I am not given to reveries about bygone days or a review of my life choices on my birthdays. The same holds true for New Year’s eve and day. But just in time for my birthday this year, I was forced to look back on a small portion of my past, thanks to an archiving project undertaken by my college newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania. I suspect that many other alumni of The Daily Pennsylvanian are having this experience right now. It just so happens that its debut timed out just prior to my birthday.

From roughly September 1981 to April of 1984, I wrote for The DP, after breaking through the cliquish barrier that didn’t afford me much opportunity during my freshman year. But once I began writing in earnest, I turned out some 70 pieces over three school years, a pretty good count considering my writing was limited almost entirely to 34th Street, a weekly magazine insert to the main paper where I was also arts editor for two semesters. Unlike the main newspaper, 34th Street of that era was focused on news and entertainment beyond the campus itself.

With my friend John Marshall (l.) at an annual DP dinner circa 1982

It’s worth noting that at the time I wrote for The DP, the internet was inconceivable and there was no prospect that my writing would last more than a couple of days, save for a few bound volumes that might gather dust in the paper’s archives. While I do have a stack of old papers stashed away in a drawer, I never anticipated that my thoughts on entertainment from ages 19 to 22 would ever be generally available to those who wished to seek them out.

Of course, dipping into the archive proved irresistible, and I quickly discovered pieces I remembered rather well, notably my first celebrity interview, with a not yet knighted Ian McKellen, which I had retyped and added to this website a few years ago. I found a number of film and theatre reviews, all written with the hauteur and certainty that one can perhaps only muster at that age. But as I browsed headlines, I was quickly reminded of some pieces, despite a distance of over 30 years, while others were so unfamiliar that I wondered if someone else had written them.

The most surprising pieces are the ones where, while my language may have been infelicitous and is now outmoded, with some unintentional sexism in evidence, it seems my perspective on the arts wasn’t all that different from what it is today. These are the ones from which I want to share a few bits and pieces.

In March 1982, I attempted to address both student performers and critics, tired of the endlessly repeated patterns of a review one day, followed by outraged letters from the subjects of those reviews a couple of days later. In “For Reviewers and Reviewees,” I counseled critics:

If you feel that there is something wrong with a show, say so, but don’t be nasty about it. The search for exciting prose should not extend to slandering the performers. They are, after all, fellow students. A negative observation about an actor is fine, but avoid excess, it does neither the performer’s nor your reputation any good.

Lights, sets, costumes, and, most importantly, direction are all critical elements of a show and involve great commitments by those responsible. These factors of production deserve much more than an offhand summation of “good” or “bad.”

To provide balance, I advised those involved in student theatre:

Remember that the reviewers also try to be as professional as possible. That means they must say what they feel, be it pleasant or uncomplimentary. Just as a director can choose to emphasize any facet of a script in production, a writer can focus on any element of a show that he deems worthy of mention.

Getting reviewed is an unavoidable part of performing (unless a producer decides not to let reviewers in). Right or wrong, intelligent or irresponsible, reviews are almost inextricably linked to the performing arts. Also, reviewers must speak with authority, since only they can justify the personal opinions that they write about. If a writer hates, for example, the score of West Side Story, he should say so, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

Two days after he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for A Soldier’s Play, I had the opportunity to attend a small press gathering with Philadelphia resident Charles Fuller, held at Freedom Theatre, a company focused on work by African-American artists. I reported the event, in part, as follows:

Fuller says that at first he wasn’t sure everyone would like A Soldier’s Play, which is currently being staged by New York City’s Negro Ensemble Company. “We wanted to take a chance,” he says. “It begins to deal with some of the complexities of black life in this country.”

Fuller is only the second black playwright to win the prize. “It’s an important step for me as a playwright – I don’t know what effect it will have on theater as a whole.” As for Fuller’s own effect on theater, he wants to “talk about black people as human beings. We’ve been talked about as statistics for so long.”

Fuller says that his writing develops from his hopes for society. “It’s a severe racial pride. But it’s not racist.”

I presumed to opine about the state of Philadelphia theatre from a historical perspective, in the days before many of the vibrant companies that now occupy the city had begun. This was hubris, of course. But take note of my concern about ticket pricing.

Philadelphia theater ain’t what it used to be. Thank God.

After skyrocketing financial restraints severely depleted the number of pre-Broadway tryout productions here, Philadelphia in the 1970’s was left with but a few large Broadway-type houses and very little to put in them. Smaller companies tried in vain to bridge the gap, failing for a variety of economic and artistic reasons. And Andre Gregory’s Theatre of the Living Arts – the city’s only interesting theater of the 60’s – got too weird for patrons and fizzled out over a decade ago.

Pre-Broadway tours still come around every so often, with Anthony Quinn’s Zorba revival highlighting the past season and an Angela Lansbury Mame promised for the summer. Less discriminating theatrical patrons will probably be sated with the national tours that appear regularly with watered-down versions of Broadway smash hits, although paying 35 dollars for Andy Gibb in the otherwise wonderful Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat should be considered a criminal offense.

I had the opportunity to interview Spalding Gray, relatively early in his solo performing career, in conjunction with one of his monologues that few people have even heard of. It was performed at a venue called The Wilma Project, now known at The Wilma Theatre.

“I am a sort of actor-anthropologist, a mixture of story-teller and monologuist,” Gray says, summing up his unique performing style. He talks directly to the audience from memory, using no script. Unlike previous one-man shows. Gray portrays no one other than himself as he “re-remembers” his life experiences for audiences.

Gray will deliver his piece, In Search of the Monkey Girl, for a live audience the first lime this weekend. He has performed it four times into a tape recorder, in order to provide a text for a series of sideshow photographs shot by Randall Leverson which were printed in Aperture magazine. “It was strange,” Gray says. “He had worked for ten years and I only took ten days.”

In the course of his journey to the state fair, Gray was attracted to a trio of middle class preachers. “They had lost their drug rehabilitation center as a result of the Reagan cutbacks and were working in the sideshow in order to save up enough money to reopen it.” he says. In the meantime, Gray adds, “they were geeks, sucking on the heads of fifteen foot snakes.”

