Priscilla Lopez in Pippin (Photo by Joan Marcus)

The recent laws passed by the states of North Carolina and Mississippi, which condone discrimination against LGBTQ citizens under the guise of religious freedom are, so far as I’m concerned, a national shame. That other states have attempted or will soon attempt to pass similar legislation is frightening. I can only hope that these decisions will be swiftly challenged, taken to the supreme court, and repealed as unconstitutional.

Composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, known internationally for his work on, to name but three, Godspell, Wicked and Pippin, shares this opinion. He has used his platform as one of musical theatre’s most successful living artists to express his dismay: in the wake of the North Carolina decision, which came first, Schwartz announced that he would not permit the licensing or production of any of his works in that state so long as this law remains in place. Decrying the passage of HB2, as it is known, he compared his action to the boycotts undertaken against South Africa over apartheid.

While I saw numerous artists praising Schwartz online through social media, I also saw the response from theatres in North Carolina, who were concerned that a cultural boycott of their state might have minimal effect on their elected leaders, while denying works to a community that is predisposed to oppose the law. Angie Hays, the head of the North Carolina Theatre Conference, issued a statement in which she said her organisation has been in contact with “artists and producers from across the country who are asking how they can most effectively play a part in lifting up the NC theatre community so that we may continue to produce work that will open hearts and change minds.” In a letter to The Hollywood Reporter, Schwartz, in his second statement, said that his decision wasn’t singular, citing “a collective action by a great many theatre artists.”

As I write, based on news reports and my own conversations with the heads of several theatrical licensing houses, only one author (Tom Frye) beyond Schwartz’s own collaborators has joined him in placing a moratorium on his work in North Carolina. Ralph Sevush, executive director for business affairs at the Dramatists Guild, which represents the majority of playwrights and composers in the US, said in a statement that the guild itself “cannot call for or support boycotts, as a matter of law. However, even though the guild represents writers with divergent views, the guild is unified in supporting Stephen’s right to exercise control over the licensing of his work in whatever manner he deems appropriate.”

There is, I have no doubt, a great deal of conversation about how to respond to these loathsome laws at theatres, at dance companies, at orchestras and so on, and a prevailing unanimity in despising these decisions. But as is so often the case in the early days of a crisis, there is no consensus about how to combat it, either within North Carolina and Mississippi, or nationwide. If more and more works are denied, will theatres in North Carolina, and presumably in Mississippi, reach a point at which their creative decisions are truly constrained? Does stage work in these states rise to a level that will become meaningful to legislators, or will it stand in the shadow of major commercial interests, who have the scale and the economic power to sway policy?

Like Sevush from the Dramatists Guild, I absolutely support Schwartz’s right to make decisions regarding his own works. At the same time, I worry about the health of theatres in these states under these new regulations, at a time when they can be centres of opposition to HB2, by doing what theatre does so well, which is to teach empathy. In addition, even if they won’t be doing so on stages in these battleground states, I like to think that Charlemagne’s son, who renounced war and sin, that the Jesus who once wore Superman’s logo on his chest, and that the misunderstood green girl from Oz are on the ground there nonetheless, fighting the essential fight against bias and hate. Because we need every voice, real and fictional, to speak out and sing out as well.

The White House

There’s been a song running through my head for the past week, prompted by a series of press releases I’ve received. Anyone on a press list will tell you, notices from publicists flooding your inbox don’t normally move one to song.

The tune in question is “Bobby and Jackie and Jack” from Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. If you don’t know the song, it’s a cabaret number devised by the lead characters, spoofing the cultural array offered up by the Kennedy White House in the early 1960s. I’ve always been taken with the line, “We’ll have Bernstein play next on the Bechstein piano/And Auden read poems and stuff.” There’s lots of material like that.

The Sondheim wordplay is on my mind because there has been a steady drumbeat of cultural interest by the Obama White House in recent weeks, though not remotely for the first time. Without being political or trumpeting national pride, I have to say this makes me rather happy.

A number of Broadway shows were in Washington DC on Monday to tape Broadway at the White House for broadcast next week by TLC, one of our countless cable channels, on our Thanksgiving holiday. It features Michelle Obama as a special guest, with performances from several Broadway shows including On Your Feet, An American in Paris (in poignant timing), School of Rock and Fun Home. On Wednesday, the White House hosted a livestream salute to the Americans With Disabilities Act in its 25th year, which included a performance by the cast of Spring Awakening, which reached Broadway after being developed by the company Deaf West in a tiny theatre in Los Angeles.

This is all on top of New York City’s traffic-stopping special performance of the musical Hamilton two weeks ago, with the Obamas in attendance, in a high-price-ticket fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. The event was widely known about and seen thanks to news reports about the president’s onstage remarks. And it’s worth noting that this was the second time the Obamas, who have visited Broadway regularly throughout his terms, have seen Lin-Manuel Miranda’s look at early US history (although Miranda’s alternate was on the first time they went).

