Iowa’s Ottumwa High School

What is the purpose of putting on shows in high school? Is it educational? Recreational? Is it community relations? Is it a family activity?

I’ve always thought that high school theatre was for the benefit of the students putting on the show – for the education, the team-building, the exploration of talent and so on. That parents, siblings, relatives, friends and neighbors come to see these productions – whether academic in origin or extracurricular – is a byproduct, not a purpose. Although, to be fair, in many schools, the drama programs have to be self-supporting, so a certain amount of general audience development may be necessary, which can mean throwing a wide net.

Nonetheless, the recent cancelation of a high school production of The Laramie Project in Ottumwa, Iowa caught me by surprise. Not because I’m unfamiliar with educational administrators being uncomfortable with Laramie, but because the principal there has said “the play is too adult for a high school production but it does preach a great message.” If the message is great, where’s the problem?  What makes it too adult? That it’s about a murder? Murder is in movies, books, plays, and TV shows consumed by much younger kids. Is it that the murder victim was gay? Sadly, homophobia remains everywhere, but it’s worth noting that marriage equality has been the law in Iowa since 2009.

According to reports in The Ottumwa Courier and Heartland Connection, both the principal and superintendent are pleased that arrangements have been made for the production to be done by the students elsewhere in the community. So why exactly don’t they want it in their own backyard or, more accurately, auditorium?

The reason cited is because they feel what the school offers should be family entertainment for all ages, and that the admirable but adult themes of Laramie don’t fit that criteria. So the question is whether this is a long-standing, publicly stated policy, or one introduced only to block the production of this particular play, which is taken from verbatim accounts of the death of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming more than a decade ago.

I spoke with Moisés Kaufman, the artistic director of Tectonic Theatre Project, the company that created The Laramie Project and its companion piece The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, since he has the best perspective on the play’s production history. Referring to Laramie as one of the most produced plays in America – professionally, amateur, college and high school – Kaufman acknowledged that productions are also challenged or canceled with some regularity, saying it happens in high schools two or three times annually.  Based on my general awareness of theatre news nationally, I was surprised: I thought it was more frequent, but the play’s popularity in high schools is confirmed by Dramatics magazine.

“Invariably,” Kaufman observed about cancelations of Laramie, “it has the opposite effect of what the administration is trying to do – it emboldens the students to be artists and social activists. Students realize that art is an incredible weapon and they have a responsibility and opportunity that comes from being an art maker.”

Kaufman said that, comparable to the figures often associated with marriage equality issue, there’s a big divide in the thinking between people over 50 and those under 50. “Students are very ready for this conversation, they’re living it,” said Kaufman. “It’s adults who are having a hard time with it.”  Describing the typical conflict over high school productions of Laramie, Kaufman said,  “First, it’s a disconnect in ideology and preparedness to deal with contemporary ideas, and secondly, that they’re listening to outside voices that have nothing to do with the education of the students.”

In Ottumwa, if the administration freely acknowledges the value of the piece and expresses support for the students doing it, but off school grounds, it seems that what’s at stake is a fear of outside pressure, an avoidance of potential challenges, with “family friendly” as a smokescreen for conflict avoidance. It’s a shame that the administration can’t back up their own sentiments and advocate for Laramie within the school, rather than harboring school resources and insulating themselves from any personal and professional risk instead of standing up for what they believe in. What kind of example and lesson is that?

The assertion that high school shows should be for all ages is not a new argument to me; I heard it voiced at a Board of Education meeting at my alma mater, Amity High School in Woodbridge CT, when a handful of community members registered their displeasure with a pending production of Sweeney Todd. It suggests that because so many parents and administrators were raised on the anodyne – albeit wonderful and classic – musicals of the 40s, 50s and 60s, that those shows remain exemplars of the only appropriate repertoire.

I think that perspective is deeply flawed. Would we choose to teach students from textbooks that were written with 1960s sensibility? Would we protect our athletes with the insufficient equipment of that era, or even from the 80s? Would literature and music be comparably circumscribed? I doubt it, especially in any district that wants to prepare students educationally, socially and emotionally for the world they’ll soon face, out from under the protective wings of parents and schools. High school theatre may still be thought of by many as a charming and even quaint activity for kids, and an easily expendable one at that, but it can instill great lessons and even save lives, if the students are permitted to engage with the full range of dramatic work, be it classic, new or even original.

