Years from now, when the musical Wicked is eventually made available for school and amateur productions, will some high school administrator declare it inappropriate? After all, among its many plot strands is the story of (spoiler alert) the manipulative Madame Morrible, a school headmistress who schemes against those in Oz who don’t conform precisely to her standards, be they green girl or anthropomorphic animal. It’s a terrible portrait of pedagogy gone wrong and surely doesn’t foster the collaborative, supportive relationships that school leaders must seek with each successive generation of students, as well as with their faculty and staff. From that perspective, it’s seditious.
I’m reminded of this element of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holtzman’s massively popular musical as I consider the challenges to high school theatre that I’ve read about, heard about and involved myself in. Recently, I was engaged to deliver the opening keynote at the Educational Theatre Association’s (EdTA) annual conference for high school teachers. During the question and answer session that followed, one attendee asked the others how many had had shows turned down when they sought approval for them. Roughly a quarter of those in the room raised their hands. In follow-up, they were asked how many had wanted to do certain shows, but didn’t even try because they were sure they couldn’t get approval. Virtually every teacher raised their hand.
Because I don’t believe that these teachers had all been contemplating Oh! Calcutta!, I find myself wondering about their internal decision-making, their self-censorship. Surely they weren’t considering shows which would be blatantly inappropriate in a school setting, so what are those shows that they thought would be good for their students, but which they didn’t even dare raise as a possibility? That might make for an interesting survey in itself.
Of course, what’s acceptable to the powers that be at one school, in one town, may be considered problematic in another. Earlier this year in New Hampshire, Sweeney Todd was canceled at Timberlane High School (since reversed) even as another school just a few towns away readied their production of the same show. In 2012, Sonja Hansen lost her position directing shows at Loveland High in Ohio after her production of Legally Blonde was declared inappropriate, yet according to the EdTA’s annual survey, its was the fourth most popular musical in high schools nationally.
So I’m very interested in the new “Public Performance Policy” that has been put into place at the Junior/Senior High in South Williamsport PA, where a production of Spamalot has been canceled by the principal for reasons that remain unclear. The drama director Dawn Burch asserts that Principal Jesse Smith stated, in an e-mail, that the show’s gay content was a factor. Smith himself has been silent since this story broke, and while the school administration has taken exception to one element of the first report about the issue (since corrected), it has yet to produce the e-mail in question to clear things up. Two “Right To Know” requests have been filed seeking that e-mail and related documents; one of those requests is mine.
The timing of the Public Performance Policy, revealed last night at a meeting for the school board, is certainly no coincidence, coming between the initial assertions of anti-gay bias and the release of clarifying materials. As read by the school superintendent, Dr. Mark Stamm, it states:
General Guidelines: Public performances serve as a capstone project for students to showcase their dedication, determination, and talents for their peers and for their families. Performances must be age appropriate for participating students and audiences. Material that is generally considered offensive, suggestive, or demeaning based on race, religion, age, gender, or sexual orientation is not appropriate for school performances.
The first sentence of the policy, describing “showcasing dedication, determination, and talents,” is nicely affirmative – until one notices that there’s no mention of learning or growth, which would seem essential in any school activity, even at South Williamsport, where the drama program is extracurricular, and the drama director an outside contractor, not a teacher. That said, any adult working with young people in a leadership position is a teacher, accredited or not.
However, it’s worth noting that there is a mission statement for the drama program on the school’s website which admirably speaks to deeper value. It reads:
Our mission is to provide students with the opportunity to better themselves through the Arts. Whether it is onstage or backstage, in the production crew or artistic departments, theater helps all people more deeply understand our place in our modern, multicultural, globalized world.
As an aside: finding the drama information on the school website isn’t entirely logical. While there’s a section for clubs, which includes “Yearbook,” “Chemistry,” “Student Council” and “Songwriters and Musicians,” it doesn’t include “Drama.” The Athletic Program has its own site, with its own URL separate from the school district’s. But “Drama” falls under “Departments,” along with “Guidance” and “Nurse,” to which it seems wholly unrelated. How very odd to set it apart in this way.
But returning to the Public Performance Policy, the second sentence isn’t particularly troublesome, so long as it is not used as a justification to infantilize students by feeding them dramatic pabulum. But it’s the third sentence sentence where things turn tricky. While the phrase about not demeaning any parties is admirable (although in their seeming haste, they neglected disability, among other concerns), the language which begins the sentence is limiting, yet vague. “Offensive” and “suggestive” are completely subjective, presumably to be determined according to Justice Stewart’s famous phrase about what constitutes obscenity: “I’ll know it when I see it.” But no two people probably agree about what is offensive, or what is suggestive.
If this policy is meant to be general guidance for teachers (and contractors), shouldn’t it be constructed as such? Wouldn’t it be better to use affirmative language about supporting and advancing society through inclusive representations of race, religion, age, gender, or sexual orientation, instead of saying it simply won’t demean people on those grounds? As it is now, the policy seems more a declaration for the public, and a very general yardstick that teachers might be struck with should they violate its amorphous tenets. Since the school already has a practice of the principal approving the drama productions, it seems that process would presumably address content concerns, based upon reading the text and exploring productions and educational materials from other schools as aids, but in an open dialogue that would negate the need for future Right To Know inquiries. That said, I don’t favor shows going to any manner of public vote, and school boards shouldn’t decide play selection any more than they tell a coach what athletic plays to run.
I wonder, however, where the concerns were when the South Williamsport High School did Grease and Once Upon A Mattress? Certainly there are those who would find the plot points about pregnancy out of wedlock in those shows both offensive and suggestive. Grease, frankly, is rife with suggestiveness, at least as I construe it, but I don’t happen to find it offensive; but it was more than enough to cause a school in Missouri, following a 2006 production, to cancel the next show on the schedule: The Crucible. What about Urinetown, produced at the school in 2009? All that talk of toilets and body functions must have offended the sensibilities of some in South Williamsport. The world’s most famous teen suicide story, Romeo and Juliet, was staged, but I wonder whether the school provided educational programs and material to students and the public about the dangers of romanticizing exactly the sort of behavior Shakespeare depicted?
Was everyone sanguine with the following plot points, drawn from two synopses on the website of the licensing house Music Theatre International:
Soon after, attractive and seductive women appear and slowly surround him (“With You”). At first, Pippin is enjoying the romanticism, however, the mood quickly changes and the women bombard him. Pippin is pulled into numerous exotic orgies.
* * *
Audrey has forgotten her sweater, and Orin slaps her around for it…. Orin then pulls out a container of laughing gas, complete with a gas mask and puts it on himself to get high… Seymour feeds Orin’s body parts to the plant.
Obviously they passed muster, because Pippin and Little Shop of Horrors were produced at the school before Dawn Burch was hired. With this new policy, could any of the aforementioned shows be done again? Indeed, since there are – sad to say and sad as it is – still people who find homosexuality offensive, would LGBT life in any play or musical be precluded from the South Williamsport stage in deference to their reactionary sensibilities?