Sondheim’s ribbing of the Kennedys notwithstanding, it’s incredibly affirming for every theatre geek in the country to know that the form of culture we participate in and love finds favour in the highest corridors of power. To be sure, some might make the charge that theatre is an elitist art if they’re trying to tear down the politicians who attend, but TLC wisely made the taping of their show part of a daylong event for students from arts programs in public schools around the country. Who can argue with that? As for Spring Awakening, the stream was free for all to see.

Diehards like me cling to moments when theatre is recognised by the wider culture. I’m happy to tell you that in the 1950s, the sitcom I Love Lucy sent Lucy and Ricky to Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella, while more recently South Park featured Stephen Schwartz and Andrew Lloyd Webber in a brilliantly absurdist episode. There is symbolic power in politicians sitting in the dark watching the performing arts live, because it’s going to reach some portions of the population who might just decide to check this stuff out for themselves.

As Broadway is showcased before our political leaders and donors, it’s worth noting that even though some of the aforementioned shows originated with subsidised companies, there’s a vast array of theatre that isn’t defined by commercial success. Maybe before leaving office the Obamas might stop in at one or more of those companies. Or invite them to their home for the holidays.

This column originally appeared in The Stage newspaper in London.

Years from now, when the musical Wicked is eventually made available for school and amateur productions, will some high school administrator declare it inappropriate? After all, among its many plot strands is the story of (spoiler alert) the manipulative Madame Morrible, a school headmistress who schemes against those in Oz who don’t conform precisely to her standards, be they green girl or anthropomorphic animal. It’s a terrible portrait of pedagogy gone wrong and surely doesn’t foster the collaborative, supportive relationships that school leaders must seek with each successive generation of students, as well as with their faculty and staff. From that perspective, it’s seditious.

I’m reminded of this element of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holtzman’s massively popular musical as I consider the challenges to high school theatre that I’ve read about, heard about and involved myself in. Recently, I was engaged to deliver the opening keynote at the Educational Theatre Association’s (EdTA) annual conference for high school teachers. During the question and answer session that followed, one attendee asked the others how many had had shows turned down when they sought approval for them. Roughly a quarter of those in the room raised their hands. In follow-up, they were asked how many had wanted to do certain shows, but didn’t even try because they were sure they couldn’t get approval. Virtually every teacher raised their hand.

Because I don’t believe that these teachers had all been contemplating Oh! Calcutta!, I find myself wondering about their internal decision-making, their self-censorship. Surely they weren’t considering shows which would be blatantly inappropriate in a school setting, so what are those shows that they thought would be good for their students, but which they didn’t even dare raise as a possibility? That might make for an interesting survey in itself.

Of course, what’s acceptable to the powers that be at one school, in one town, may be considered problematic in another. Earlier this year in New Hampshire, Sweeney Todd was canceled at Timberlane High School (since reversed) even as another school just a few towns away readied their production of the same show. In 2012, Sonja Hansen lost her position directing shows at Loveland High in Ohio after her production of Legally Blonde was declared inappropriate, yet according to the EdTA’s annual survey, its was the fourth most popular musical in high schools nationally.

So I’m very interested in the new “Public Performance Policy” that has been put into place at the Junior/Senior High in South Williamsport PA, where a production of Spamalot has been canceled by the principal for reasons that remain unclear. The drama director Dawn Burch asserts that Principal Jesse Smith stated, in an e-mail, that the show’s gay content was a factor. Smith himself has been silent since this story broke, and while the school administration has taken exception to one element of the first report about the issue (since corrected), it has yet to produce the e-mail in question to clear things up. Two “Right To Know” requests have been filed seeking that e-mail and related documents; one of those requests is mine.

The timing of the Public Performance Policy, revealed last night at a meeting for the school board, is certainly no coincidence, coming between the initial assertions of anti-gay bias and the release of clarifying materials. As read by the school superintendent, Dr. Mark Stamm, it states:

General Guidelines: Public performances serve as a capstone project for students to showcase their dedication, determination, and talents for their peers and for their families. Performances must be age appropriate for participating students and audiences. Material that is generally considered offensive, suggestive, or demeaning based on race, religion, age, gender, or sexual orientation is not appropriate for school performances.

The first sentence of the policy, describing “showcasing dedication, determination, and talents,” is nicely affirmative ­– until one notices that there’s no mention of learning or growth, which would seem essential in any school activity, even at South Williamsport, where the drama program is extracurricular, and the drama director an outside contractor, not a teacher. That said, any adult working with young people in a leadership position is a teacher, accredited or not.

