Mark, Tom & John

While Cohen did not respond directly to the query regarding the specific color conscious casting at Princeton, where certainly white students were available, his pointing out of the letter, and his comment about not imposing racial restrictions, strongly indicate that such casting is permissible. In a separate piece of correspondence, Cohen stated, “The key is that the show must be performed as written and the characters should be portrayed as written.” He also clarified that while the authors’ letter singles out high school and community theatre productions, it is applicable to university productions as well.

*   *   *

So what was the effect of this concept of Hairspray? It seemed, as the thesis students intended, to deepen the story, and staging decisions only enhanced that. “Good Morning, Baltimore” was played slowly, more like a sad ballad, suggesting that Tracy’s everyday routine was not a joyous leap from bed, but rather the start of a new day of struggle. When the perpetually panicky Prudy Pingleton commented to Edna, her laundress, about “colored music,” it read as more pointed than ever before, and Edna’s dismissal of the characterization read as self-negating. When Velma von Tussle humiliates Tracy at her dance audition, it ceased to be solely an attack of her weight but also decidedly racial. When first encountering Edna and Tracy together, Velma’s already ugly sizeist comment “I guess you two are living proof that the watermelon doesn’t fall too far from the vine,” became doubly ugly. That all of the female characters are released from jail after the altercation at Motormouth Maybelle’s save for Tracy, a particular focus is placed on the continued imprisonment of a young woman who is biracial, while the black characters and white characters are all freed.

At the same time, the friendship between Tracy and Penny came across as particularly special, since clearly Penny – in and out of the Turnblad house like any teenager – surely had no questions about Tracy’s mixed parentage, but ignored the racial faultlines of the day. When Seaweed declares that, “Detention’s a rainbow experience,” he negates any concerns about racial divisions or conflicts as well for Tracy, who has been trying to pass as white. Detention becomes, in effect, a racial safe space.

By consciously altering the racial dynamic of Hairspray through only two characters, albeit leading roles, it is fair to suggest that the story of racial acceptance, integration and diversity became possibly even more resonant than the original portrayal as defined by the Broadway production. While the authors’ letter permitting cross-racial casting may have been intended primarily to address situations where there aren’t sufficient performers of color available, it laid the groundwork for Daniels and Jones’s interpretation, even though they asked the audience to engage directly with their color conscious casting, rather than suspending disbelief over it.

*   *   *

It is unfortunate to report that Cohen’s statement, common to all licensed productions, that “the show must be performed as written” was not fully adhered to when it came to the text. Daniels and Jones acknowledged that they had made small changes and excisions, such as changing the song “Big, Blonde and Beautiful” to “Big, Black and Beautiful,” as their Motormouth Maybelle wore her hair more naturally. Perhaps most significantly, in “You Can’t Stop The Beat,” a late segment involving the Von Tussles, both mother and daughter, in which they are encouraged to join the full on party, initially resisting and then ultimately joining in, was gone. They were denied their redemption as the authors intended.

Because Daniels and Jones did not request permission to make these changes, and perhaps other smaller ones that went unnoticed, they were violating the authors’ copyright and the licensing agreement. While their production may have been a student thesis and part of their academic work, it was publicly presented, and for multiple performances, so the legally standard practices should have applied. That they felt the need and the freedom to reauthor any of the show is a shame, since the casting, direction and performance had already been transformative, while still working within the existing text and the leave granted by the authors regarding race.

*   *   *

It is the right of Tom Meehan, Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, John Waters and the estate of Mark O’Donnell to determine what may be done in productions of Hairspray that go beyond the existing casting template, and they’ve offered up their thoughts for producers and directors to consider. This mirrors Lin-Manuel Miranda’s statements regarding the racial casting of In The Heights, where he has made clear that in high school productions, the cast need not be Latinx, in whole or part, so long as the performances are respectful of the Latinx identity. But it’s important to remember that this guidance is specific to these shows by these authors about their own work, not a policy applicable across the literary spectrum. Texts should remain inviolate without express permission, which may be hard to secure, but is nonetheless legally and ethically required.

While the criteria for evaluating the Princeton students’ thesis academically is unknown, they did achieve two silent but memorable moments that have not typically been part of productions of Hairspray, but are both worth remembering. The first came midway through Act II when Tracy, inspired by “I Know Where I’ve Been,” wiped away the makeup which had been used to indicate that as a biracial teen, she was trying to pass as white, and would no longer. She becomes secure with her racial identity, even if it means more struggle in that community in that era.