At the EdTA conference, I repeatedly counseled teachers to cultivate open and honest communication about their work with their department heads, their principals, even their superintendents if possible. Support for sports seems a given at our schools, but support for all of the arts, and it seems theatre in particular, must be developed over time – and started anew each time a key leadership position changes personnel.
When cancelations emerge from behind school doors into the public consciousness, locally and nationally, genuine rifts inside school communities and even entire towns are always possible, with long-lasting and detrimental effects on drama programs. Some schools, such as in Everett MA, do away with drama altogether, deciding a fair and open discussion about dramatic value is simply a nuisance – and therefore the program is as well. Yet are sports shut down when a student is seriously injured, publicly? No. In the case of football, it remains celebrated, even as data on traumatic brain injury mounts, because athletic prowess and competition is honored. It is the thought and expression of theatre that seems to be the dangerous undertaking in so many instances.
Another question I now field with some regularity is whether it’s wise to speak up publicly about these conflicts, bringing them broader attention than they might otherwise receive. My response is that it does carry risk, but if people believe in the power of theatre to not only entertain but educate, in the best interest of the participating students first and foremost, staying silent only allows repression to flourish, and for students to be consigned to the blandest, safest, time-worn work possible. And doesn’t Wicked (among countless works of literature) teach us about the dangers of people working behind the scenes, censoring, excluding, supposedly in the best interest of the community at large?
Having cited Wicked twice, let me finish with a few lyrics that hark back to L. Frank Baum’s Oz stories. I think this pair of couplets, devised by master satirist Tom Lehrer almost 50 years ago, speak simply and directly to slippery words like “offensive” and “suggestive.”
When correctly viewed
Everything is lewd,
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz, there’s a dirty old man.
Almost as quickly as the Into The Woods trailer appeared, my social media feeds were filled with an anguished refrain: where are the songs? Yes, the core audience felt betrayed, even though I suspect every person who was moved to write already knows the score by heart.
What those of us who love theatre in general, musicals in particular, and Sondheim most of all have to remember is that, sadly, we are not representative of the majority of moviegoers, and movie marketers have to throw a wide net. Those of us who flock to watch the trailer of Into The Woods are already committed to seeing it, no matter how much we may want to grouse about it. The film studios are trying to reach a much wider crowd, for whom the sight of stars singing may be off-putting, strange as such a thought may be to those of us who are ready to belt out a show tune at the slighted prompting. It’s also possible that we’ll get a more representative trailer as the film draws closer.
Minimizing the musical theatre connection has certainly been true for movie musicals for some time. It’s almost as though marketers are trying to slip the fact that people sing past potential audiences. Unlike Into The Woods, which does seem more like a moody tour of the film’s production design than anything, music is prominently featured in countless trailers, even for non-musical films, and sometimes with music that isn’t ever heard in the film. But when it comes to seeing people sing, let’s keep that quiet, shall we? We can hear singing in trailers, and see people moving their lips, but not in sync. Take a look at the trailer for Hairspray as an example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ53mRO80c0
Dancing, apparently, isn’t so problematic. The Dancing with the Stars effect has probably only increased its appeal. Another example is Mamma Mia! which looked as if it was a romantic comedy with a bunch of Abba songs on the soundtrack, rather than a story told using Abba songs. One can understand why they wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see and hear Pierce Brosnan warbling, but the sight of master thespian Meryl Streep going to town on some Swedish pop might have added some appeal in its very incongruity.
Maybe Paramount knew the theatre purists were already on edge when they cut the trailer for Sweeney Todd, given the relative musical inexperience of the main cast (which many feel lived down to their expectations), which keeps vocals to a minimum. Despite that, more than most musical trailers, Sweeney actually gave us a real look at a bit of a song, “Epiphany,” spoke-sung by Johnny Depp (although we were halfway through the trailer before it was deployed). However that could easily be recognized as a fantasy sequence and seemingly not the style of the whole film. Overall the trailer hewed closer to the Hammer Films homage that director Tim Burton had appropriated for the Grand Guignol tale, and maybe a few Fangoria devotees were lured into a musical they’d have avoided otherwise.
It’s not that we don’t get a few glimpses of people singing in some trailers, but in the quick-cut style that brings them flash and energy, there is a certain “blink or you’ll miss it” quality, even when the making of music is central to the plot, as in the Dreamgirls trailer, where one would think performance footage of a superstar like Beyoncé would actually be a plus.
The incongruity of Eddie Murphy singing may be why we saw a bit of exactly that in Dreamgirls, and the same rationale may have applied to Depp in Sweeney, as well as Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellwger as the merry murderesses in the trailer of Chicago. For Zellweger, the singing was new; for Zeta-Jones it was part of her professional background, but before she became a star. Perhaps singing from people we least expect to sing has marketing value.
Mind you, this fear extends to movies that aren’t musicals but tell musical stories and in which the main characters are known to us precisely because they’re singers. The flash of the trailer for the just-released Get On Up, about James Brown, gives us glimpses of his energetic performances and we hear his music along with narration and dialogue, but lips actually moving along with the songs go largely unseen. Of course, given the subterfuge with which actual musicals are being marketed, I can’t help but wonder whether some audiences see this and think, “Uh, I dunno. I think they’re trying to slip one of those durned musicals by us.”
As much as we purists might be desperate to see musical scenes as quickly as possible, we can be fairly sure that the film itself will be a musical, even if it has been adapted and altered from its stage version. The example of Irma la Douce, one of the very few musicals to be adapted for the screen without the songs, is unlikely to recur.
So what about original musicals for the screen? To be fair, original live action film tuners are scarce, except for animation, where, since Disney’s The Little Mermaid, a mini-song score seems de rigeur. But is that a selling point? On the basis of the trailer for Frozen, which ultimately drilled Idinia Menzel’s “Let It Go” into the brains of millions of kids and their parents worldwide, even Disney wasn’t sure that the massively successful score was going to bring in the crowd. The film seemed to be the story of one girl, one boy and one talking snowman. However, to be fair, even though they hid it, the word got out about the exceptional songs.
The trailer for Les Miserables did show us Anne Hathaway as the doomed Fantine singing “I Dreamed A Dream,” in fact it’s all we hear as we watch that trailer – all of the other visuals that are laid over it could easily come from a non-musical. No warbling Wolverine here. Perhaps, to the handful of people in the world who have managed to escape any knowledge of the stage musical, this one song could be an isolated case. But this trailer more than any demonstrates the marketing tactic that prevails: don’t make it look too much like a musical in the hope of capturing some people who may not like musicals, and as for the core audience, we’ll throw ‘em a bone.
I wish I could recall which Twitter wit I read who compared movie trailers without songs to foreign film trailers without dialogue, since I would like to credit them for that very astute observation. But it’s worth noting that foreign films are financed and produced abroad, then picked up for distribution over here; the Hollywood studios shoulder vastly greater risk when they release musicals. While I’m fairly grouchy about the studios these days, with the endless remakes, sequels and films from dystopian young adult novels (thanks Mark Harris for that), I really am willing to give them a lot of leeway on musicals, to a degree on how they adapt them, but certainly on how they sell them. For perspective: if a musical sells 600,000 tickets in a year, it’s a smash; if a movie musical sells 600,000 tickets in its first week, it’s a disappointment. And after all, if a trailer whets our appetite for a movie musical, we can always fire up the iPod, or our Sondheim channel, and listen and sing along to our heart’s content until the movie comes out. After all, haven’t we been doing that already?