However, it’s worth noting that there is a mission statement for the drama program on the school’s website which admirably speaks to deeper value. It reads:

Our mission is to provide students with the opportunity to better themselves through the Arts. Whether it is onstage or backstage, in the production crew or artistic departments, theater helps all people more deeply understand our place in our modern, multicultural, globalized world.

As an aside: finding the drama information on the school website isn’t entirely logical. While there’s a section for clubs, which includes “Yearbook,” “Chemistry,” “Student Council” and “Songwriters and Musicians,” it doesn’t include “Drama.” The Athletic Program has its own site, with its own URL separate from the school district’s. But “Drama” falls under “Departments,” along with “Guidance” and “Nurse,” to which it seems wholly unrelated. How very odd to set it apart in this way.

But returning to the Public Performance Policy, the second sentence isn’t particularly troublesome, so long as it is not used as a justification to infantilize students by feeding them dramatic pabulum. But it’s the third sentence sentence where things turn tricky. While the phrase about not demeaning any parties is admirable (although in their seeming haste, they neglected disability, among other concerns), the language which begins the sentence is limiting, yet vague. “Offensive” and “suggestive” are completely subjective, presumably to be determined according to Justice Stewart’s famous phrase about what constitutes obscenity: “I’ll know it when I see it.” But no two people probably agree about what is offensive, or what is suggestive.

If this policy is meant to be general guidance for teachers (and contractors), shouldn’t it be constructed as such? Wouldn’t it be better to use affirmative language about supporting and advancing society through inclusive representations of race, religion, age, gender, or sexual orientation, instead of saying it simply won’t demean people on those grounds? As it is now, the policy seems more a declaration for the public, and a very general yardstick that teachers might be struck with should they violate its amorphous tenets. Since the school already has a practice of the principal approving the drama productions, it seems that process would presumably address content concerns, based upon reading the text and exploring productions and educational materials from other schools as aids, but in an open dialogue that would negate the need for future Right To Know inquiries. That said, I don’t favor shows going to any manner of public vote, and school boards shouldn’t decide play selection any more than they tell a coach what athletic plays to run.

I wonder, however, where the concerns were when the South Williamsport High School did Grease and Once Upon A Mattress? Certainly there are those who would find the plot points about pregnancy out of wedlock in those shows both offensive and suggestive. Grease, frankly, is rife with suggestiveness, at least as I construe it, but I don’t happen to find it offensive; but it was more than enough to cause a school in Missouri, following a 2006 production, to cancel the next show on the schedule: The Crucible. What about Urinetown, produced at the school in 2009? All that talk of toilets and body functions must have offended the sensibilities of some in South Williamsport. The world’s most famous teen suicide story, Romeo and Juliet, was staged, but I wonder whether the school provided educational programs and material to students and the public about the dangers of romanticizing exactly the sort of behavior Shakespeare depicted?

Was everyone sanguine with the following plot points, drawn from two synopses on the website of the licensing house Music Theatre International:

Soon after, attractive and seductive women appear and slowly surround him (“With You”). At first, Pippin is enjoying the romanticism, however, the mood quickly changes and the women bombard him. Pippin is pulled into numerous exotic orgies.

*  *  *

Audrey has forgotten her sweater, and Orin slaps her around for it…. Orin then pulls out a container of laughing gas, complete with a gas mask and puts it on himself to get high… Seymour feeds Orin’s body parts to the plant.

Obviously they passed muster, because Pippin and Little Shop of Horrors were produced at the school before Dawn Burch was hired. With this new policy, could any of the aforementioned shows be done again? Indeed, since there are – sad to say and sad as it is – still people who find homosexuality offensive, would LGBT life in any play or musical be precluded from the South Williamsport stage in deference to their reactionary sensibilities?

At the EdTA conference, I repeatedly counseled teachers to cultivate open and honest communication about their work with their department heads, their principals, even their superintendents if possible. Support for sports seems a given at our schools, but support for all of the arts, and it seems theatre in particular, must be developed over time – and started anew each time a key leadership position changes personnel.

When cancelations emerge from behind school doors into the public consciousness, locally and nationally, genuine rifts inside school communities and even entire towns are always possible, with long-lasting and detrimental effects on drama programs. Some schools, such as in Everett MA, do away with drama altogether, deciding a fair and open discussion about dramatic value is simply a nuisance – and therefore the program is as well. Yet are sports shut down when a student is seriously injured, publicly? No. In the case of football, it remains celebrated, even as data on traumatic brain injury mounts, because athletic prowess and competition is honored. It is the thought and expression of theatre that seems to be the dangerous undertaking in so many instances.

Another question I now field with some regularity is whether it’s wise to speak up publicly about these conflicts, bringing them broader attention than they might otherwise receive. My response is that it does carry risk, but if people believe in the power of theatre to not only entertain but educate, in the best interest of the participating students first and foremost, staying silent only allows repression to flourish, and for students to be consigned to the blandest, safest, time-worn work possible. And doesn’t Wicked (among countless works of literature) teach us about the dangers of people working behind the scenes, censoring, excluding, supposedly in the best interest of the community at large?