The second memorable invention came in the very final moments of the show when, after the joyous and victorious refrain of “You Can’t Stop The Beat” hit its final peak, there was not the customary blackout. Instead, the cast (sans the Von Tussles, as noted previously) were arrayed in a straight line across towards the rear of the stage. Maintaining the rhythm of the now ended song, they stepped forward in unision, in unity, to the beat, beat, beat, and the dance party was transformed into the front lines of a civil rights march, of the fight for racial equality that would extend far beyond the integration of a single teen TV show.

Context is everything.

If you ask the average parent whether, in the abstract, they want to hear a student, any student, saying the n-word from the stage of their local high school auditorium, the answer (hopefully) would  be no. Put that word in its full context in the musical Ragtime, or in the plays of August Wilson, and those familiar with the works may feel differently.

Ask parents whether they’d like to hear students say words like “ass” and “skanky” from a school stage, and odds are they wouldn’t be keen on it. But put it in the context of the significantly edited school edition of Avenue Q, which is vastly less transgressive than the original, and it’s not quite so jarring, since its language is heard in network television comedies regularly.

The social media post from rehearsal of The Foreigner at New Prague High School

So when a photo of students dressed as Ku Klux Klan members began circulating on social media in the New Prague High School community in New Prague, Minnesota, with the message “I think you’re gonna want to come to the spring play,” there was understandable concern and outrage.

The image was from a dress rehearsal of Larry Shue’s mid-80s comedy The Foreigner, and the Klansmen appear briefly in sheets and hoods at the climax of the show as a threat to the shy title character, after the racist behavior of the Klan and their like have been clearly made out as ugly and malignant in the show. The Foreigner is hardly a social justice piece and it does use the Klan for humor, but it in no way endorses their real-life behavior.

Because this took place just a week before the performances, New Prague High School decided to quell the furor by shutting down the production entirely on Monday, three days after the post went up and just days before the performance dates. The school’s e-mail read as follows:

Dear Parents and Students,

We are sending this communication to notify you that our spring play, The Foreigner, has been cancelled.  On Friday afternoon, a NPHS student involved in the play posted a captioned photo on social media of some fellow cast members in KKK costumes that are used in the final scene of the play to depict an evil force in the story. Administration was made aware of the posting, and the insensitive nature of this post.

As we reviewed the social media post and conducted meetings with our theatre director and concerned community members, we feel it is in the best interest of New Prague Area Schools to not present the show this weekend.

This situation will also allow us the opportunity to have conversations with our students, staff and community as we continue to work at embracing a culture of acceptance and respect for all students within New Prague Area Schools.

Regards,

Lonnie Seifert, Principal

Tom Wetschka, Assistant Principal

Principal Seifert further elaborated in a conversation with Minnesota Public Radio:

Is it disappointing? Yes, I’m disappointed for the kids that invested so much time in the play and performing. But I think we also need to look at the big picture of our students and I’m disappointed some of our students had to go through the feelings that they went through seeing that (social media) post.

As Paul Walsh reported in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, there are only twelve black students at New Prague High School, in a student body of 1300 (he didn’t include data about other students of color). But regardless of the number of black students or all students of color at New Prague, a social media image of Klansmen and a mention of the school play created a fraught situation, presumably unknowingly on the part of the student who shared the photo. The school’s desire to send the message that it did not support either the Klan or clueless depictions of the Klan on its stage, with the clock ticking towards performances, was swift action with a commendable goal at heart, namely to send an anti-racist, anti-Klan message.

The question remains as to whether they made the right decision, since they shut down the show rather than trying to immediately grapple with the issues it raised. As acknowledged earlier, The Foreigner is not a nuanced depiction of racism and violence, but rather a light comedy bordering on farce, written with a sensibility that’s now 30 years old; past productions have engendered comments about the use of the Klan as comic foils, as well as concerns about its portrayal of a character with an intellectual disability. The show was last seen in a major New York production in 2004 at the Roundabout Theatre Company, with Matthew Broderick in the title role, but it is a staple of school and community theatre.

In a report on WCCO-TV, a CBS affiliate, Ben Thietje, the school’s drama teacher and director said that the cancelation “was a unanimous decision made by school administration and myself. The play has a positive message of acceptance and celebration of differences. However, if it also causes stress to a portion of our student body, the point of performing it has been lost. The well-being of our students is the main concern. I take full responsibility in not doing a better job of communicating this message with students from the beginning.”

But could the school have scrapped some lesson plans this week to focus on the insidious, vicious history of the Klan and explored how the play does or doesn’t represent that well? It would have taken a concerted effort, with committed faculty and administrators calling on outside experts to swarm and address the issue. It could have been managed if everyone committed very quickly.