Incidentally, we’re getting two musicals this Christmas. In addition to Into The Woods, everybody’s favorite orphan is back, and on the basis of the trailer, while it’s hard to know what’s been done with the story and most of the score, at least we know it will still be a hard knock life tomorrow, though we may not be entirely sure of who’s singing.
One of the many achievements of Ira Glass’s This American Life is that it is a longform approach to storytelling, whether personal or reportorial. By not dumbing down, by not sound-biting, it has become one of the most acclaimed and honored radio programs of this generation, and has turned Glass himself into a well-recognized individual, both by voice and face. As a purveyor of subtlety, nuance, compassion and depth, Glass has connected with a significant community that is desirous of something greater than the clamor of most of what we consume in the media.
So I was very disappointed to discover these tweets this morning:
If there had been only a single tweet dissing Shakespeare, I might have let it pass. But the fact that Glass doubled down makes it worthy of comment. That holds true even if Glass isn’t particularly skilled at Twitter, and didn’t realize that his tweet to John Lithgow was a public message, instead of a private missive. But with his more than 83,000 Twitter followers, and his position as an influential figure in the media, it’s worth taking a moment to respond to what Glass wrote.
I hope that, had it not been 12:15 am, Glass might have realized that perhaps what he wanted to say was, “I, Ira Glass, don’t like Shakespeare. I don’t find his work relatable.” That’s a Twitter-friendly message, and while it’s one which might surprise me, it’s one with which I couldn’t quibble. He could have simply added “IMHO” (that’s “In My Humble Opinion” in social media speak).
I should share that, like many who go to the theatre a great deal, I have a level of Shakespeare fatigue, especially with the parade of Macbeths and Lears we’ve had in New York over the past few years. But, the fatigue for me is play by play; I don’t think anything would keep me from a reasonable diet of well-done Much Ados and Twelfth Nights, such is the pleasure I find in those plays.
Clarke Peters & John Lithgow in King Lear (photo: Joan Marcus)
I’ve never studied Shakespeare in any structured way, so it would be very difficult for me to make the intellectual and educational argument on behalf of the Bard. But there are literally thousands of books and professors and even autodidacts who would happily do so, and I have a strong suspicion that Glass is going to be hearing from them as today wears on.
I’ll just take a moment to suggest that, perhaps, Glass doesn’t fully understand, smart as he certainly is, the difference between a play and a production. Shakespeare provides the words of what he’s seen, but each interpretation varies. Perhaps he hasn’t seen Shakespeare productions that illuminate the words in ways that speak directly to him. Trust me, I know that there are plenty of those. That said, maybe he’ll never like any of the plays, no matter how they’re done. Never ever.
Mark Rylance as Richard III
I haven’t seen Lithgow’s Lear yet (it just started performances last week, by the way) and to be honest, if it weren’t for John (and for Jessica Hecht), I doubt I’d be going. I liked The Globe Theatre’s Twelfth Night with Mark Rylance rather well, though I didn’t care for the Richard III. But the fact is, I’d really be perfectly content to not see Richard III ever again. I don’t care for the play, an opinion forged over many productions, but I certainly don’t dismiss it. I’d look very foolish if I did.
Don’t think I’m trying to make the case for Shakespeare all the time. Our theatres need much more variety, even if school curriculums insure steady group sales for Shakespeare productions, and even if the lack of royalty costs makes them slightly more economical (balanced to some degree by their cast size, though I’ve seen the plays done on occasion with casts as small as five). It’s just that this sweeping generalization from someone who seems such advocate of the arts – and of considered thought and messaging – strikes me unfortunate, since it reinforces the prejudices of others, and even justifies them.
Look I get it, we all don’t like the same things, and frankly, when we’re told it’s good for us, we’re probably even less inclined to like something. We might also be hype-averse, from being told something is the best ever, part of the common online lexicon these days, but also the opinion of many when it comes to Shakespeare. And no matter what the build-up, no matter how much exposure we do or don’t get, there are creative endeavors we each don’t like, for whatever reason. Irrevocably. And that’s O.K.
I will ceaselessly defend Ira Glass’s right to publicly and vocally dislike Shakespeare. But as someone whose voice is amplified and respected, I just wish he’d said that he was sharing his opinion, not declaring an absolute.
Addendum, July 28, 5:45 pm: I just learned that Ira Glass was asked by Entertainment Weekly whether he stands by last night’s anti-Shakespeare tweets. His response: “That was kind of an off-the-cuff thing to say that in the cold light of day, I’m not sure I can defend at all.” So why say anything at all, Ira? He has not, however, sent any further tweets at this point on the subject to suggest that he might have been off the mark.
Perhaps you knew it as a place to cool off, use the bathroom or grab some free wi-fi. You may have passed through it on your way to an office in the building known variously as 1560 Broadway, 165 West 46th Street, or the Equity Building, for which it has been a lobby while construction shut down the regular side street entrance. I’m referring to the Times Square Visitors Center, which closed its doors suddenly three weeks ago.
In recent years, it has hosted meetings and events, allowed tourists a close up look at one of the Waterford crystal New Year’s Eve balls, and had a small exhibition of Broadway memorabilia. But if you looked beyond that, you could see the vestiges of the intimate Embassy Theatre, a movie house which opened in the pre-sound era of 1925, a bit ahead of many of the grand movie palaces that were about to proliferate. Landmarked in 1987, it was the smallest of the more than 300 theatres designed by Arthur Lamb. Of particular note is that it was built as a high-end theatre for women, with an all-female staff.
Throughout its days as the Visitors Center, from 1998 to 2014, its exquisite details remained intact, if you looked beyond the tourism information booth, the endlessly replayed newsreel highlights clips, the faux peep show and the glowing ball in the center of the space. Given its landmark status, these features should remain preserved, even as the space is converted, reportedly, into a retail opportunity of some kind. Just in case some of the features are protected but obscured in the space’s newest incarnation, here’s a small selection of photos from this lovely gem, taken just after it was closed to the general public and sat in semi-darkness, while those of us who worked above passed through it for a few more days.
On July 2, I wrote about a situation at South Williamsport, Pennsylvania’s Jr/Sr High School, where a production of Monty Python’s Spamalot, slated for 2015, was canceled, reportedly due to its gay content. A number of news items and opinion pieces were written about the cancelation, with particular attention paid to a statement that homosexuality doesn’t exist in the community. However, the television station which first reported the story subsequently repudiated that portion of its report, saying the statement had not been made. They stood by the rest of their account, which relied primarily on an interview with Dawn Burch, the school’s drama director.
So, nearly two weeks later, where do things stand?