I am glad to find that I was concerned about the portrayal of women on screen at a young age (while completely misunderstanding a film’s genre), writing the following about 48 HRS, the Walter Hill movie that introduced Eddie Murphy to the big screen:

Compounding this inept rehash of the hard-boiled detective genre is the incredibly sexist treatment of women. The few females presented are either climbing into or out of bed, making 48 HRS the most callously anti-feminist film in years.

Even live theatre, or taped productions, something that is once again a current topic, caught my eye, and my thoughts today aren’t all that different than these from 1982:

First, in the case of NBC’s offerings, is it really necessary for T.V. to air the programs live? Granted, live productions were the rule in the fifties, but now editing allows for choosing the best of many takes. Finer quality could be attained from editing together several different performances of the same work. Nowadays live broadcasts are novelties masquerading as high art.

Second, judging by the cable tapings of stage shows, can true justice be done to a work that is primarily staged for one viewing perspective? The limitations imposed by stage architecture result in a radical lessening of camera angles, which have traditionally been used by T.V. and cinema to add to a production. One play shown on HBO included shots from the back of the theater, rendering the figures on the stage almost invisible. Stage shows should be directed again if they are to be adapted for the camera.

Third, what of realism: will a T.V. audience accept “theatricality’?…

…It is commendable that T.V. is attempting to bring theater to a mass audience, but it is a shame that the artistic qualities and capabilities of both media are being compromised in the process. While the public should strongly support the revival of television drama, perhaps theater is belter off where it belongs: on the stage.

I do remember my lengthy feature on the issue of book banning and censorship, which presaged some of my work at the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School on arts censorship. I spoke with figures I didn’t care for at the time (and still don’t), such as Phyllis Schlafly and a spokesman for Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority. Frankly, I wish I’d spoken to more anti-censorship figures as I look back at the article, but my summing up wasn’t bad, though I deeply regret the absence of two asterisks at the time, or my use of a racial slur at all, when referring to Mark Twain’s character of Jim in Huckleberry Finn:

In Texas this past August, a couple who spend their time reviewing school books for “questionable” content voiced disapproval of a textbook that describes the medicinal qualities of the drug insulin. They said that the reference will lead students to believe that all drugs are sale and beneficial.

Earlier this year Studs Turkel visited a high school in Girard, Pennsylvania, to talk with students and teachers about the movement to remove Working from twelfth grade reading lists. His appearance convinced authorities to restore the book temporarily, but they are still seeking a means by which Working can be banned.

The above examples are not isolated incidents. The rapidly rising wave of book banning and censorship threatens to engulf the U.S.’s entire elementary and secondary education system. There are ten times as many books banned today as there were only a decade ago. Books are being withheld or purged from classrooms and school libraries according to the dictates of various parental and political interest groups…

…No matter how big the issue becomes, the controversy boils down to three issues; what rights the Constitution guarantees to students, what parents want their children to read, and what censorship means. Is it the removal of traditional values from books or the removal of books from libraries? And who will decide?

Finally, in a piece I had completely forgotten, I find that my work at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts was not something that emerged late in life, but had actually been on my mind a long time ago as well. It’s important to remember that at the time, “handicapped” was still emerging to replace “crippled”; “disabled” was not yet identified as the best term. There’s some hyperbole here, and outmoded and awkward expression, but the core of my thinking, I hope, rings true.

An actor’s greatest fear, short of death, is probably of being disfigured in some terribly obvious way. A facial scar, a missing limb, even something so simple as nodes on the vocal cords can send the finest actor into oblivion. But a handful of actors over the past several decades have proven that the handicapped are still superb performers who do not deserve to be shunned by an industry that has based itself on physical perfection…

…Currently, Adam Redfield is touring in the play Mass Appeal, despite an obvious case of neuralgia which has paralyzed the right side of his face. While the condition is temporary, it is to the producers’ credit that they have allowed Redfield to continue in the role. It also proves that the handicapped should be allowed to perform in “normal” roles, even if they do not quite fit the character description, it is sobering to remember that had Redfield had the neuralgia before his audition, he probably would have been quickly discarded.

Are we fully formed as people in college? Certainly not. But it seems that many of the same interests and issues that moved me to to write 30 years ago remain important to me now. I wonder if anything I said in the 80s, or today, will still hold up another 30 years on. But I’d like to still be writing, and I wonder what will be in my mind in 2046.

Attendees at BroadwayCon (Photo by Howard Sherman)

If the sight of perhaps 750 theatre fans spontaneously breaking into a song from their favourite musical warms your heart, then the conference rooms of the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue were the place to be on January 22. If the cast of that same musical, having heard about the impromptu singalong, asking some 3,000 theatre fans to sing to them is similarly inspiring, well you should have been in the Hilton ballroom that same afternoon.

From January 22 to 24, the Hilton was home to the first BroadwayCon, a fan convention for theatre buffs. Filled with events, performances and panels not just about Broadway, but about the theatre overall – though admittedly with a tilt towards musicals – BroadwayCon reportedly sold some 6,000 tickets, which had gone on sale 10 months earlier and cost $125 per day or $250 for the weekend.

I went to BroadwayCon with a mixed agenda: first, sheer curiosity, second, the intention to document it for this column, and third, because I had been invited to moderate a panel about production assistants who subsequently ‘made it big’ in the theatre business. I didn’t know quite what to expect, and one press representative I saw at the event confessed that when it was first announced, there was a feeling of uncertainty in their office.

On the eve of the event, The New York Times cited the demographics of the attendees, provided by the organisers: “Nearly 80% of the registrants are female; 75% are from outside the state of New York; and 50% are 30 or younger.” That’s a far cry from the general assumptions about theatre appealing to an increasingly older crowd, and while 6,000 fans certainly can’t sustain the field alone, the sight of multiple Elphabas, Phantoms, and Tracy Turnblads was evidence that theatre still holds a very strong appeal.

What was on offer? Among many options, there were cast conversations with leads from Fun Home, Spring Awakening, Hamilton and Fiddler on the Roof, and a reunion of cast members of Rent (just days before the 20th anniversary of Jonathan Larson’s passing and the show’s first Off-Broadway preview). There were fan meet-ups organised by affinity (a room that was packed by Sondheim fans at 10am was rather sparse by 11am, when the call was for Lloyd Webber buffs), conversations about diversity, design and marketing, as well as audience participation games and variety shows. Both singalongs I mentioned earlier were from Hamilton events.