Unlike Ragtime in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where the school had six weeks to prepare students for the racial slurs that would be uttered onstage, New Prague was certainly under pressure. Unfortunately, in alleviating the concerns provoked by the photo, the school negated the work done by the students in the show and sent the message that cancelation, censorship, is the best response when the arts are challenged, even with legitimate concerns.

Promotional button for the 1984 Off-Broadway production of The Foreigner

There are works of theatre, both comic and dramatic, that when picked apart, can often reveal some element that might prove objectionable in the abstract, shorn of its context within the work. There can also be objections when older shows are blithely presented simply as the “entertaining” school play, without educational and social context. It’s for others to decide whether The Foreigner remains a funny farce for today’s sensibilities, or whether it has aged into a work that reflects a less aware time in an unflattering mirror.

No matter whether a piece of school theatre is overtly speaking to political and social issues or merely touches upon them casually, it’s essential that educators take a good look at what they’re producing, how it speaks to students today – rather than how it spoke to audiences when it was first written, or even a decade ago – and create the appropriate context for that work, above and beyond just producing it to the best of their and their students’ abilities. This shouldn’t be construed as making the case for safe work, but rather for insuring that school productions aren’t islands unto themselves, for making them part of a comprehensive approach that grounds all school theatre in multiple contexts: as theatre, as literature and as a valuable part of the broader educational process not only for those involved in the production, but for the school community at large.

Note: Before this piece was written, Arts Integrity sent e-mails requesting interviews with New Prague principal Lonnie Seifert and Assistant Principal Tom Wetschka, and also left voice mail for Seifert. No response was received by the time this piece was posted, but updates will be made, as appropriate, should they respond. The school district office said there was no communications officer for the district and that all questions should be directed to Seifert and Wetschka.

When incidences of high school theatre censorship arise, the point at which they occur, and when that breaks out beyond school walls, can be central to efforts to reverse the decision. At other times, one finds webpages like the one above, from Danville Area High School in Pennsylvania in late January.

The recent debate in Cherry Hill NJ over Ragtime is an excellent case in point. The decision by the school administration to alter all “offensive” language in the play, without permission from the licensing house or the authors, arose while the show was in rehearsals, six weeks before performances were to begin. The school publicly announced its plan to alter the play’s text, to placate those who objected to words within it, which if enacted would have caused the school to lose the rights to perform the show at all. A broad lobbying effort ensued to make the case that Ragtime was much more than the handful of slurs that are essential to the work, and advance its message of acceptance and inclusion. It had sufficient time to have an effect, echoing other such efforts in recent years in Plaistow NH over Sweeney Todd and Trumbull CT over Rent. Ragtime opens in one week.

But even as the initial decision adverse to Ragtime was being reversed, productions in Fresno CA and Danville PA were irrevocably ended, with school officials forcing a student-directed production of Sartre’s No Exit to end after the first of its three performances, and the school edition of Avenue Q canceled in favor of James and the Giant Peach, to be performed in April.

*   *   *

Poster design by Dominic Grijalva for No Exit at Buchanan High (via Facebook)

Homophobia was cited as the cause of the cancellation of No Exit in Clovis CA, at Buchanan High School in late January. Jared Serpa, the student directing the show as his senior project, as part of the school’s drama program known as Bear Stage, made the charge in an online video, citing a complaint by a member of the audience at the first performance and a conversation he had with a faculty member which specifically identified the gay character as being problematic, should a parent bring a young child and have to explain why one woman was trying to kiss another. The remaining performances were immediately shut down.

“Talk with your children about reality,” urged Serpa in his video. “Don’t put them in this bubble and darkness … because you couldn’t find the courage to talk to your own child about the fact that people are different.”

Speaking to The Fresno Bee, Clovis Unified spokesperson Kelly Avants denied the charge of homophobia, saying “We own the fact that it should never have even been approved as a senior production in the first place. Being a K-12 institution, the expectation of our drama programs is that every production they do is to be age-appropriate content.”

An online fundraising campaign, to move the production off campus, quickly raised more than $1,000. But that move isn’t happening.

After conversations between Serpa and the school, subsequent to the canceled performances, they reached what was described as a mutual decision not to go forward with the show on or off campus. Serpa described it as letting the show “peacefully die,” in a second Twitter video. Serpa cited the pressure the situation was putting on his cast, comprised primarily of students who were not seniors, and his intent to use the money raised for No Exit to be the seed money for an independent theatre company that could tackle, in his words, “gritty art, gritty theatre.”