As originally reported, Burch asserted that the principal’s cancelation was attributable to gay content in Spamalot, which he communicated to her in an e-mail. Burch sought legal counsel regarding her right to release that communication, and she has yet to share it, presumably on the advice of counsel. So the reported smoking gun that could prove or disprove anti-gay bias on the part of the South Williamsport district and/or the school administration has not been revealed.
However, the state of Pennsylvania has very clear “right to know” laws, available to both state residents and non-residents alike. Consequently, this morning, I filed a request for all documents and communications regarding the musical, in particular any communications between Burch, superintendent Dr. Mark Stamm, principal Jesse Smith and the licensing house Theatrical Rights Worldwide. According to Pennsylvania law, upon receiving a request, an agency has five days in which to either accede to or deny a request, with subsequent appeals processes.
As I was filing, I learned from a press report that another entity had filed the same type of request on July 10. While the source of the request was not identified, based upon their submission date, they should get an answer by tomorrow or at the latest Thursday, depending upon when exactly they submitted it. Without knowing who requested the material, it’s impossible to know whether they will make the response, successful or not, public. But at this point, I’m in the secondary position for an answer.
In the meantime, Equality Central PA had held a conference of support for gay rights on July 3 in Williamsport, which was attended by superintendent Stamm and school board president John Engel, as well as Dawn Burch. The event was by all accounts a positive one. But additional news reports included statements which suggested that Spamalot was only one play under consideration and had not in fact been selected and approved. Yet the superintendent said the play was canceled to avoid controversy, without specifying what he found to be controversial. While officials can’t even agree on whether the play was ever approved or was in fact canceled, the lack of approval claim is in direct contradiction of the statement I received from licensor Theatrical Rights Worldwide, that made clear that a license had been granted, which surely required both a contract and an advance payment (I don’t imagine any school enters into contracts for multiple shows while they wait to make a final decision). While Burch may have signed the agreement, surely someone from the district with authority signed the deposit check; it will be interesting to learn who approved that payment.
Last night, at a school board meeting in South Williamsport, the receipt of the first Right To Know request was acknowledged. However it appears the only public comment beyond that was that it had been referred to “the district’s solicitor.” As expected, they’ve lawyered up. For the record, my attorney received my e-mailed records request concurrently with the school district.
FYI: here’s an interesting tidbit. Under Pennsylvania’s Open Records Policy, every state and local agency must appoint an Open Records Officer. For the South Williamsport School district, that officer is Superintendent Stamm, not an outsider, ombudsman or impartial arbiter. I can’t help but suspect the documents won’t be quickly forthcoming.
And so, we wait, either for Dawn Burch to be assured that by releasing the e-mail she will not be putting herself at professional or personal risk or liability, or for the school system to release the e-mail, voluntarily or compelled to do so by law, the content of which they have not explicitly denied.
To be continued.
Addendum, July 19, 2014: When I got home last evening, I had mail from the South Williamsport Area School District, dated and postmarked on July 16. It acknowledged receipt of my request for records under the Right-to-Know Law and said that the request was under review. However, it was most specifically a “Notice of extension for time to respond to request,” citing the following reasons: 1) “Your request for access may require redaction of public records,” and 2) “A legal review is necessary to determine whether the requested record is a public record subject to access under the law.” The letter further states that, “The School District expects to provide a response to you on or before Monday, August 21, 2014. If the school district fails to provide you with a final decision within that time period, your written request is deemed denied.” It is signed, “Dr. Mark Stamm, Superintendent and Open Records Officer.”
And so, in accordance with the applicable Pennsylvania law, I must wait. If the request is denied, I have the right of appeal, at which point the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records becomes involved. As I wrote previously, I doubted I’d get an immediate, affirmative response to my request, so while this is frustrating, it is not surprising. I suspect that many people don’t have the patience to see freedom of information and open records requests through to the end. However, I am not one of those people.
Addendum, July 31, 2014: Equality Central PA has issued an update regarding their press conference from July 3 and their written offer to work collaboratively with the South Williamsport Area School District “in order to foster a more inclusive environment for all students.” The update states, in part: “Dr. Stamm responded to the letter promptly, and Equality Central PA is now in discussions on how this new partnership will move forward together. As next steps are determined, details and updates will continued to be shared.” The update concludes with a note, stating, “It has been made known that two separate organizations have filed “Right-To-Know requests relating to the e-mails from Principal Smith to drama director Dawn Burch. Equality Central PA is not involved in those inquiries, but will share whatever information becomes available.”
“I chop down trees, I wear high heels, suspenders and a bra.
I wish I’d been a girlie, just like my dear papa.”
My friends and I happily sang those Monty Python lyrics, at the drop of a hat, throughout our teen years, identifying with Michael Palin’s exuberant character, rather than the men who walked away from him in dismay. Yes, we’d seen men dress as women in comedy sketches, but those were burlesques, painted in broad, garish strokes. There had never been a declaration of donning women’s garb as a part of regular life, let alone by a macho character like a lumberjack.
In my little gang of friends, we didn’t necessarily know or talk much about homosexuality, which was decidedly less open in our suburban lives in the 70s (though one of our group later came out, to little surprise from any of us). We also hadn’t heard of terms like transvestitism or cross-dressing. Remarkable as it may seem, Monty Python may have played a key role in raising our consciousness, even more so when we learned, in the following decade, that Python’s Graham Chapman was gay, sadly lost too young to cancer.
So it’s particularly galling, more than three decades later, to find that South Williamsport Junior/Senior High School in Pennsylvania has just shut down an intended production of Monty Python’s Spamalot reportedly because of its gay content. WNEP News paraphrases the school’s drama director, Dawn Burch, as saying, “school officials dropped the musical because of its homosexual themes, according to an email she says she received.” WNEP quotes the superintendent as saying, “We want our performances to be appropriate for the student performers and audiences so that anyone participating or watching can enjoy all aspects of the show.” There’s no indication of what he finds inappropriate or unenjoyable.
I have already reached out to Burch, as well as to the school’s superintendent, for comment; I’ve received no replies as I write a few hours later. I would very much like to read exactly what the e-mail that nixed the production said. The language needs to be brought out into the open. But if Burch’s characterization is accurate, it marks the first time I’ve encountered a school explicitly saying that gay content caused cancellation of a show; the language is usually veiled, with references to mature themes, difficult material or, as even the WNEP report is headlined, “questionable content.”
The WNEP piece continues, “In that email, Burch says the principal wrote that homosexuality does not exist in a conservative community such as South Williamsport.”
If the principal believes that, then he is standing with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad who denied that homosexuality existed in his country during a 2007 speech at Columbia University. He is backing the rationale of Russia’s Vladimir Putin who has outlawed the “promotion” of homosexuality. That’s a very strange cast of characters for any high school principal to be aligned with, especially in such a conservative community.
While I’ll grant that there’s some language in Spamalot that a combined junior and senior high school might have some concerns about, they certainly could take those moments up with the licensing house, Theatrical Rights Worldwide. In fact, TRW already has an FAQ with suggested edits for schools right on its website (click here, then ‘Resources,’ then ‘FAQ for School Productions’).