I experienced a mild sense of deja vu throughout the weekend (I spent time at BroadwayCon on each of its three days) because it was 40 years ago, to the precise weekend, that I had attended my very first fan convention of any kind, the 1976 International Star Trek Convention, at the very same hotel. It is frankly remarkable that with the flourishing of fan conventions since that time, it was only this year that anyone managed to capitalise on the convention model for theatre and Broadway.

While there were occasional snafus with wrangling crowds into the largest and most popular events on Friday, a gigantic blizzard unfortunately prevented many fans – as well as guest speakers and performers – from reaching the hotel on Saturday, and even Sunday. But the organisers scrambled valiantly and effectively to insure a good experience for those who made it. So while the attendance never seemed as high as on that first day, and while the largest rooms may not have always been as filled, I sensed no lessening of enthusiasm among the die-hards who had either stayed over at the hotel or braved the elements to be there.

Like Broadway itself, access to BroadwayCon wasn’t cheap, and presumably there were countless fans who couldn’t attend because of the added expense of a flight and hotel tickets. But this first year should prove that there’s an enormous appetite among theatre fans to gather both with those they admire, and others who share their passions, getting out of social media and chat rooms and into real life interactions. As someone who began the weekend by adopting a slight distance and harbouring even a bit of cynicism, I was drawn back through heavy snow and puddles of icy slush because BroadwayCon successfully tapped into my inner fanboy, and because I was having a good time watching others have a good time. It gave them access to the world I’ve long been in. The theatre must do more of that.

WestEndCon, anyone?

This essay originally appeared in The Stage.

It’s a reflex action for those in the arts to recoil and get angry when creative work is described as “intolerable blasphemies.” But it’s probably worth giving a small shout out to the America Needs Fatima organization as they protest the production of Colm Toíbín’s The Testament of Mary at the New Repertory Theater in Watertown MA. Why? Because amidst repeated variations of “blasphemy,” “blasphemous” and “blasphemies” in their rhetoric, the group is careful to call for “respectful but firm protest” at one point, and asks that people speak out against the show “legally and respectfully.” I hope that those who hear and choose to answer their call heed those cautions.

America Needs Fatima (ANF) has taken issue with The Testament of Mary before, both in its Broadway production and in a subsequent San Francisco run. They claim that their efforts helped cause the Broadway show to end early and that they prompted many to “turn away” from the San Francisco engagement. Of course, there’s no proof that either is the case. As someone who saw and admired Fiona Shaw’s Broadway performance as well as the play, I recall that it opened during the usual spring crush of new Broadway shows and, without sufficient critical praise, it was indeed closed quickly. But anyone who knows Scott Rudin, the show’s lead producer, knows full well that he wouldn’t back down from protests and his decision was entirely pragmatic and fiscal.

Fiona Shaw in The Testament of Mary on Broadway

For those who don’t know The Testament of Mary, or Toíbín’s book from which it’s drawn, it is a one-person play about Jesus’s mother, who recounts her son’s experiences both of faith and tragedy. It does show the character questioning the motives of some of Jesus’s associates and reacting with great distress to his crucifixion. While it is certainly does not comport with any of the gospels, it is a serious-minded imagining of what might have been her thoughts, rather than a satire or parody of religious issues, like the film Dogma or the musical The Book of Mormon.

ANF managed to get their newest protest noticed by The Boston Globe, which published an account of their efforts on January 21. The article, by Don Aucoin, spoke with Jim Petosa, artistic director of New Repertory and director of the production. It’s somewhat curious that ANF did not make their organization’s director available to Aucoin for comment, which seems pretty basic protest protocol when dealing with the largest newspaper in the region. As the Globe reported, Petosa and the company stand by the decision to produce Testament of Mary, and so the article simply presented the views of both sides as they were available.

However, there was the potential for the article to engender further protest, by bringing ANF’s view of the show to a larger audience. So I asked Petosa about the response since it appeared.

“There’s been more of a positive response from people,” he said. “I’ve gotten e-mails that say things like ‘I’ve been a devout Catholic all my life and I’m glad you’re doing this.’ We’ve gotten more people who are sympathetic than opposed.”

Petosa said that New Repertory’s staff has created a map to show where expressions of support and opposition were coming from, and it shows that there’s local support, with opposition coming from outside the greater Boston area. He observed, “Most of the negative comments are coming from people who couldn’t possibly get to New Repertory.”

I asked Petosa whether he had heard of any plans for in-person protests at the theatre and he said no, but commented, “They’d be more than welcome and we’d invite them in to see the production.”

Petosa chalks the communications against The Testament of Mary up to “a misunderstanding about the intent of the writer and the intent of the theatre,” saying that the goal of the company’s work for audiences was “to enhance their lives, not diminish their convictions.” He also ascribed the rhetoric against the show to being reflective of “the polarity of political discourse,” that it was “born out of orthodoxy.”

Petosa did acknowledge a recurring theme in some communications he’d received opposing the show, saying, “In a couple of letters, there were some intolerant but not surprising statement about Colm Toíbín’s sexuality, but that’s not pervasive. It is people equating blasphemy with homosexuality, revealing their own homophobia.” In one of its online documents about the play, during its Broadway premiere, ANF made a point of noting that it was “being performed and directed by open lesbians.”

The first previews of The Testament of Mary this weekend will overlap with the final performances of New Rep’s production of David Hare’s Via Dolorosa, and Petosa said he wished the two plays could have run concurrently for much longer. “They are thematically connected,” he noted. “They are pilgrimage plays, both journeys to Calvary. I’m eager to see how the dialogue around Dolorosa is affected by Mary, and the other way around.”

ANF’s website asks people to sign a petition urging New Rep to cancel their production, as is their right. But by using their own petition engine, rather than a third party site, it’s impossible to know whether the 30,000 signatures the group claims are genuine, repetitious, or merely coded. In any event, since I first looked at the page several days ago, the signature count is virtually unchanged, so there doesn’t appear to be a groundswell of support for their position.