A joint statement, credited to both Clovis Unified School District and the No Exit Team, yet reading very much as an institutional statement, said in part:

In the case of the Jean-Paul Sartre play No Exit, the show’s language; dark themes of hopelessness, hell and mutual torment/torture; conversations about the murder of an infant, being shot in the chest nine times and infidelity; and multiple sexual advances and requests made by the characters all add up to content that as a whole we do not believe is appropriate for a high school audience.

It would be expected that the school administration would have reviewed the show’s content and, long prior to opening night, asked the senior student to select a different show with more age-appropriate content. Unfortunately, the content was not fully known to the administration until the first production.   It was at that time that a determination was made that the show could not “go on” given the mature themes and content more appropriate for a college or community audience.  One indicator of the mature nature of No Exit’s content is the fact that the play only appears in our curriculum in the college-level Advanced Placement Senior English course. This is a course that requires parent notification of the reading lists and provides an opt out option should a parent want alternate content for their student.

In the past, we have had multiple productions that featured characters or storylines that included LGBT or Q characters. That alone would not be a reason for us to stop a show.

But while No Exit was silenced, it did not go unremarked upon. Writing in the Bee, Donald Munro said of No Exit:

It is a bleak, brilliant, existential torture-rack of a play that shakes you out of your daily stupor of denying mortality and makes you ponder life’s gaping and unconquerable questions.

Which makes it perfect for older high school students just itching to dive into murky philosophical waters.

But don’t worry. Clovis Unified is keeping us safe from a classic drama written in 1944.

The one other piece of news coverage appeared, somewhat inexplicably, in The New York Daily News, recapping much of what the Bee initially reported, but bringing the situation to ore national attention. Indeed, Serpa cited the national focus as part of the pressure surrounding the production that led him to abandon his plans for an off-campus production, ending what he had originally described as a four-year quest to stage No Exit. Consequently, after a single performance, No Exit was trapped in its own eternal existential hell, remembered only by those who managed to catch that first performance before the hammer came down.

*   *   *

Image from news report by ABC affiliate WNEP 16

While No Exit managed one performance, officials at Danville Area High School In Pennsylvania canceled Avenue Q shortly after the cast had been announced. The school superintendent Cheryl Latorre told the Daily Item, “It is the school version, but there is a lot of foul language in it and things that are so controversial. Not that that isn’t the real world. It’s just not the time for the program here. I just don’t think it’s something our little ones should attend.”

She went on to say, ““I just don’t feel it’s a fit for us at this time. We want a production to fill the auditorium.”

John Brady, the drama advisor who was to stage Avenue Q, quit his position as a result of the decision. The school’s other drama advisor will direct the replacement production. Reporting in the Daily Item indicates that Brady did receive approval for the show, which was withdrawn once school administrators subsequently read the script.

One student, commenting to the Daily Item, suggested that the school’s decision was a case of wanting to avoid controversy, as fundraising is in process for a new $12 million school auditorium. An editorial in the Daily Item, while acknowledging that the decision was being made later in the process than is advisable, sided with the school.

*   *   *

So what exactly might be found objectionable in these plays?

Before the joint statement was issued, Kelly Avants from Clovis Unified described No Exit, which is part of the school Advanced Placement curriculum, to TV station ABC 30 as follows:

“There’s language. There are themes of child murder. There are themes of people getting shot multiple times. There’s a great deal of sexual content from a number of different perspectives.”

Yes, No Exit has dark themes, but it is neither graphic nor salacious. Any play set in hell, and considering the implications of eternity there, must engage with the sins that sent people down. Yes, the school edition of Avenue Q is at times suggestive, but the show’s fully transgressive nature has been dialed back significantly. It retains just enough so that it remains a parody of Sesame Street rather than a replica of it for slightly older audiences.

The school edition of Avenue Q, has been almost entirely stripped of the “foul language” invoked by Danville superintendent Latorre. Of the words that remain, the only phrases which presumably might trouble educators are “gonorrhea,” “undescended testicle,” “sucks,” “skanky,” “ass” and “crappy.” Some songs are gone entirely – such as “You Can Be As Loud As the Hell You Want” and “My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada” – while Trekkie Monster’s “The Internet is for Porn” has been recast as “My Social Life is Online.” Mrs. Thistletwat in now Mrs. Butz. The characters do consume alcohol and sleep together, but the latter is entirely offstage.