But the marriage of the characters Herbert and Lancelot is non-negotiable. I asked Jim Hoare, director of licensing for TRW, whether they would ever entertain the excision of those nuptials, and his answer was blunt: “Absolutely not.” Hoare said that hundred of schools perform Spamalot annually.
This news is just breaking, and I’m writing with limited information at what I suspect and hope is the start of a story, not the end. One facet to be explored: Dawn Burch’s husband Samuel is on the district Board of Education, and both are active in community theatre as well, so there may well be support for the show above the level of superintendent.
Despite this coming to light just before a national holiday (gee, didn’t Trumbull High cancel their production of Rent right before Thanksgiving?), it must survive the weekend festivities, on a wave of deserved outrage. School may not be in session, but hopefully the students can organize, like students in Trumbull High School in Connecticut, like students at Timberlane High in New Hampshire, via social media, to increase pressure on the narrow-minded, retrograde administration.
That any educator or school administrator is still denying gay love and gay life in 2014, that a school would cancel a show in a move designed both implicitly and explicitly to shame and frighten any gay student, teacher or person, is simply ugly and wrong. It’s worth noting that in the very first news piece on this, reporter Kristina Papa quickly found people to counter the principal’s alleged, now retracted, assertion about gay life in South Williamsport, which must have really startled the blinkered administration.
It’s worth noting that gay marriage is legal in Pennsylvania. So it is ironic that, as they marry in Spamalot, Lancelot says to his spouse, “Just think, Herbert, in a thousand years time this will still be controversial.”
I guess Tim the Soothsayer had warned Lancelot about South Williamsport, PA. But maybe we can change history, if we raise our voices together.
I urge you to write Superintendent Dr. Mark Stamm (mstamm@swasd.org) and Principal Jesse Smith (jsmith@swasd.org) to voice your concerns (and please share your correspondence with me, if you’re willing, at howard [at] hesherman [dot] com. But I ask that you do so respectfully, even if the district doesn’t afford the same respect in its attitudes and actions.
Addendum, July 3, 5 pm: WNEP now reports that the principal did not make the statement about “homosexuality not existing.” I have left the material in place with the text and my rhetoric about it struck through, because I cannot deny having shared that original report or that I made statements resulting from it, but to show that they are also no longer supported by facts in evidence. Disclosure of the e-mail at the root of this controversy seems more essential than ever, and it should be noted that the school administration certainly has the legal right to disclose it should it wish to do so.
For those who do read the original WNEP story, it should be noted that the local resident and parent, Manny Tskitas, who makes several statements in support of the school administration’s position and questions the play choice, is also a staff member of the South Williamsport school district, as the librarian for grades K through 6. It would have been beneficial if WNEP had noted his affiliation.
Correction, July 5, 7:30: The original version of this post stated that Graham Chapman died of AIDS. That was an error and the text has been updated with accurate information.
When Randy Newman’s Faust receives a one-night concert presentation this week as part of City Center’s Encores! Off Center series, its NYC debut could be the end of the road or a new beginning for this two decade old musical conceived by the prolific songwriter, whose early 70s songwriting fame has been eclipsed in many peoples’ minds by his popular film scores. Having started as a 1993 concept album featuring Newman, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Elton John and others, the show, co-written by David Mamet, made it to the stage of the La Jolla Playhouse in 1995 and then to Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 1996, under the direction of Michael Greif, in the same period that saw the launch of the Greif-directed Rent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1OPPi9e6LU
Over the years, there have been countless musicals created by or utilizing the music of rock and pop stars, from Paul Simon and Trey Anastasio to Abba and Elton John. But a handful of projects tied to popular recording artists have been launched around the U.S. and in England that, like Faust, never made it to New York. Here’s a quick rundown of some you may not know about.
The Education of Randy Newman/Harps & Angels
The lure of Randy Newman’s music has tempted many to want to bring it to the stage, and there have been two other efforts that didn’t get to NYC. The Education of Randy Newman played at South Coast Rep in 2000 and resurfaced at ACT in Seattle in 2002. Harps and Angels played at the Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum in 2010. The first show was an attempt to tell the story of Newman’s musical family, conceived by Michael Roth, Jerry Patch and Newman. At South Coast, it was directed by Myron Johnson and the cast included Alison Smith, Scott Waara, Jennifer Leigh Warren; in Seattle it was directed by Gordon Edelstein and Johnson and the cast included Daniel Jenkins and William Katt. Harps & Angels was conceived by Jack Viertel and directed by Jerry Zaks; the cast included Storm Large, Michael McKean and Katey Sagal.
What’s most surprising about these two attempts at a Newman revue is that there had already been a moderately successful one that did play New York long before either of the others were developed, back in 1982. First seen in NYC at the Astor Place Theatre, Maybe I’m Doing It Wrong was conceived and directed by Joan Micklin Silver, and the cast included Mark Linn-Baker and Deborah Rush. It was subsequently produced at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1984 in a revised production that featured Melanie Chartoff, Dann Florek, Dee Hoty and Paul McCrane under the direction of Susan Cox.
Zapata
For roughly a decade from the mid-60s to mid-70s, Harry Nilsson was at the top of his game as a singer songwriter, with multiple hit albums and chart-topping songs both for himself and other artists. He even created a made for television children’s cartoon, The Point, with a musical score that is indelibly remembered by those watching TV in the early 70s and now licensed for stage production. He also wrote the charming songs for the otherwise problematic Popeye movie with Robin Williams. But as chronicled in the recent documentary Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talking About Him)?, he was also an alcoholic who sabotaged his voice, his career and his health. His one stage effort, Zapata, about the famed Mexican revolutionary, never made it past a tryout run at the Goodspeed Opera House in 1980. Of course, part of the problem may have been Nilsson and his friend Ringo Starr spending more time at the Gelston House bar next door to Goodspeed than in the theatre itself. And in one of its more incongruous quirks, Zapata had its genesis in an idea from musical comedy star and game show host Bert Convy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cbm4w5IsGE
80 Days
A jukebox musical about the early days of The Kinks, Sunny Afternoon, is headed into the West End after a successful run at the Hampstead Theatre in London, but it’s not the first musical to feature songs by Ray Davies. 80 Days, an adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around The World In 80 Days by Davies and playwright Snoo Wilson (who replaced Barrie Keeffe) was offered up by the La Jolla Playhouse back in 1988; it trod a path forged decades earlier by no less than Orson Welles and Cole Porter, whose Broadway Around The World managed 75 performances in 1946. In La Jolla, 80 Days featured Timothy Landfield and Stephen Bogardus under Des McAnuff’s direction.
Our House
Among the leading lights of ska music for decades, the band Madness’s catalogue of hits were the basis for the musical Our House, an Ayckbournian musical that showed how one man’s life could go in two very different directions (long before If/Then). With a book by Tim Firth and directed by Matthew Warchus, the show was the surprise winner of the Olivier Award for Best Musical in 2003, beating out Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bombay Dreams and Taboo. It wasn’t a long-running West End smash, but it has proven popular enough that its tenth anniversary was marked by a West End concert that reunited many of the original cast members and also featured Madness frontman Suggs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndnxGlGVxZM
We Will Rock You
We Will Rock You may well be the most successful rock musical to never play New York. Despite being critically reviled, it chalked up an 11-year West End run based on the popularity of the Queen catalogue, despite Ben Elton’s outlandish sci-fi storyline. It’s worth noting that the show has also toured the U.S. and played an extended run in Las Vegas, so New York may be one of the only major U.S. cities to have not been rocked by the show. Presumably it will also never see the sequel, which is reportedly in the works.