So ANF will continue to express their opinions against The Testament of Mary, consistent with their past efforts against Taylor Has Two Mommies, Jerry Springer: The Opera and the artist Andres Serrano, among others. As long as they keep their efforts legal and respectful, even an activist with opposing views wouldn’t suggest that they aren’t entirely within their rights, because they are. But perhaps people in the arts community, and in theatre audiences, will drop a note to Jim Petosa and the staff and board of New Repertory, and congratulate them for being unbowed by ANF, and wishing them the best with their newest production.

Thanks to Jacqueline Lawton for her research assistance with this post.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts.

It’s a reflex action for those in the arts to recoil and get angry when creative work is described as “intolerable blasphemies.” But it’s probably worth giving a small shout out to the America Needs Fatima organization as they protest the production of Colm Toíbín’s The Testament of Mary at the New Repertory Theater in Watertown MA. Why? Because amidst repeated variations of “blasphemy,” “blasphemous” and “blasphemies” in their rhetoric, the group is careful to call for “respectful but firm protest” at one point, and asks that people speak out against the show “legally and respectfully.” I hope that those who hear and choose to answer their call heed those cautions.

America Needs Fatima (ANF) has taken issue with The Testament of Mary before, both in its Broadway production and in a subsequent San Francisco run. They claim that their efforts helped cause the Broadway show to end early and that they prompted many to “turn away” from the San Francisco engagement. Of course, there’s no proof that either is the case. As someone who saw and admired Fiona Shaw’s Broadway performance as well as the play, I recall that it opened during the usual spring crush of new Broadway shows and, without sufficient critical praise, it was indeed closed quickly. But anyone who knows Scott Rudin, the show’s lead producer, knows full well that he wouldn’t back down from protests and his decision was entirely pragmatic and fiscal.

For those who don’t know The Testament of Mary, or Toíbín’s book from which it’s drawn, it is a one-person play about Jesus’s mother, who recounts her son’s experiences both of faith and tragedy. It does show the character questioning the motives of some of Jesus’s associates and reacting with great distress to his crucifixion. While it is certainly does not comport with any of the gospels, it is a serious-minded imagining of what might have been her thoughts, rather than a satire or parody of religious issues, like the film Dogma or the musical The Book of Mormon.

ANF managed to get their newest protest noticed by The Boston Globe, which published an account of their efforts on January 21. The article, by Don Aucoin, spoke with Jim Petosa, artistic director of New Repertory and director of the production. It’s somewhat curious that ANF did not make their organization’s director available to Aucoin for comment, which seems pretty basic protest protocol when dealing with the largest newspaper in the region. As the Globereported, Petosa and the company stand by the decision to produce Testament of Mary, and so the article simply presented the views of both sides as they were available.

However, there was the potential for the article to engender further protest, by bringing ANF’s view of the show to a larger audience. So I asked Petosa about the response since it appeared.

“There’s been more of a positive response from people,” he said. “I’ve gotten e-mails that say things like ‘I’ve been a devout Catholic all my life and I’m glad you’re doing this.’ We’ve gotten more people who are sympathetic than opposed.”

Petosa said that New Repertory’s staff has created a map to show where expressions of support and opposition were coming from, and it shows that there’s local support, with opposition coming from outside the greater Boston area. He observed, “Most of the negative comments are coming from people who couldn’t possibly get to New Repertory.”

I asked Petosa whether he had heard of any plans for in-person protests at the theatre and he said no, but commented, “They’d be more than welcome and we’d invite them in to see the production.”

Petosa chalks the communications against The Testament of Mary up to “a misunderstanding about the intent of the writer and the intent of the theatre,” saying that the goal of the company’s work for audiences was “to enhance their lives, not diminish their convictions.” He also ascribed the rhetoric against the show to being reflective of “the polarity of political discourse,” that it was “born out of orthodoxy.”

Petosa did acknowledge a recurring theme in some communications he’d received opposing the show, saying, “In a couple of letters, there were some intolerant but not surprising statement about Colm Toíbín’s sexuality, but that’s not pervasive. It is people equating blasphemy with homosexuality, revealing their own homophobia.” In one of its online documents about the play, during its Broadway premiere, ANF made a point of noting that it was “being performed and directed by open lesbians.”

The first previews of The Testament of Mary this weekend will overlap with the final performances of New Rep’s production of David Hare’s Via Dolorosa, and Petosa said he wished the two plays could have run concurrently for much longer. “They are thematically connected,” he noted. “They are pilgrimage plays, both journeys to Calvary. I’m eager to see how the dialogue around Dolorosa is affected by Mary, and the other way around.”

ANF’s website asks people to sign a petition urging New Rep to cancel their production, as is their right. But by using their own petition engine, rather than a third party site, it’s impossible to know whether the 30,000 signatures the group claims are genuine, repetitious, or merely coded. In any event, since I first looked at the page several days ago, the signature count is virtually unchanged, so there doesn’t appear to be a groundswell of support for their position.

So ANF will continue to express their opinions against The Testament of Mary, consistent with their past efforts against Taylor Has Two Mommies, Jerry Springer: The Opera and the artist Andres Serrano, among others. As long as they keep their efforts legal and respectful, even an activist with opposing views wouldn’t suggest that they aren’t entirely within their rights, because they are. But perhaps people in the arts community, and in theatre audiences, will drop a note to Jim Petosa and the staff and board of New Repertory, and congratulate them for being unbowed by ANF, and wishing them the best with their newest production.

Thanks to Jacqueline Lawton for her research assistance with this post.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts.

Casting Notice for American Idiot at Enfield High School

“Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alienation.
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay.”

The details are very sketchy. The drama director hasn’t yet responded to a call or e-mail. The school principal said that he “wasn’t comfortable” talking about it without the approval of the superintendent, which he did say he would seek. The licensing house that handles the rights for the musical has not responded to an e-mail inquiry about approved changes (although the company’s president is overseas). An anonymous source who provided some background materials won’t be named publicly because they fear recriminations against their child in the school system.

But here’s what’s known: the Enfield High School Lamplighters, in Enfield CT, were scheduled to perform the musical American Idiot this spring, with auditions set for January 13 and 14, with callbacks on January 15. Performances were set for early May.