However, contrary to Latorre’s statement, Avenue Q is not the real world. The puppets should be a tip-off. It’s about how young people adjust to the real world. It’s about growing up. Also, by saying she wanted the production to fill the auditorium, was she making a judgment about how well a show would sell, as opposed to its value to the students? The motivations seem muddled.

*   *   *

In the school edition of Avenue Q, Rod remains a closeted gay puppet, and the terms “gay,” “queer” and “homosexual” remain part of the script. Certainly none of those latter terms should be considered as in any way offensive in this day and age, unless deployed somehow as epithets. In No Exit, one of the four characters is a lesbian, though that word doesn’t appear in the text (at least in 1946 Stuart Gilbert translation consulted for this article). In examining the fates of both the Clovis and Danville productions, it’s hard not to notice that both of these canceled shows contain gay characters – even though the statement from CUSD assured the public that “LGBT or Q” characters had been portrayed in the past on their stage. The Bear Stage No Exit included cross gender casting, with a female student in a role written as a man; that student self-identified as being part of the LGBTQ community.

Another similarity between the two cases is the rhetoric used for justifying the termination of the shows. In Danville, the superintendent said, “I just don’t think it’s something our little ones should attend.” In Clovis, the spokesperson gave the rationale that, “Being a K-12 institution, the expectation of our drama programs is that every production they do is to be age-appropriate content.”

In the latter case, the reasoning is obfuscation, since most public school districts cover both elementary and secondary education. But Buchanan High School is for grades 9-12, with students of an age where the school edition of Avenue Q is equivalent to network TV comedies and PG or PG-13 movies. It is not a frontier schoolhouse with a single classroom that teaches students of all ages.

The invocation of little ones and kindergartners reveals an all too common rationale: that high school theatre must be entirely family friendly, that it must remain benign and inoffensive in order to serve as a community relations, rather than an educational tool for the students participating. The idea that high school presentations should be acceptable for primary schoolers is infantilizing.

As it happens, it’s very likely that young children might miss the residual innuendo in the school edition of Avenue Q. They surely wouldn’t even understand the implications of No Exit, and indeed might be bored by it. But those shouldn’t be reasons for denying students in their mid-teens the opportunity to work on popular, current work (even in a tamed form) or intellectually rigorous pieces that they may well be studying in their classrooms if they are engaged and excited by them. That Clovis requires parental consent for advanced placement students to study No Exit is evidence of how risk averse schools have become. That same overcaution is demonstrated by the fact that the school board in Danville had to vote to approve of James and the Giant Peach.

There’s no question that the discipline, commitment, teamwork and talent required for theatre is at the core of every production, regardless of the content of the work. But walling off a vast amounts of the repertoire from high school theatre in order to avoid any thorny issues or marginally strong language, lest absolutely anyone object, serves to erase any intellectual rigor from the students’ experience, whether curricular or extracurricular.

In addition, making the choice of school plays subject to the approval of superintendents and school boards will likely serve to insure that only the safest, middle of the road shows can be done, denying drama teachers and their immediate supervisors the right to make decisions best suited for their students, who are certainly not children and may well flourish even more fully when facing a challenge. But that challenge should come from the material they are allowed to enact, not from arbiters who, under the guise of protecting students and appealing to the most people possible, deny student opportunity in order to protect themselves.

Even if you’ve never read the quote, you’ve no doubt seen the meme, in all of its arts-affirming, damn the torpedoes glory. Just one small detail: it isn’t true.

I am referring to the story that goes as follows, and here I’ll quote an op-ed piece from TheHill.com, dated February 19, 2017:

At the height of WWII, Winston Churchill was challenged to defend a budget that called for an increase in arts funding.

“How can you propose this at a time of extreme national crisis?” asked one member of Parliament.

Churchill replied, “I do it, sir, to remind us what we are fighting for.”

That’s one of the longer versions of the account. You may have seen it as, “During WWII, Churchill was asked to cut funding for the arts. He replied, ‘Then what are we fighting for?’,” or, “When Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply replied, ‘Then what are we fighting for?’”

There are countless iterations.

They are all fake history, recycled endlessly by arts advocates because the story fits a narrative we want to tell, because support of the arts in the face of the horror of the Holocaust and World War II is just so perfect. So it figures that it’s too good to be true.

Many times when you see this quote, you’ll even see a source. But those sources never lead you to a piece of primary research proving that Churchill said it, or a video clip of him actually saying it. Instead, it’s one big echo chamber, in which people cite other people who shared the quote, none of whom provide a footnote as to its veracity.