Yentl
Isaac Bashevis Singer’s cross-dressing heroine may have been heard by her Poppa over 30 years ago on film, but just last year she sang on stage at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Florida using a score by Jill Sobule, of “I Kissed A Girl Fame.” No word on whether there’s any future life for the project, which used Leah Napolin’s non-musical play for its book and was directed by Gordon Greenberg.
Girlfriend
You might want to say I’m cheating because it did make it to Joe’s Pub, but Todd Almond’s reworking of Matthew Sweet songs into a coming of age romance hasn’t had a major outing in NYC on a legit stage. First seen at Berkeley Rep in 2012 and then in 2013 at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Almond took Sweet’s rocking and plaintive songs of alternately angry and mournful romance (the album included a love song to Winona Ryder) and made it a two-character musical for two young men.
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
This column would have been vastly briefer if it hadn’t been for the La Jolla Playhouse, which could lay claim to being the American theatre that sits most squarely and the intersection of musical theatre and popular music (let’s not forget two of their successes, including Jersey Boys and Tommy). Former artistic director Des McAnuff collaborated with Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne on this futuristic tale using songs by the Lips; the theatre’s website synopsized the show thusly: “Yoshimi must choose between two boyfriends, but first she’s got to take down an army of pink robots. This magical tale of love and the struggle for survival is a poignant and humanistic story.” No word on whether our robot overlords will reach Manhattan.
The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County
The idea of Stephen King and John Mellencamp collaborating on a musical sounded pretty exciting when it was first announced, but after their show debuted at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater Company in 2012, many people realized that a musical created by people who had no experience writing a musical, or for that matter, for the stage, might be somewhat problematic. The following year, the show went out of tour in a pared down concert version, reversing the route of shows that showcase their wares in concerts before moving to full production. It suggests that the Ghost Brothers will be confined in little pink houses under a dome for the foreseeable future.
* * *
I have no doubt that this rundown is incomplete. By all means, add other examples, including video links whenever possible, in the comments section below.
“Off record tip: Wondering if you’ve noticed that there’s someone missing from the Women’s Project masthead on their website.”
That’s the direct messaged tweet I received yesterday morning. Another one with essentially the same content, came in the early afternoon, from a separate individual. Of course, by that time, I’d already perused the Women’s Project Theater masthead.
It was readily apparent what I was being led to discover. The name that was missing was that of Julie Crosby, who had been named the company’s managing director in November 2005 and became the company’s producing artistic director in 2007. Her name was gone from the staff list, as was her biography.
The funny thing is, I couldn’t find a single press announcement of her departure, on their site or via Google news search. That fact, and the reticence of my correspondents to even directly come out and tell me why they were writing seemed odd. I was intrigued, but I’m in the midst of a big grant application in my day job, so I had to table my curiosity until early evening.
Since that time, I have sent two e-mails to Bruce Cohen, publicist for the Women’s Project, inquiring about this leadership transition. As I publish this, more than 14 hours since my first inquiry to him, I’ve had to no response. I wrote early this morning to Arlene Scanlan, co-chair of the Women’s Project board of directors, at her work e-mail as published on her business website. No reply.
However, after two Facebook messages to Crosby, I received the following statement from her: “I poured my heart, soul, and brainpower into Women’s Project Theater for nearly a decade. It was my privilege and dream to lead the theater and work with so many extraordinarily talented women theater artists, and I’m incredibly proud of how much we accomplished. I would never resign.”
Julie Crosby
So there’s no doubt that Crosby is no longer at the Women’s Project Theater. She has not said that she was fired, but suggests that she did not depart voluntarily.
Jessica R. Jenen, who I know from her tenure at Classic Stage, is now listed as “interim executive producer.” As recently as April, Jenen was identified by the Women’s Project as “executive consultant.”
Several people I spoke with who declined to be named suggested that some, if not all, of the Women’s Project Theater advisory board have resigned. I am unable to confirm this officially. One advisory board member who was willing to speak on the record, agent Beth Blickers, would only say to me, “Julie Crosby has my absolute and utter support and it seems short sighted to me that she is not still the head of that organization.”
Another advisory board member, who counts me among her more than 3,000 Facebook friends, yesterday posted to her wall, “Ironic and depressing that in this crucial time for women artists in the theater that cultural organizations of, for and by women act in destructive ways to that intent…really really bad timing.” But maybe it’s just a coincidence that it appeared when it did; I do not name her because of the grey area of quoting from Facebook posts that may not be fully public.
In the absence of any further detail or comments from the company, all I can do is speculate, based on having followed institutional transitions at arts organizations for many years. I infer from Crosby’s careful statement that the parting was not amicable. The lack of any company announcement, or prepared statement, intimates that the separation was abrupt, and that perhaps there are legal issues to be worked out. If indeed some or all of the advisory board, which is largely filled with artists and arts professionals, has resigned, it suggests the creative community of the company is at odds with the board of directors over what has transpired.
Women’s Project Theater productions
Whatever precisely has transpired, it strikes me as a particularly unfortunate time for one of the country’s premier theatre groups dedicated to plays by women, led by women, employing women artists and administrators in a range of positions, to be undergoing turmoil, however hushed it may be. Conversations about gender parity in the arts, and theatre specifically, continue to grow more eloquent and effective. The topic has been spotlighted most recently by the establishment of The Kilroys and their list of 46 recommended plays by women, for theatres that feel (inexplicably) that they haven’t been able to surface female-written plays to include in their seasons. Having been a leader in efforts on behalf of women in theatre since its establishment 36 years ago, the Women’s Project deserves to be at the forefront of these redoubled and essential efforts to eradicate the patriarchal structure of American theatre, not taking a bunker mentality to even their own work and operations. Other companies have to be taught to include women, even in 2014, while the Women’s Project has taken that as their mission from the very start.
If I am indeed letting a proverbial cat out of a bag with this post, then it’s fair to assume that more information will be forthcoming. I will update this post as warranted, in the genuine hope that both Crosby and the organization will emerge from whatever exactly is going on in a way that sustains their roles as strong advocates for women playwrights and all women in theatre.
I will conclude with one parting tip about transitions: if you don’t want people to know something is going on behind the scenes at your organization, don’t change your website until you’re ready to talk.
Note: while the comments section is open, I urge anyone wishing to post that I do my best to maintain constructive conversation on my site, so attacks will be removed, as will anonymously sourced criticisms of any party. If you want to shed light, do so in full light, not under cover of a pseudonym. Thanks.
Addendum, 11:30 am, June 26: I just received the following e-mail from Arlene Scanlan, co-chair of the Women’s Project board of directors:
We are discussing a release that will come via the WP. Bruce Cohen is not our current press agent.