The lessons of The Laramie Project are obvious to anyone who knows the piece or even just the facts surrounding Matthew Shepard’s death. High school teachers and administrators should be proud that students want to perform it and should be proud to have it, and other socially conscious, emotionally charged works on their stages.

As someone who had to make do in high school with Don’t Drink The Water and Bye Bye Birdie, I admire and envy every student who has had the chance to engage with material as challenging and important as The Laramie Project and other equally important, thoughtful and moving pieces of theatre. And if some pre-teens have to miss seeing their big siblings in a show, well surely that’s not the only time they haven’t been allowed to tag along. What’s done in their elementary or middle school is for them, and what’s done in high school is for bigger kids – and for every adult in town. Maybe there’s still time for Ottumwa High School to teach the right lesson.

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Update: Hear me discussing censorship of high school plays on the Reduced Shakespeare Company podcast

Update, August 9: from The Ottumwa Courier: “Laramie Project Pushes Forward” by Chelsea Davis

MA’s Everett High School, where content
complaints morphed into budget woes.

Follow this with me, will you?

“The plays bothered a lot of us,” says a school superintendent, referring to works presented by a high school drama group. “The plays had references to sex and drinking.” In one instance, a male student reportedly doffed his pants, revealing shorts.

Subsequently, the school system, citing an influx of students (reports a news article) announces that all drama classes are terminated, with the superintendent saying (as paraphrased in the article), “The school can no longer afford to offer the classes as enrollment grows.”

Did everyone notice the sudden turn in there?

This is no hypothetical, but a scenario played out at the high school in Everett MA and reported by The Boston Globe. While the school superintendent, Frederick Foresteire, wraps himself in the protective shroud of marshaling resources in challenging economic times (unquestionably a legitimate concern in every public school in the country), targeting a drama program for eradication after registering his personal disapproval of said program smacks of retribution.

The article seems riddled with mixed messages. If there has been the demand for multiple sections of drama up until now, how does increased enrollment warrant elimination of a course of study? It is impossible to determine from the article whether any other academic area was treated comparably, though that would seem germane.

If the school has been content to have a single teacher take responsibility for drama education for six years, why does the superintendent note that “there will not be four or five sections taught by one teacher” if drama classes return in the future? Supposedly this action is not in response to the teacher’s qualifications to teach drama. One teacher with expertise would seem the economically and pedagogically prudent solution down the line, full or part-time.

And while a school system is well within its rights to post teachers based upon need, why would Everett High’s principal make the decision to reassign the drama teacher (who also teaches science) to a K through 8 school? If the high school’s enrollment is an issue, sending teachers elsewhere wouldn’t seem to solve the problem (unless this was some sort of trade) and this teacher could certainly go back to more science courses. And surely where that teacher was sent to address the district’s needs wasn’t the principal’s decision, but that of someone higher up, with a more global view. Like, say, a superintendent.

While drama will remain at Everett High as an extracurricular activity, the article also notes that the school’s new principal, Erick Naumann, “will have more authority over the drama club,” and the drama coach “will have to submit a description of props and, if possible, stage directions, at least two months in advance.”

Does anyone still think this situation has anything to do with budgets?

In the past, I’ve acknowledged that schools and school districts have the right to decide what material is appropriate for their drama groups, academic or extracurricular, but I believe those decisions should be made in the best interests of the students, not the school system. I lobby for the widest range of material possible, but I admit am not charged with the creation of educational standards. When content issues arise, it is usually because administrators have paid scant attention to drama courses or clubs for years and only take an interest when something of “questionable” propriety is brought to their attention, often late in the game, or because of personal biases by administrators. But prop lists? Stage directions? At least two months in advance? That smacks of Big Brother and is impractical if not impossible, as anyone with a basic understanding of how theatre is made would know. It would be interesting to learn by what criteria such a submission would be either challenged or approved.

Also pertinent at Everett High is that some of the “offending” material that drew Mr. Foresteire’s ire was written by the students. Well, you know what? If kids are writing about their lives, topics like sex and alcohol are going to come up. Hiding them from view only serves to deny the opportunity for dialogue and learning — and it’s censorship of the students’ voices in an educational setting. Will Mr. Naumann also be determining which student essays and stories may be read aloud in English classes in his school? I doubt it. But I bet original student dramas won’t soon be seen again in those parts, so long as they need to be approved every step along the way, killing any possibility of creativity, spontaneity or truth.