That said, a bit of online searching will bring you to generally reliable sources that claim to have researched the quote and found it wanting. Now to be fair, there’s a certain circularity in the debunking as well. Snopes.com has a piece dated just weeks ago, which cites historian Richard Langworth debunking the quote in a 2009 blog post, “Safeguarding The Arts.” The recent inquiry from Snopes prompted Langworth to refashion his answer under the banner of The Churchill Project at Hillsdale College in Michigan, but save for replacing who asked the question of him, his answer is consistent.

Andrew Eaton, writing in The Scotsman in 2011, allowed that the provenance of the quote was in dispute. An article from The Conversation.com says the quote is fake, sourcing it to a piece in the Village Voice in 2008, but their source, if you follow the links, is once again Langworth.  Fortunately, Snopes also checked with the International Churchill Society, where a representative declared the statement “quite bogus.”

Using this quote in fighting to stave of arts cuts in the US is, ultimately, a disservice to the effort. Why? Because if the quote cannot be unequivocally verified, then its deployment counts as fake news. That opens up anyone who uses it to having all of their arguments, no matter how valid the others may be, dismissed out of hand. The very people who are quick to brandish the pejorative “fake facts” against things with which they simply disagree will have a field day with claims that are demonstrably false, even if veracity isn’t central to their own arguments. One anti-liberal bias site, also looking to Langworth, took this on in 2012 when Chris Matthews cited the quote, so this isn’t exactly flying under the radar.

This should not discount the idea that Churchill didn’t support the arts. Reliable sources quote him as saying, at an April 30, 1953 Royal Academy Banquet, “The arts are essen­tial to any com­plete national life. The State owes it to itself to sus­tain and encour­age them…Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the rev­er­ence and delight which are their due.”

One must wonder why the British Churchill, who died at almost 90 years old in 1965, perseveres as the go-to defender of the arts in America today. Looking closer to home, even if the remarks were the work of a speechwriter, President John F. Kennedy, whose White House regularly welcomed artists to perform, has a series of quotes about the arts emblazoned on the rear balcony of The Kennedy Center, all suitable for memeing.

“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.”

“I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft.”

“To increase respect for the creative individual, to widen participation by all the processes and fulfillments of art — this is one of the fascinating challenges of these days.”

“There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts.”

As mentioned previously, the specious Churchill quote made perhaps its most recent appearance in an op-ed at TheHill.com. Regrettably, the authors of the piece are Earle I. Mack is chairman emeritus of the New York State Council on the Arts, Randall Bourscheidt is president emeritus of the Alliance for the Arts, and Robert L. Lynch is president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. A Google search on their version of the quote reveals only a single match, namely their article. Their use doesn’t even mirror other faulty citations.

 By all means, let’s write our own words in defense of the arts, and arts funding, and let’s cite the very best comments made by others in support of that case. But unless someone produces irrefutable proof that Churchill said what he is so often quoted as saying about “what are we fighting for,” it’s time to put it away for good. Opposing the truism advanced in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, we cannot afford to print the legend, we must stand with the objective truth.

P.S. If anyone actually can prove that the “what are we fighting for” story is verifiably true, please shout the proof out loudly.

This is a revised and updated version of a prior post from earlier today, which has been withdrawn, because it suggested, based upon news accounts, that the UW theatre department had been singularly targeted. This incorporates additional information provided by Todd London, executive director of the UW Department of Drama.

At a time in the life of America when The New York Times has been compelled to create a column called “This Week in Hate,” some localized instances of actions that are overtly oppositional to a culture that embraces all people, regardless of race, religion, sexuality, gender identity or disability, can still run the risk of being seen as too small bore for widespread attention and revulsion. But if they are not called out, if the public is not made aware, then there is the ever-present risk of such actions becoming normalized, simply a part of modern life with which we must live.

Given that neo-Nazi signage was plastered on theatre doors at the University of Washington on Wednesday night, while a performance of Shakespeare’s As You Like It was underway inside, it cannot be permitted to be treated as merely some ill-judged prank, but as a threat – made under the cover of anonymity. That it is not the first such incident on the campus makes it no less ugly or upsetting. In fact, as executive director of the UW Department of Drama Todd London made clear in a conversation with Arts Integrity, the postings on the doors that gave access to the Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre, were seemingly “entirely random and happening all over campus that night.”

The surreptitious postering came to light through a Facebook posting by student Tamsen Glaser, who plays Jaques in As You Like it. As a public message, it began to be widely shared on social media by Thursday morning.  Glaser’s message read, in part:

In the middle of the first act of “As You Like It”, we smell spray adhesive from outside. Our stage manager looks outside, and these posters are being attached to the doors. Of our theatre. With spray adhesive. 8 of these posters, all on the doors. Residue is still there, though the posters are not thanks to our team.