It should be noted that, as I write, the Women’s Project’s website still lists Bruce Cohen as the press contact. While the site is being updated for an evolving situation, this change in the company’s media representation has not yet been amended to reflect its current status. My efforts to contact the company since yesterday evening were based on what their site states.
Addendum, 12:45 pm, June 26: The media page on the Women’s Project website now reflects that Marc Thibodeau at The Publicity Office is representing the company. I am reaching out to him for the statement that Scanlan indicated would be forthcoming.
Addendum, 5:15 pm, June 26: The Women’s Project, through Marc Thibodeau, provided me with a statement from its Board of Directors, concurrent with the issuance of a general press release by the company. The material in the statement which is not duplicated in the release reads:
Julie Crosby informed the Board via email on June 4 that she would be leaving her position as Producing Artistic Director and asked that we contact her attorney to discuss the terms of her departure. Since that time we have refrained from making a public statement in order to finalize those terms.
The general press release begins as follows:
WOMEN’S PROJECT THEATER LAUNCHES SEARCH FOR NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Women’s Project Theater has begun a national search for a new Artistic Director to lead the company for the coming 2014-15 season and beyond. The new Artistic Director will succeed Julie Crosby, who recently departed the company as Producing Artistic Director, a position she held since 2006. During her tenure, Ms. Crosby led and nurtured the institution immeasurably, producing more than 25 plays by women playwrights and directors, and championing the careers of its alumnae lab artists.
Women’s Project Theater’s Board of Directors remain steadfastly committed to the mission of the theatre founded by Julia Miles in 1978. For the last 36 years, WP has championed work by women theater artists and shall continue to do so for many years in the future.
In the interim, Jessica R. Jenen, the Tony-nominated producer and former Executive Director of Classic Stage Company, will move into the role of Interim Executive Producer during this transition period. Ms. Jenen was to have departed WP as Executive Consultant at the end of June, but will remain with the theater through the transition period to a new Artistic Director
The remainder of the release cites the many achievements of the company over the years.
The statement of course does not agree with Crosby’s assertion that she would “never resign,” so what has taken place remains unclear. The statement also does not address the resignation of advisory board members or, as some have suggested in comments below, members of the board itself. I suspect I will not be alone in asking for greater transparency from this essential company now that the situation has been forced into the open. The public, the theatre community and the artists both past and present who care about the vitality of the Women’s Project Theatre deserve a fuller explanation of what led to this parting.
Addendum, 10:45 pm, June 26: I just visited the Women’s Project website again, to look at the list of their advisory board. It no longer appears on the site. There is no indication that any advisory board remains part of the organization.
Addendum, July 23: The Women’s Project today announced the appointment of Lisa McNulty as their new producing artistic director. She has been the artistic line producer at Manhattan Theatre Club since 2006, and will begin at the Women’s Project in September. For the New York Times report of the announcement, click here.
The announcement that ArtsGreensboro, the service organization serving that North Carolina community, will be funding arts coverage in the Greensboro News & Record, is being portrayed as something akin to sponsorship of public radio programming.
Inspired by arts supporters who understood these realities, ArtsGreensboro invited the News & Record to explore how we might work together to increase arts coverage, including bringing back reviews of theater, dance, music and exhibitions.
The result is an innovative agreement similar to the underwriting model for public broadcasting. The News & Record maintains its editorial independence, while ArtsGreensboro helps make that expanded coverage possible — with no strings attached.
In our agreement, the News & Record has committed to publishing at least 70 stories about local arts topics during the next year. That’s 70 more stories than we would have published without this agreement.
I have no doubt that at the outset, everyone is going into this with the very best of intentions. Gauger addresses the potential for conflict, and conflict of interest, in a communication with journalism watchdog Jim Romanesko:
Of course we’ll cover ArtsGreensboro aggressively where our news values dictate that we must, even if the organization doesn’t welcome some of the coverage.
We’ve long been able to negotiate the occasional expectation from advertisers that doing business with us should create a safe zone for them. This is different only insofar as the underwriting support pays for news coverage directly while advertising support for journalism is one step removed. But the potential need to act independently in the face of complaints and even financial consequences would be no different in this case, given the right future circumstances.
I have a lot of questions, largely rhetorical, since it will take time for this new paradigm to play out.
1. Why has the News & Record been unable to do the arts coverage they’d like to do? I don’t know the paper, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they are not in conversation with any sports foundation to underwrite their athletic coverage. Are there other areas where their coverage has been diminished or eliminated and it will only be restored or expanded with support from an outside entity? Have the arts been singled out as uniquely disposable?
2. The public radio comparison seems a false equivalency, since the News & Record is a for-profit company. In fact, it’s owned, per Romanesko, by Warren Buffett. Instead of being comparable to foundation sponsorship of public radio programming, this is almost tantamount to ArtsGreensboro paying for “advertorial” space without control of what is said. In that sense, it’s a peculiar variant of “native advertising,” advertising that looks like actual editorial content, which is being explored by countless print outlets.
When The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports science programming on NPR (as I recall from many an on-air credit), they aren’t funding coverage of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The relationship at the News & Record is much more direct between funder and subject.
3. What if ArtsGreenboro, at some future date, experiences a funding problem, and can no longer sustain this underwriting? Does that mean the 70 pieces of arts reportage secured during the term of this first agreement will evaporate if the funding goes, and that journalists hired, full-time or freelance, will suddenly find themselves without work? The articles suggest that it was ArtsGreenboro who proposed this solution, so would the News & Record seek to replace that funding should it be lost, in order to maintain this new coverage?
4. Isn’t it possible that this plan will say to other newspapers, “Hey, you know that esoteric arts coverage? Those pages that generate very little advertising as compared with, say, the automotive section? Maybe someone will pay us to keep it in our paper. It worked in Greensboro.”? It’s not as if arts coverage isn’t already diminished across the country, so it would be easy for others to ape the Greensboro model.
5. I know from long experience that arts organizations generally have a bone to pick with their local critics, and often feature writers as well (I’m not validating this, just observing). What if the constituent organizations don’t like the quality or nature of the coverage they receive? What if some still feel left out? Even if the entities remain independent, couldn’t this lead to a brinksmanship situation where the arts might consider pulling their funding because the reportage simply isn’t up to snuff? But in doing so, will they then seal the fate of any future arts coverage?
6. If this arrangement is to be transparent to readers, arts organizations and other members of the media, has the cost of this sponsorship been made public? None of the pieces cited above make any mention of a price tag. I think that would be extremely informative, even if it did serve to provoke a new round of questions.
Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely want to see more and better arts coverage in all media, not just print. But the idea that journalism should be funded by the people and companies being covered seems contradictory to the very notion of an independent press, no matter how many “Chinese wall” or “church and state” metaphors you throw at it. If newspapers want outside funding in order to supplement the resources and insure the breadth of the reportage, perhaps they should consider becoming not-for-profit organizations themselves (this model does exist).