On January 17, Nate Ferreira, faculty director of the Lamplighters, sent a general e-mail to the school community which included the following statement:

As most of you know, we had a drama club meeting this past Wednesday to discuss the details of producing “American Idiot” as our final show this school year. Due to the mature content of the original production, I have been working with the publisher to modify the script, to ensure that it would be appropriate for a high school group to perform.

This project was very successful, and we feel that the modified script and production notes maintain the integrity of the show, while removing profanity and the more adult scenarios in the original Broadway production. The publisher is even starting the process of turning our edited version of the script into their official “School Edition” of the play, to allow other high schools to easily perform this play in the future.

As I’ve stated at our student/parent meetings during the past two school years: this extended production process was intended to allow us to work on a show that most of the kids were extremely excited about, while continuing the award-winning Lamplighters tradition of exploring serious issues in a mature and responsible way. In the same way that our presentation of the student-authored and directed “Happily Never After” last year did an excellent job of handling the difficult issues of domestic abuse and justifiable homicide, “American Idiot” opens discussion about many issues of young adulthood.

Unfortunately, a very small number of extremely vocal people have complained about our choice of production. This led to Mr. Longey [principal Andrew Longey] and I meeting on Friday to discuss a change in our choice of production. To be clear, Mr. Longey did not force us to change – he and I took a long and careful look at all aspects of the show, and all arguments on either side. At this late stage it is very difficult to switch to a different play, but I do feel that it is best for us to set aside “American Idiot” for the time being. I want ALL of our club members to be able to be a part of our musical, and I want to be absolutely certain that the play happens at all.

Billie Joe Armstrong in American Idiot on Broadway

Currently, the last post on the Lamplighters Facebook page is a reference to a meeting on January 20. There is no announcement of a new show for the spring.

While hopefully more details will fall into place, there is someone else who would like to see the production of American Idiot go on. I reached out to Christine Jones, who designed the set for the Broadway production of American Idiot, in an effort to make Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, the composer and lyricist of the show, aware of the situation. Armstrong sent back the following message through Jones in a little over an hour’s time, and reportedly also posted it on Instagram (it is reproduced here precisely as he wrote it):

dear Enfield high school board,

It has come to my attention that you cancelled your high school theater production of American Idiot.

I realize the content of the Broadway production of AI is not quite “suitable” for a younger audience.

However there is a high school rendition of the production and I believe that’s the one Enfield was planning to perform which is suitable for most people.

it would be a shame if these high schoolers were shut down over some of the content that may be challenging for some of the audience. but the bigger issue is censorship. this production tackles issues in a post 9/11 world and I believe the kids should be heard. and most of all be creative in telling a story about our history.

I hope you reconsider and allow them to create an amazing night of theater!

as they say on Broadway ..

“the show must go on!”

rage and love

Billie Joe Armstrong

P.S. I love that your school is called “Raiders”

Mr. Ferreira seems to have followed every appropriate step in the process of planning this show for Enfield High, but the production has been suspended. Yet he is still hoping that American Idiot will be done at some point. So is its author, who has apparently granted permission to alter the work to make it more appropriate in a school setting. Perhaps there’s still room for dialogue, and Enfield High can still give its students the opportunity to take on challenging, modern work.

If indeed a few parents resulted in spoiling this experience for all of the Lamplighters, that would be a real shame that denies opportunity to many in order to satisfy the views of a few. I’d rather at this turning point, the school was directing the students where to go – towards work that will help them grow as performers and as people, towards work that provokes rather than palliates. I hope they’re allowed to have the time of their lives with American Idiot, sooner than later.

Update, January 25, 10:45 pm: In an article in The Hartford Courant that went online an hour ago, the Lamplighters director Mr. Ferreira represents his intended revisions to the text of American Idiot in a markedly different framework than he did in his e-mail to the school community. Per The Courant:

Ferreira said the performance included “a lot of swearing,” which Ferreira said he’d hoped to limit or eliminate pending approval from the publisher. “There’s some heavy drug use and graphic sex scenes, not things we were going to depict to the extent they did in the original show.”

This is a far cry from the tone of Ferreira’s e-mail, which declared:

“I have been working with the publisher to modify the script, to ensure that it would be appropriate for a high school group to perform. This project was very successful, and we feel that the modified script and production notes maintain the integrity of the show, while removing profanity and the more adult scenarios in the original Broadway production. The publisher is even starting the process of turning our edited version of the script into their official “School Edition” of the play, to allow other high schools to easily perform this play in the future.”

In my original post, I said it seemed that Ferreira had followed the appropriate steps, and now by his own admission, that is clearly not the case; he did not have approval to make any changes, he had not undertaken a successful project that would influence future productions. While I think there may still be opportunities for Enfield students to benefit from performing in American Idiot, they cannot do so in any version not fully approved by the authors and their representatives.

I don’t support a small number of parents ending the opportunity for the majority of the Lamplighters, but I also don’t support Ferreira’s effort to aggrandize his own sanitized version of the text. This has been a lose-lose proposition at Enfield High: the show has been shut down without being properly defended, and there has been an effort to misrepresent to the community that Ferreira’s text was authorized and even praised, obscuring the authors’ rights and copyright protections.  Unfortunately, the students lose as well.

Update, January 26, 6:30 am: I received the following e-mail from Nate Ferreira at 1:55 am this morning, more than 17 hours after I first attempted to contact him, 14 hours after Principal Longey said he could not comment without the approval of the superintendent, 11 hours after my original post went online, and three hours after the previous update was posted. It is reproduced in its entirety precisely as it was received (except for the lack of paragraph spacing, which is a formatting problem on my site).

Thank you for reaching out to me. I’m sorry that I didn’t see your email until after you had finished writing your post.

Here are some more details regarding our decision not to perform American Idiot. As the director of the school’s drama club, I was very excited to produce American Idiot, and to explore the issues raised by the material.

Due to the fact that some of our club families were not comfortable with their kids being involved in the show, it was my decision to perform a different show. This was not a decision forced on me by the school administration, it was simply what i felt was best for our club membership. Many of the kids were disappointed by this decision, but others were happy because this would allow them to be involved again. I had also begun to feel that the material itself would be better served if I were to stage American Idiot _unedited_ with another local organization, and encourage the families who still wanted to do the show to become involved with it there.