The local accounts make clear that university police officers responded quickly upon report of the incident, and The Stranger reported that Todd London has asked for additional campus police presence for the rest of the run of the show. London told Arts Integrity that support is being provided. The Stranger quotes London as follows:

“We want them to feel safe so they’re not spending their deepest energies worrying when they should be focusing that on performing,” he said. “It’s pretty simple: We want them to be protected and for them to feel free.”

Speaking with Arts Integrity, London countered earlier reports which indicated that the theatre had been specifically targeted, saying, “Everything about it, everything we have learned, everything the police have learned, while terrible, hateful, was apparently random, from everything we can tell.”

All of these responses appear admirable, appropriate and necessary. However, the account from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, specifically in regard to comments by the campus police, suggests a diminishment of the incident.

“It was the latest in a string of incidents in which pro-Nazi fliers have been posted throughout the campus, UW police say,” wrote reporter Lynsi Burton. She concluded her account as follows:

UW Police Cmdr. Steve Rittereiser told seattlepi.com that posters of that kind have been displayed throughout campus, but that their appearances seem to have increased since Inauguration Day.

They’re “not all that unusual” to see, he said.

They’ve been spotted in Red Square and other areas of campus, as well as on numerous campuses across the country.

On-campus posters are supposed to be approved by a school body, but there’s no real enforcement of the rule, Rittereiser said.

He said police pay attention to posters people find objectionable and that people are welcome to report them to police, but that people are also welcome to simply remove them as they see them.

Is it merely “objectionable” that anonymous posters seek to direct those who see them to a website that proclaims, among other viciousness, “Gas the kikes”? Isn’t “not all that unusual” another way of saying typical, average or standard?

To remove posters like those that appeared on the theatre doors, and elsewhere on campus, on Wednesday night in Seattle is not censorship, it is not a denial of freedom of speech. Rather it is an appropriate response to an act of targeted vandalism, an act of intimidation, part of a seemingly ongoing campaign focused on the University of Washington, by a group that claims a national bootprint.

How do the arts respond in these situations, how can they? When the adhesive is not fixed, while the paint is still wet, the people who are part of the production can react in the moment to eradicate the hate (and god bless inventive stage crew and technicians, who can surely do so even when messages have had the time to set). But each and every incident must be called out, loudly, as a form of warning and opposition.

Even if the weapons of the arts are rubber knives, as Kate Fodor has suggested in her new monologue, they can still be wielded with purpose and effect, and need to be, on stage and off. The show, all shows, must and will, go on. The arts (which are by no means alone in this targeting) cannot allow themselves be intimidated or silenced, or actions against them normalized, on stage and off.

Beginning one week after the November presidential election, New York’s Primary Stages commissioned a collection of over 70 pieces written by a diverse array of playwrights from their artistic community. Each artist crafted a short monologue from the perspective of a character in America on the morning of November 9^th. The resulting works will be presented twice, under the collective title Morning in America, November 9, 2016 9 AM, on February 18 and 19. Kate Fodor’s Rubber Knife is but one of pieces that came out of this call to the writing community.

Kate Fodor’s plays have been produced across the US and around the world, including at Steppenwolf, Playwrights Horizons, Primary Stages and London’s Courtyard Theatre. She has received the Kennedy Center’s Roger L. Stevens Award, the National Theater Conference’s Barry Stavis Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting.

*    *    *

RUBBER KNIFE by Kate Fodor

A 20-year-old theater major at the University of Illinois addresses the audience.

He wears dark sweats and a plain white t-shirt. Bare feet. He holds a hunting knife.

A lot of students live in this apartment complex. A bunch of theater geeks like me and my roommates. Some pre-med girls on the fifth floor who have a mason jar full of kidney stones on top of their TV — but they’re pretty nice. And these two guys on the ground floor who are like scholars of dickishness and assholery, majoring in ignorance. Guy who harrassed my friend Kayla in the parking lot when she came over. And of course they have a big Trump bumper sticker stuck to their front door.

I’ve been looking forward for a long time to seeing those dudes’ faces this morning.

(He rubs his eyes, still holding the knife.)

We stayed up for the whole thing last night and we’re tired and not feeling all that good. And of course those fucking dudes are out there in the parking lot yelling USA, USA — which my roommate swears is them yelling JEW-S-A because the premeds upstairs are Jewish. I hope that isn’t true, but either way, I really need them to fucking stop.