When high school theatre initiatives are threatened or cut, attention to the issue is predominantly local and discrete, as if each was unique and only of interest to the specific school and town. That the Globe wrote about the situation in Everett is commendable, though it appears to have emanated from a local news bureau; read online, it’s impossible to discern whether it was in a regional edition or in the full run of the print version. The Everett High School drama decision deserves even more attention and investigation, as inconsistencies abound.

Even though the final verdict will occur every time at the local level when school arts programs are threatened over content, funding or both, these challenges to drama and indeed all of the arts need to be taken up nationally in each and every case as ongoing evidence of a continuing trend. That’s why as a Connecticut native and a New York resident, I’m worried about what has taken place in Everett MA, because I know it’s not an isolated incident. It’s just another in a long line of school administrations afraid to allow students to grapple with and learn about the world through art, under the guise of protecting them. Perhaps it’s even something more.

Oh, and by the way Mr. Foresteire: I dropped trou onstage, revealing boxer shorts, in a high school production back in 1977. The offensive material? Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple.

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Click here to sign a petition in support of the restoration of drama education at Everett High School.

Julie Hennrikus of Stage Source in Boston wrote about the situation at Everett High School as well, explaining why the arts aren’t extra, but essential.

While the arts are often notoriously slow adopters of new technology, the rapid rise of social media would seem to dictate that commercial theatre jump on the bandwagon and hold on tight.

But social media may be best suited for use by subsidised companies, rather than the shows that populate the West End and Broadway.

Certainly, every show has the basics in place, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed and so on, in addition to the now de rigeur website. But producers and their marketing teams seem to view most social media as an extension of advertising or PR, feeding out casting announcements, special ticket offers and ‘exclusive’ photos and video all directed at driving sales.

The problem is that for most productions, especially early in their runs, there aren’t necessarily enough people who have followed or liked the show to read what’s on offer, and the content is often repurposed for other uses, diluting the impact that ‘exclusivity’ might still carry.

Shows appear drawn to the media portion of this new manner of communications, when it is the social aspect that is most innovative and compelling. Social platforms offer rapid and direct communications with individuals, but the fact is that people engage most with those who actually engage with, or entertain, them. It may take place on an overwhelming scale when it comes to major celebrities, but in the theatre, it’s quite easy for fans to strike up conversations with stars, writers, designers, directors and even critics – something virtually unimaginable a decade ago. So, if shows don’t actually engage with their audiences beyond tarted-up press announcements, they’re dropping the ball.

Of course, the challenge is how creative on an ongoing basis any one show can be, since they’re a relatively fixed offering (people, on the other hand, can have remarkably varied day-to-day lives) and how much  they’re willing to invest to be socially rather than sales-oriented, focusing on the long game rather than immediate gain. Except for a very small portion of the audience,  attendance at a commercial show is a one-off event, not an ongoing commitment, seemingly at odds with the basis of social media. The building of relationships afforded by social media can create a stronger bond for an ongoing company producing an array of works over months or years.

In 2009, when social media was still working its way into public consciousness, the Broadway production of Next to Normal garnered great attention and achieved a remarkable million followers through two initiatives. It offered one night “live-tweeting” the plot of the entire show for anyone who cared to follow. Shorn of songs and even most dialogue, they were serialising an outline in real time, but it was a distinctive effort that marked the show as creative and tantalised people with the framework of a show they might then choose to see in real life.

Next to Normal also ran a campaign in which Twitter followers were encouraged to make suggestions for a new song for the show, creating a connection directly with the authors, who did indeed write a song based on suggestions. While it wasn’t added to the finished work, fans could hear it online. It’s a shame that, since the account still has 946,000 following (though it is closed), it hasn’t tweeted since April of last year, leaving a huge untapped base of potential ticket buyers for other productions.

Despite the efforts and success of Next to Normal, social media still seems an afterthought for most Broadway shows. In a survey of Broadway theatres in early May, prompts to interact with the show through social media activity (primarily Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) were on display at 15 theatres – yet a nearly equal number (14) had no such reminders in their front of theatre or box office lobby displays (a number of theatres had no tenants at the time). A few showed real initiative in advocating social media use (a photo backdrop outside the Lunt-Fontanne for Motown; a ‘photo stop’ in the upper lobby of the Gershwin for Wicked).