Having cited Wicked twice, let me finish with a few lyrics that hark back to L. Frank Baum’s Oz stories. I think this pair of couplets, devised by master satirist Tom Lehrer almost 50 years ago, speak simply and directly to slippery words like “offensive” and “suggestive.”

I’m not given to posting press releases here and this isn’t the start of a trend, but I’m making an exception to insure this good news gets around. There’s nothing for me to say beyond what this press release from The Dramatists Guild already says so well.

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First Annual “DLDF Defender Award” Goes to Connecticut High School Student

The Dramatists Legal Defense Fund will present the first ever “DLDF Defender Award” to Larissa Mark, a high school senior from Trumbull, CT who successfully organized her community in opposition to her school’s sudden cancellation of their upcoming production of Rent, ultimately forcing the production’s reinstatement.  This new award from the DLDF honors Ms. Mark’s work in support of free expression in the dramatic arts.

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On February 24, 2014, the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc. will hold its annual Awards Night at the Lamb’s Club in New York City and among the other honors given that night, an award from the recently created Dramatists Legal Defense Fund will be presented to Trumbull high school student Larissa Mark.  This first “DLDF Defender Award” honors Ms. Mark’s work in support of free expression in the dramatic arts.

Larissa Mark is the current president of Trumbull High School’s Thespian Society, which had planned to stage Jonathan Larson’s musical “Rent” in March, 2014.  However, Principal Marc Guarino put the production on “indefinite hold” in November due to the musical’s content, which he viewed as too controversial despite the fact that the students were going to present the show’s “school edition”.  This version of the show was created for high school audiences (edited with the approval of the Larson estate) and has been produced for years all around the country without incident, including in neighboring Connecticut towns like Greenwich, Woodbridge, and Fairfield.

The cancellation inspired a “Rentbellion” amongst the Trumbull student body, expressed within the school’s halls and on social media.  However, the president of the Thespian Society, Larissa Mark, took a different tact.  She started petitions, put up a website, spoke to the media, and focused community resistance in a remarkably effective way.  The story of Trumbull’s cancellation of “Rent” eventually attained national press, via The Washington Post and NPR’s Weekend Edition, among others.

At this point, the Dramatists Guild got involved. At the behest of the DLDF and Guild president Stephen Schwartz, and with the advice of the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Guild’s executive director of business affairs, Ralph Sevush, wrote directly to Principal Guarino to offer the Guild’s resources to assist in preparing Trumbull for the show’s subject matter with the kind of public discussions and events that the Principal had stated were necessary in order to reschedule the show. Receiving no response from the school, the Guild copied the letter to Trumbull parents, the school superintendent, the media, and to Ms. Mark.

Soon thereafter, the school eventually agreed to reinstate the production on its original March schedule (with no community events scheduled to date).  And because playwrights everywhere had a vested interest in Ms. Mark’s campaign to ensure that the production of “Rent” went forward at Trumbull High School, the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund wished to honor her contribution to free expression in the dramatic arts with its first annual “DLDF Defender Award.”

According to DLDF president John Weidman (librettist of Assassins, Pacific Overtures, and Contact): “When a provocative piece of theater is cancelled anywhere, it has a chilling effect on the production of provocative theater pieces everywhere.  In this instance, it was Larissa Mark’s effort, commitment, and leadership that ensured Jonathan Larson’s right to be heard.”

After being notified of the award, Ms. Mark said in response:

“Thank you so much for this tremendous honor… I would be incredibly remiss not to mention how much The Guild’s letter struck Mr. Guarino and aided our cause. The day after he received it I had a meeting with him where he mentioned the letter, and how much it affected him. Our entire community is so glad that we will be moving forward with the show, because theater is a place we are allowed to talk about “taboo” topics and express ourselves. Jonathan Larson and so many other playwrights have created marvelous pieces to tackle issues society faces, and the Thespians at Trumbull High felt it was very important to bring Larson’s work to Trumbull. I am so thankful towards everyone who helped work to bring back this show to our school. I am so thankful towards The Guild for this honor, and humbled by being recognized from such a prestigious group.”

The Dramatists Guild of America was established a century ago and is the professional trade association for playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists writing for the stage. The Guild has over 7,100 members nationwide and around the world, from beginning writers to the most prominent authors represented on Broadway. The current officers of the Guild are Stephen Schwartz (president), Doug Wright (vice-president), Peter Parnell (secretary), and Theresa Rebeck (treasurer).

The Dramatists Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization created by the Guild to advocate for free expression in the dramatic arts and a vibrant public domain for all, and to educate the public about the industry standards surrounding theatrical production and about the protections afforded dramatists under copyright law.