My decision to change the show came prior to finalizing the contract and payment, prior to any rehearsal, and prior to casting or auditions. As with any show that would require edits for a high school group, I had a full list of changes that I felt were necessary to the dialogue, and they would have had to meet approval by the publisher. I made several phone calls to MTI during the past year, and their staff were extremely helpful in explaining the procedures for requesting edits.

I stand by my decision to change our choice of production, and I have always felt that the school administration has been supportive of our efforts.

That being said, I am elated that people like yourself are fighting for the freedom of thought and expression that is so vital to the arts. Your coverage of our situation has helped to shed light on the issue, and to spark serious discussion in our community. Mr. Armstrong’s support has likewise invigorated our students. Although we will not be performing American Idiot for our end of year production, you can be sure that the Lamplighters will continue to push boundaries and explore serious issues.

Thanks again,

Nate Ferreira

Director, Enfield Lamplighters

This post will be updated as additional information becomes available.

Thanks to the National Coalition Against Censorship, which first became aware of this situation and brought it to my attention.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts

American Idiot at Enfield High casting notice

“Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alienation.
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay.”

The details are very sketchy. The drama director hasn’t yet responded to a call or e-mail. The school principal said that he “wasn’t comfortable” talking about it without the approval of the superintendent, which he did say he would seek. The licensing house that handles the rights for the musical has not responded to an e-mail inquiry about approved changes (although the company’s president is overseas). An anonymous source who provided some background materials won’t be named publicly because they fear recriminations against their child in the school system.

But here’s what’s known: the Enfield High School Lamplighters, in Enfield CT, were scheduled to perform the musical American Idiot this spring, with auditions set for January 13 and 14, with callbacks on January 15. Performances were set for early May.

On January 17, Nate Ferreira, faculty director of the Lamplighters, sent a general e-mail to the school community which included the following statement:

As most of you know, we had a drama club meeting this past Wednesday to discuss the details of producing “American Idiot” as our final show this school year. Due to the mature content of the original production, I have been working with the publisher to modify the script, to ensure that it would be appropriate for a high school group to perform.

This project was very successful, and we feel that the modified script and production notes maintain the integrity of the show, while removing profanity and the more adult scenarios in the original Broadway production. The publisher is even starting the process of turning our edited version of the script into their official “School Edition” of the play, to allow other high schools to easily perform this play in the future.

As I’ve stated at our student/parent meetings during the past two school years: this extended production process was intended to allow us to work on a show that most of the kids were extremely excited about, while continuing the award-winning Lamplighters tradition of exploring serious issues in a mature and responsible way. In the same way that our presentation of the student-authored and directed “Happily Never After” last year did an excellent job of handling the difficult issues of domestic abuse and justifiable homicide, “American Idiot” opens discussion about many issues of young adulthood.

Unfortunately, a very small number of extremely vocal people have complained about our choice of production. This led to Mr. Longey [principal Andrew Longey] and I meeting on Friday to discuss a change in our choice of production. To be clear, Mr. Longey did not force us to change – he and I took a long and careful look at all aspects of the show, and all arguments on either side. At this late stage it is very difficult to switch to a different play, but I do feel that it is best for us to set aside “American Idiot” for the time being. I want ALL of our club members to be able to be a part of our musical, and I want to be absolutely certain that the play happens at all.

Currently, the last post on the Lamplighters Facebook page is a reference to a meeting on January 20. There is no announcement of a new show for the spring.

Billie Joe Armstrong in American Idiot on Broadway

While hopefully more details will fall into place, there is someone else who would like to see the production of American Idiot go on. I reached out to Christine Jones, who designed the set for the Broadway production of American Idiot, in an effort to make Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, the composer and lyricist of the show, aware of the situation. Armstrong sent back the following message through Jones in a little over an hour’s time, and reportedly also posted it on Instagram (it is reproduced here precisely as he wrote it):

dear Enfield high school board,

It has come to my attention that you cancelled your high school theater production of American Idiot.

I realize the content of the Broadway production of AI is not quite “suitable” for a younger audience.

However there is a high school rendition of the production and I believe that’s the one Enfield was planning to perform which is suitable for most people.

it would be a shame if these high schoolers were shut down over some of the content that may be challenging for some of the audience. but the bigger issue is censorship. this production tackles issues in a post 9/11 world and I believe the kids should be heard. and most of all be creative in telling a story about our history.

I hope you reconsider and allow them to create an amazing night of theater!

as they say on Broadway ..

“the show must go on!”

rage and love

Billie Joe Armstrong

P.S. I love that your school is called “Raiders”

Mr. Ferreira seems to have followed every appropriate step in the process of planning this show for Enfield High, but the production has been suspended. Yet he is still hoping that American Idiot will be done at some point. So is its author, who has apparently granted permission to alter the work to make it more appropriate in a school setting. Perhaps there’s still room for dialogue, and Enfield High can still give its students the opportunity to take on challenging, modern work.

If indeed a few parents resulted in spoiling this experience for all of the Lamplighters, that would be a real shame that denies opportunity to many in order to satisfy the views of a few. I’d rather at this turning point, the school was directing the students where to go – towards work that will help them grow as performers and as people, towards work that provokes rather than palliates. I hope they’re allowed to have the time of their lives with American Idiot, sooner than later.

Update, January 25, 10:45 pm: In an article in The Hartford Courant that went online an hour ago, the Lamplighters director Mr. Ferreira represents his intended revisions to the text of American Idiot in a markedly different framework than he did in his e-mail to the school community. Per The Courant:

Ferreira said the performance included “a lot of swearing,” which Ferreira said he’d hoped to limit or eliminate pending approval from the publisher. “There’s some heavy drug use and graphic sex scenes, not things we were going to depict to the extent they did in the original show.”

This is a far cry from the tone of Ferreira’s e-mail, which declared:

“I have been working with the publisher to modify the script, to ensure that it would be appropriate for a high school group to perform. This project was very successful, and we feel that the modified script and production notes maintain the integrity of the show, while removing profanity and the more adult scenarios in the original Broadway production. The publisher is even starting the process of turning our edited version of the script into their official “School Edition” of the play, to allow other high schools to easily perform this play in the future.”