Unfortunately, others simply displayed social platform logos without the specific names used by the shows in those arenas, so one would have to seek them out; it’s akin to posting ‘we have a website’ instead of giving a URL.

If productions don’t feel that social media gives them sufficient bang for their buck, perhaps they shouldn’t establish a presence only to give it short shrift. On the other hand, as some shows are demonstrating, with a little thought, a show can build its profile at a proportionately low cost, amplifying the power of the ever essential word of mouth, so long as they’re willing to commit to subtly promoting their presence by offering intriguing content and damping down the urge to shout “BUY NOW”.

I’m unable to see a Shakespeare play without thinking of my late mother.

“How sweet,” you think, “He and his mother must have shared many great evenings together watching Shakespeare. Their common love of the Bard transcends her passing.”

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I think of my mom, an elementary school teacher by training, whenever I’m headed to a Shakespeare production because, for the 23 years I lived in her house, I heard the same thing every time I was en route to see one of Bill’s plays.

“Did you read the story first?”

One of many editions of Charles & Mary Lamb’s “Tales From Shakespeare”

My mother was convinced that the only way to fully appreciate Shakespeare, because of the dense and archaic language, was to read a detailed plot synopsis immediately prior to seeing one of his plays. Specifically, she meant for me to pull down her copy of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare from the living room shelves. Far predating such study guides as Cliff’s Notes, the Lamb book was originally written in 1807; my mom’s edition probably dated from the 1930s or 40s and was a tool in her own Shakespeare studies, such as they were.

I resisted my mother’s advice on a consistent basis, perhaps because I found Tales to be stodgy and unreadable on its own, or perhaps I was just being intellectually cocky. She never quite understood how I could see Shakespeare plays without this essential crutch. But my appreciation of theatre always seemed innate, rather than inspired by my parents, so this was simply one more example of how different we were from each other.

Ultimately, I learned about Shakespeare by seeing the plays over and over again, with an assist from the standard high school curriculum (including Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth). I remember being required to memorize Mark Antony’s funeral oration from Julius Caesar; perhaps there were a few other speeches I had to commit to memory as class work (though, oddly, today I most remember Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”).

My greatest training in Shakespeare came during my eight and half years as p.r. director at Hartford Stage, which gave me to opportunity to see and discuss the plays with Mark Lamos, the artistic director, who is most responsible for what Shakespeare knowledge I may have. During my tenure, we produced Twelfth Night, Pericles, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar and All’s Well That Ends Well; I’ve also seen productions of Measure for Measure, Cymbeline, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet and Richard III directed by Mark. I’ve seen countless Shakespeare productions, but Mark was my true guide – beginning when I was 23 years old – immeasurably aided by my access to seeing the former group of plays multiple times in a short span.

Ken Ludwig’s book title says it all

I was reminded of all of this as read through the newly published How To Teach Shakespeare To Your Children (Crown Publishing, $25) by playwright Ken Ludwig, author of such plays as Lend Me A Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo.  Much as I’ve enjoyed Ludwig’s farces, I was mildly skeptical of his skills as a Shakespeare teacher, but in point of fact his book is exactly what its title says, a cogent, chapter by chapter study guide designed to empower parents to familiarize their children with Shakespeare’s language. Ludwig fundamentally believes in the primacy of Shakespeare’s work and words, so much so that he makes his case for parents teaching Shakespeare to their kids in only seven pages of the 314 page book, with memorization of key speeches as his touchstone. The rest is process.

Not having children, I can’t test Ludwig’s theories and conduct my own experiments. But surely he’s not alone in his belief in the value of memorization as introduction, as attested to by countless adorable YouTube videos of toddlers stumbling through Henry V’s speech before the battle at Agincourt and the like; an often viewed clip of Brian Cox teaching Hamlet to a youngster is a particularly delightful example. Though to be fair, the children on YouTube are younger than Ludwig’s suggested starting age of about six years, and surely the age should vary – if one wishes to embark on the Ludwig method – based upon the nature of each individual child.