(He looks down at the knife in his hand, then back at the audience.)

Don’t worry. I wouldn’t kill them. I can’t. It’s a rubber knife. We have stage combat this morning.

(He bends the tip to show them.)

The head of the theater department, Cathy Davis, is waiting for us when we get to stage combat. I guess she felt like she had to come and say something. In loco parentis. You know, just a few words to explain why it’s all right that the world has revealed itself to be full of shit and evil. We circle up.

Cathy tells us Rehearsal Room B in the Theater Arts building is exactly the right place for us to be this morning. People are crying. My friend Cha Cha takes my hand, other people are holding hands too. Cathy says the fight is on and the fight will need us. She says artists matter more than ever now. Because that’s what she has to believe.

Everybody says what they feel — I mean, I don’t, but a lot of people do.

My great-grandfather flew planes in World War II. I follow this woman on Twitter who raised money for water in Africa by rowing across the Atlantic solo — naked, actually, but that’s not why I follow her. It was because of chafing, like she had to at a certain point not have the clothes. Hillary fucking Clinton — not that I wouldn’t have preferred Bernie, because I would have — was advocating for migrant farm workers when she was my age.

The fight needs us, Cathy, really?

We take a bathroom break. A girl from the musical theater program is on the rehearsal room floor in the fetal position, crying. I get it. I want to do that, too. And I also want to kick her really hard as I go by.

My friend Ted is practicing his monologue from Henry V:

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars

And say, ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’

Our stage combat teacher, Miriam, says, OK, come on. She’s maybe 5’ 2”, with dreadlocks, skinny and smiley, not someone you’d think was a blackbelt in karate. She looks tired, but she doesn’t say anything about what happened last night. She opens up her suitcases. There are swords, spears, hammers and knives, and we get to choose our weapons.

END

© 2017 Kate Fodor

On January 20, the Cherry Hill Public School system in New Jersey announced their intent to censor racially charged language for their upcoming drama group’s production of the musical Ragtime at Cherry Hill High School East. The announcement prompted a vocal response from advocates on both sides of the issue: those who felt the language in the play was unacceptable under any circumstances, and those who believed that the play must be performed intact, with the potentially offensive words used to serve the work’s overall message of American diversity and inclusion.

On Tuesday, January 24, there were two hours and 40 minutes of public comment at a Board of Education meeting on the issue. Following that meeting, a private discussion was convened in Cherry Hill for a variety of stakeholders on all sides of the topic, which lasted more than two hours.

This afternoon, Dr. Joseph Meloche, superintendent of schools in Cherry Hill, released a letter stating that Ragtime would be produced as written, on its original schedule, with curricular enhancements implemented in the weeks leading up to the performance. What follows is an extended excerpt from that letter:

In coming to a decision, our focus remains on our students, on their safety and their development – which has always been and always will remain our top priority. Education must take place in a safe way, in a safe environment. The final decision regarding Ragtime was not made based on a vote. We do not deem any individual or group who voiced an opinion in the process as wrong. Nor is any person or group more valuable than another. We are greatly appreciative of all who have joined the hours of discussion, and for the respectful manner in which most conducted themselves.

These are tumultuous, difficult times. We believe that while these difficult times provide challenges in our educational community, they also provide an opportunity and an obligation to educate. We believe we can educate using difficult subject matter presented in a safe, sensitive way. To that end, Cherry Hill High School East will present Ragtime as written. The school community will be supported by curriculum and conversation leading up to and continuing through the show’s performance dates and beyond. The curriculum additions will allow all of our students to learn from the production without feeling threatened or disenfranchised. We will present resources and conversation regarding the production at each performance. We will make it abundantly clear that we loathe the N-word, that we despise this most vile of words in our language. We have been offered professional support in this endeavor from within the Cherry Hill Schools community and from professionals outside the community. We will be availing ourselves of those resources from now through the performance schedule of Ragtime at Cherry Hill High School east – opening on March 10, 2017 and closing on March 19, 2017 – and into the future.

We look forward to continued conversations with the stakeholders who have generously and respectfully offered their time and perspective to this process. We also look forward to our community treating each other with kindness and respect moving forward.

Words matter.

There is much work to be done. Please, join us in supporting our children – all of our children – in moving forward. Be a positive voice, be part of a positive change.

Sincerely,

Joseph N. Meloche, Ed.D.

Superintendent

Arts Integrity’s prior reporting on this issue, including statements from Brian Stokes Mitchell, who created the role of Coalhouse Waker Jr. in the original production of Ragtime, can be found here.