In my original post, I said it seemed that Ferreira had followed the appropriate steps, and now by his own admission, that is clearly not the case; he did not have approval to make any changes, he had not undertaken a successful project that would influence future productions. While I think there may still be opportunities for Enfield students to benefit from performing in American Idiot, they cannot do so in any version not fully approved by the authors and their representatives.

I don’t support a small number of parents ending the opportunity for the majority of the Lamplighters, but I also don’t support Ferreira’s effort to aggrandize his own sanitized version of the text. This has been a lose-lose proposition at Enfield High: the show has been shut down without being properly defended, and there has been an effort to misrepresent to the community that Ferreira’s text was authorized and even praised, obscuring the authors’ rights and copyright protections.  Unfortunately, the students lose as well.

Update, January 26, 6:30 am: I received the following e-mail from Nate Ferreira at 1:55 am this morning, more than 17 hours after I first attempted to contact him, 14 hours after Principal Longey said he could not comment without the approval of the superintendent, 11 hours after my original post went online, and three hours after the previous update was posted. It is reproduced in its entirety precisely as it was received (except for the lack of paragraph spacing, which is a formatting problem on my site).

Thank you for reaching out to me. I’m sorry that I didn’t see your email until after you had finished writing your post.

Here are some more details regarding our decision not to perform American Idiot. As the director of the school’s drama club, I was very excited to produce American Idiot, and to explore the issues raised by the material.

Due to the fact that some of our club families were not comfortable with their kids being involved in the show, it was my decision to perform a different show. This was not a decision forced on me by the school administration, it was simply what i felt was best for our club membership. Many of the kids were disappointed by this decision, but others were happy because this would allow them to be involved again. I had also begun to feel that the material itself would be better served if I were to stage American Idiot _unedited_ with another local organization, and encourage the families who still wanted to do the show to become involved with it there.

My decision to change the show came prior to finalizing the contract and payment, prior to any rehearsal, and prior to casting or auditions. As with any show that would require edits for a high school group, I had a full list of changes that I felt were necessary to the dialogue, and they would have had to meet approval by the publisher. I made several phone calls to MTI during the past year, and their staff were extremely helpful in explaining the procedures for requesting edits.

I stand by my decision to change our choice of production, and I have always felt that the school administration has been supportive of our efforts.

That being said, I am elated that people like yourself are fighting for the freedom of thought and expression that is so vital to the arts. Your coverage of our situation has helped to shed light on the issue, and to spark serious discussion in our community. Mr. Armstrong’s support has likewise invigorated our students. Although we will not be performing American Idiot for our end of year production, you can be sure that the Lamplighters will continue to push boundaries and explore serious issues.

Thanks again,

Nate Ferreira

Director, Enfield Lamplighters

This post will be updated as additional information becomes available.

Thanks to the National Coalition Against Censorship, which first became aware of this situation and brought it to my attention.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts

Three books that changed my life? Only three? As soon as I think of any one, a dozen more come to mind. But I will color inside the lines, so to speak, even as I leave countless loved ones up on the shelf.

1. My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

As someone intensely interested in the arts since I was young, but in a family that wasn’t particularly arts-oriented, as someone educated three days a week in conservative Judaism while in elementary school, but increasingly uncertain of what it meant to me personally, Potok’s story of an Orthodox young man whose talent for painting took him beyond the strictures of his upbringing spoke to me very powerfully, even though I didn’t meet with parental opposition to my affinity, and lacked any particular talent. Asher was compelled by talent to become a rebel and I was, to all outward appearances, a conforming good boy. His story was my own minor struggle writ large. But despite admonitions that the arts were a terrible way to make a living (albeit not the sin that Asher was cautioned about), I went my own way too. And in college, I took a philosophy seminar with Potok, and was able to thank him for what his work meant to me, even as he opened new avenues of thought for me. Corollary: Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer.

2. What Makes Sammy Run by Budd Schulberg

Even after I began my life in the theater, I still held romantic dreams of working in Hollywood, going so far as to spend a week interviewing at studios and production companies the year I turned 30. When, as a teen (and I still reread it annually), I first read this seminal novel of two men whose lives took them from New York to Hollywood, it offered me the already bygone allure of a different life, of fame and money, even as it showed the price one might pay to achieve such things. Yet as the years progressed, what I saw in the book evolved, as I realized that I was much more like the novel’s narrator than its hyper-precocious anti-hero. I wasn’t someone who could swim in the (seemingly) shark-infested waters of movie making. Where Sammy was once a book that offered the vision of a different life, it became an affirmation of the choices I’ve made, of staying in theater, and outside the commercial arena, of staying in the form and with the people with whom I’m most comfortable. Corollary: The Player by Michael Tolkin.

3. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

As children, we were always falling into fantasy worlds: on TV, in movies and in the pages of books. This hypnotic novel, which I read when it was first published, is probably the last time I recall being immersed in a fantasy completely—a fantasy that was at times dark, uncomfortable, and even incomprehensible. I don’t think I’ll ever quite understand its hold on me, how it manages to be entirely otherworldly and impossible in some ways and utterly believable in others. Even as I had entered the working world, saw how magic was made on stage from behind the scenes, and dealt with the mundanity of such things as paying rent and car loans, Dunn’s novel of a most unconventional, fractious, fantastical, and loving family—and how the legacy of any family lives on even after they’re gone—was a reminder of how completely a book could transport me. Corollary: from years earlier, the first “grown up” book with a comparable effect, despite being about rabbits, Richard Adams’s Watership Down.

Extra-credit: Though first published in newspapers, but collected in countless anthologies, Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, which is utterly woven throughout my life for as far back as I can remember.

This essay 0riginally appeared on the blog of the National Endowment for the Arts

Bruce Willis in Misery (Photo by Joan Marcus)

It’s a tad too early to announce the emergence of a new trend, but two recent announcements suggest that there’s something brewing in the theatrical zeitgeist.