As astute as Ludwig’s lessons are, I can’t help but think that they’re actually a stealth method of teaching Shakespeare to parents. Surely my mother might have grown more comfortable with the (to her) impenetrable language that got in the way of the stories; indeed, Ludwig’s book is focused more on moments from Shakespeare than with the plots themselves. A parent who doesn’t know, in particular, Hamlet, Midsummer and Twelfth Night might need a separate book to familiarize themselves with plots and cursory analysis before launching into the Ludwig method, besides reading the plays themselves.  If parents need to be eased into Shakespeare, they may want to use one of the countless graphic novel versions, an alternative study method apart from more didactic texts and the original scripts.  And there are countless imaginative films spanning the history of cinema to use as teaching (and learning) tools as well.

Yes, this is a real book

By sheer coincidence, How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare was published just weeks before, of all things, William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher (Quirk Books, $14.95) a scene-by-scene rewrite of George Lucas’s Episode IV rendered in iambic pentameter. While it’s far from the first work to mingle Shakespearean style and more modern stories (I saw a quite entertaining Tarantino travesty, Pulp Shakespeare, last summer at the New York International Fringe Festival; here’s a clip), it’s a solidly accomplished piece of work, which, like Ludwig’s curriculum, place its emphasis on language. It’s witty, but never anachronistic just for a laugh. It’s hard to tell whether it’s actually stage-worthy (I can imagine countless Shakespeare troupes racing to acquire performance rights, at least for readings or benefits, but this trailer doesn’t inspire confidence), but for the sci-fi geek who’s also a Shakespeare nerd (there are probably plenty), it’s a fun read. Purists will note that the slim volume is clearly not drawn from George Lucas’s First Folio, as it includes scenes with Jabba the Hutt which were not in the original 1977 film release, but rather in the much-later digital makeover; this version also fudges whether Han or Greedo shot first.

The Shakespeare-Star Wars mash-up might be just a lark for most (I particularly enjoyed R2-D2 proffering fully articulated asides to the audience while his companions hear only “meeps” and “beeps), but I wonder whether it might be another tool in the Shakespeare educational kit. If children and teens know Star Wars well, but are Shakespeare novices, this book might serve to teach them “Shakespeare as a second language,” since the faux-vintage language tracks so closely with the film. I don’t mean to suggest that Doescher’s gloss is equal to the Bard’s words, but especially for tweens and teens, it might be a helpful gateway text.

From the recent production by NYC’s The Shakespeare Forum

It is perhaps ironic that I’ve grown to like Shakespeare so much, because I don’t take any particular pleasure in reading him. It’s not a chore by any means, but I don’t pick up my hefty Oxford compendium of a Sunday morning for fun – it’s a reference tool. For me, the playing is all. As a result, while I know any number of the Bard’s plays rather well (in addition to numerous productions of the standard repertoire, I’ve seen no less than three Timon of Athens and three Cymbelines), I also have huge gaps in the canon, one of which was filled only two days ago when I saw The Shakespeare Forum’s production of Love’s Labour’s Lost.

For the first time in many years, I encountered a Shakespeare play that was wholly new to me. I was actually a bit concerned early on in the production, as I wasn’t immediately grasping the plot and the words weren’t even distant echoes of an ill-remembered prior production. For the very first time, I found myself wondering whether I should have read up on a Shakespeare play before seeing it; maybe my youthful defiance of my mother’s teaching tool was ill-placed.

But as I settled in with this alien story, it became clearer; flotsam of my Shakespeare knowledge took hold as I pondered whether Holofernes was written as a female role, as played in this production, and the play within the play echoed (actually, prefigured) the Pyramus and Thisbe scene in Midsummer’s Act V. Did I get every word, every plot point, every allusion? I sincerely doubt it, but that’s because I was a stranger in a strange land for the first time in a long time; since my exposure to LLL isn’t regulated at 50 year intervals, I’ll glean more from the next encounter, which will come in only weeks, with the new musical version set to debut at The Public Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park.

I have to say that in the case of Shakespeare, familiarity breeds not contempt, but respect and appreciation, and there’s no single way to achieve that knowledge (a close friend and Shakespeare fan uses recordings of the plays as a nightly sleep aid, which I can’t imagine). I do think it can come too soon (impenetrable Shakespeare surely builds up cognitive antibodies to fight off the Bard), but never too late.  Whatever the method, I suspect that anyone can come to enjoy, and even love, all of those words, words, words. I just wish I had been able to share them with my mom.