The announcements to which I refer are Quentin Tarantino’s repeated references to adapting his newest film The Hateful Eight for the stage, and Warner Bros Theatre Ventures’ announcement that Stephen Adly Guirgis will adapt the 1974 film Dog Day Afternoon for Broadway. I’m more sanguine about the latter than the former, because Guirgis is a proven theatrical talent who is likely to assert his own unique take on the true-life story that fuelled the Sidney Lumet film. While some have noted that The Hateful Eight is, if you strip away the profanity and slurs, the widescreen, and the protracted running time, really a western equivalent of an Agatha Christie locked room mystery.

The potential wave of which I speak is the movie-into-play adaptation, which seems poised to supplant the movie-into-musical and jukebox musical trends of recent years. This isn’t a brand new idea, and has actually been more common on British stages than American ones, with Chariots of Fire, The Shawshank Redemption, Cool Hand Luke and The Ladykillers among the examples. But when British exemplars have crossed the Atlantic, they haven’t set Broadway afire, with Festen and Elling being blink-and-you-missed-them failures. The Graduate ran for a year, but it closed more than 12 years ago.

Misery, now on Broadway in a different version than the UK one in the early 1990s, has held its own in the face of negative notices, buoyed no doubt by the Broadway debut of Bruce Willis, but its fortunes have been declining. Breakfast at Tiffany’s and A Time To Kill both closed particularly fast.

Experts will be quick to note that in many cases, the movie-to-play adaptations are often based on an original book from which the film and play have been adapted separately. But it’s usually the movie’s success and familiarity that prompts the theatrical version. The same impulse that has driven the trend for musical adaptations of movies seems to be behind these play efforts, with movie companies eager to exploit even properties that perhaps don’t lend themselves to musicalisation.

The problem is that drama into drama efforts often aren’t transformative enough to make the new stage versions compelling. When assembling songs into a story (like Mamma Mia!) or adding songs to one (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), there is inevitably a change in the source material. But the play into play paradigm doesn’t necessarily undergo the same kind of revision and rethinking – even though it’s essential to making great theatre. And of course without fundamental change, the inevitable comparisons are easier to make.

The best film into stage adaptations (The Lion King, Once) create something that is an altogether new way of looking at the preceding work. If film companies’ only goal is to generate more income from existing material, and to trade on our affection for it, then this incipient genre may well prove an unsatisfying one, as so many jukebox musicals and movie-to-musical adaptations have been before.

Having also produced Misery, Warner Bros’ choice of Guirgis is a heartening one, particularly if they give him room to let his own imagination and language truly create a new work for the stage, rather than a photocopy. While I never want to see them lured away for long from original work, I can only imagine what artists like Annie Baker, Anne Washburn, Stephen Karam, Suzan-Lori Parks, Mike Lew, and Tarrell Alvin McCraney could do with some classic and – better still – not-so-classic films. But only if it interests them creatively – not just for the money.

This essay originally appeared in The Stage, under a slightly different title.

Ian McKellen as King Lear (Photo by Simon Farrell)

Oh, British theatre, you’ve bested your American counterparts again, and you likely don’t even know about it. I should explain.

In late October, a new streaming service called BroadwayHD came online, to a flurry of press attention, likening the offering to Netflix or Hulu for the stage. As the holiday season often affords the opportunity to seek out online entertainment, I finally had the opportunity to peruse the offerings on the nascent BroadwayHD. To my surprise, I found remarkably little US theatre, let alone material from the Great White Way.

As of now, the relatively limited repertory of the service is comprised overwhelmingly of BBC offerings, tilted towards Shakespeare. Now, there’s no question that the selection is choice, featuring esteemed actors such as Judi Dench, Michael Gambon, Juliet Stevenson, Ian McKellen, Anthony Hopkins and others, but the fact is, few of the shows on offer ever played Broadway.

Rifling through the categories of comedy, classics, drama and musicals yields a decidedly anglicised view of theatre. The category of musicals, which one would expect to be a strong suit, is the most American of sections, but also particularly thin, with only nine offerings, the most recent being Memphis and the oldest being Tintypes from 1980. One of the titles is the Bette Midler made-for-television Gypsy, which was never performed on stage.

That’s not to say there’s no value in the service, because I’m eager to explore some of these pieces – Daniel Craig in Copenhagen, anyone? But for now, it remains largely a US subscription-based version of BBC’s iPlayer with a cache of older titles. It also points out, once again, how behind US theatre is in adapting to the newly pervasive video reality, whether broadcast into movie theatres like NT Live is, or available on a mobile device.

I will always say that filmed theatre is not true theatre because it alters according to what the video camera finds. The live experience is unparalleled. But until all of the parties concerned – producers, writers, directors, actors, designers, craftspeople and crew – get together to hammer out an agreement that makes it possible for more US theatre to be recorded and distributed electronically, us Americans will be runners-up to our British colleagues (and soon our Canadian ones as well). Without that commitment, access to theatre will remain out of the reach of swathes of our population, for geographic and financial reasons.

Meanwhile, less attentive users of BroadwayHD will be left wondering why all of these ‘Broadway’ shows were performed with British accents.

This essay originally appeared in The Stage.

Bernadette Peters in Into The Woods

At first, they were a few lunchtime tweets, which proved of little interest, it seemed. But when I collected a couple, and added a few more, for a Facebook post at 9:30 pm on New Year’s Eve, they seemed to resonate. And so, with little ado, my New Year’s resolutions by way of lyrics and dialogue from works of theatre, but no less heartfelt for being so.

1. Talk less, smile more.
2. Wake each morning to realize I have a good thing going.
3. Never walk alone.
4. Decide what’s right, decide what’s good.
5. Half the fun is to plan the plan. All good things come to those who can wait.
6. Many people have to depend on the kindness of strangers. Be that stranger.
7. When I speak, and I will, be kind.

Sources

I don’t want to patronize those who recognize where these are all from, or presume that everyone will know each one. So if you want to seek any of these out in their original contexts, here are some details.

1. Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton, direct quote
2. Stephen Sondheim, Merrily We Roll Along, “And then one morning I woke to realize, we had a good thing going.”
3. Oscar Hammerstein II, Carousel, “Walk on with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone.”
4. Stephen Sondheim, Into The Woods, “You decide what’s right, you decide what’s good.”
5. Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd, direct quote
6. Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
7. Robert Anderson, Tea and Sympathy, “When you talk about this…and you will…be kind.”