Is the arrangement between the News & Record and ArtsGreensboro an inspired solution to restore and preserve arts coverage, or has it just put that very coverage in major media on a slippery slope where money must change hands in order for the arts to be worthy of journalistic attention? Yes, I’m a skeptic. I hope my many fears are proven wrong.
Hands on a Hardbody at Houston’s Theatre Under The Stars
This statement came up not once but twice in my conversation with Bruce Lumpkin, artistic director of Houston’s Theatre Under The Stars and director of their current production of the musical Hands on a Hardbody. The comment arose when I asked Lumpkin specific questions about my communications with Hardbody creators Amanda Green and Doug Wright. Green, who attended the show’s opening at TUTS, detailed a fairly extensive list of alterations to the musical, none of which had been discussed with the authors or their licensing house prior to production.
[I should note from the outset that I was first made aware of the authors’ concerns by Bruce Lazarus, executive director of Samuel French, which licenses the show. He reached out to me because of my prior writing on the subject of authors’ rights and because we know each other from my one-year tenure in 2012-13 on the Samuel French advisory committee (two meetings; $500 total honorarium). I say this by way of full disclosure.]
Having attended the opening night of Hardbody at Lumpkin’s invitation, Green described to me her experience in watching the show. “They started the opening number and I noticed that some people were singing solos other than what we’d assigned. As we neared the middle of the opening number, I thought, ‘what happened to the middle section?’” She said that musical material for Norma, the religious woman in the story, “was gone.”
When the second song began, Green recalls being surprised, saying, “I thought, ‘so we did put this number second after all’ before realizing that we hadn’t done that.” As the act continued, Green said, “I kept waiting for ‘If I Had A Truck’ and it didn’t come.” She went on to detail a litany of ways in which the show in Houston differed from the final Broadway show, including reassigning vocal material to different characters within songs, and especially the shifting of songs from one act to another, which had the effect of removing some characters from the story earlier than before. She also said that interstitial music between scenes had been removed and replaced with new material. Having heard Green’s point by point recounting of act one changes, I suggested we could dispense with the same for act two.
Hands on a Hardbody on Broadway
When I asked Lumpkin about the nature of changes to the show. His response was, “I didn’t change lyrics, I didn’t change songs, I didn’t change dialogue. I only changed their order.” In response to my query as to why he felt he could make such shifts, Lumpkin cited having seen the show twice on Broadway and having seen the running order of songs as printed in the program each time differing, in addition to yet other song rundowns on inserts to the program.
“I thought that perhaps maybe I could put together a different order thinking that perhaps if they don’t like it I’ll put it back,” said Lumpkin. “There was no new vision for the show. It was just a matter of the order of the songs in the show. I knew there was a possibility they wouldn’t like it. I was totally upfront.”
Had he notified the authors or the licensing house in advance? “I guess I didn’t. I didn’t think changing the order with them coming [to the opening]. It wasn’t like cutting a number.” He continued, “I’ve done a lot of this before. I did this with Stephen Schwartz and Charles Strouse on Rags and they worked with me. But in that case it was about cutting some subplots and characters. When we did Godspell, I told Stephen Schwartz that the song order was kind of arbitrary and he let me work with it.”
I asked Lumpkin whether he would have made any changes to Hardbody, which he said he did over three days only after rehearsals had begun, if none of the authors had accepted his invitation to the opening. “Probably not,” he replied. “I wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. The only struggle they had was the order.” When I asked how he knew of the author’s “struggle,” he once again cited the various song lists he’d seen when attending the show on Broadway.
Lumpkin also suggested that there was some discrepancy between the score and the text he received, saying such things were common with licensed works. When I asked, “Did you ask for clarification from the source?” he responded, “No, I don’t think I’ve ever done that. I take their source material and we figure it out on our own.”
Hands on a Hardbody at Houston’s Theatre Under The Stars
Noting that I was asking a pointed question, I inquired, “Having signed a license agreement for the show, did you believe you had the legal and ethical right to make the changes you did?” Lumpkin declined to answer. But as we concluded our talk, he said that he knows how the authors feel, saying that he too had done original shows.
“I didn’t think that moving four numbers was a big deal. We’ve changed it back and I don’t think anyone in the audience knows the difference. Except me.”
However, Green had pointed out that opening night was also a press night. “He can say it can be turned back,” observed Green, “but it was already being reviewed that night.” And she clearly differs as to the extent of the changes.
Describing her post-show conversation with Lumpkin in Houston, Green says, “When it was over, I was flabbergasted. I had been planning to go to the cast party, but I couldn’t. Bruce came over to me and said, ‘I know you’re mad and I know you hate it, but you know it works better’.” Green continued: “He was pressuring me to make a decision and say I liked it. So I left.”
Green says she asked why Lumpkin hadn’t asked for permission and described his reply as, “He said he wanted to surprise us. He said the show wasn’t working at all.”
Describing her conversation with Doug Wright and their collaborator Trey Anastasio subsequent to seeing the show, Green said, “We wanted to have our show as written. We’d spent years building and honing it and had very specific character-driven moments. People didn’t just say things. We carefully crafted the show. We were taken aback and dismayed by his [Lumpkin’s] lack of respect and regard for copyright laws and our material.”
In response to a series of e-mailed questions about the changes as reported by Green, Doug Wright wrote, “I was stunned, especially because the changes were so egregious.” But because he hadn’t seen them firsthand, I asked him what he hoped directors and artistic directors might learn from the liberties taken with Hardbody at the outset of the short (June 12 to 22) TUTS run.
“Most playwrights welcome the rigorous, insightful interpretive choices that good directors routinely bring to their work,” Wright responded. “But authorial choices are ours, and ours alone. When I write for the movies, I do it with the knowledge that my words may be rearranged, changed, or even stricken; the studio pays me a small fortune, and in exchange, they hold the copyright to my work. In the theater, I’m paid next to nothing for a play…but I get something even more philosophically and artistically valuable: ownership of my own writing. I live with the assurance that my scripts won’t be altered in any way without my blessing. That’s the one reward the theater can truly offer writers. It should never be taken away.”
As it happens, TUTS is doing another Samuel French property later this summer, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. When I asked Lumpkin about a change that French’s Lazarus said had been proposed to the licensed script, he responded, “When they did the second national company [of Whorehouse], they put in the song “Lonely at the Top” which isn’t in the script now, but which was also added to the first national tour. It wasn’t a change. I talked to Pete Masterson about putting it back in the show and he said it was a great idea. I called Carol Hall and she said, ‘that’s a terrible idea’ and so we aren’t doing it.”
Hall’s account, via e-mail, differs significantly from Lumpkin’s matter-of-fact version.
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on Broadway
“‘Lonely At the Top’ was a song inserted into the show, written especially for a much beloved TV star (Larry Hovis) who was from Houston and was playing Melvin P. Thorpe in the Houston company. It was never in the Broadway production and was not meant for any other, only the one with Larry Hovis.
“In a telephone conversation a number of months ago, on another matter, Bruce Lumpkin asked how I would feel if the song were used in the up-coming TUTS production of the show. I told him I had never liked the song particularly, since it was never really necessary, and had only been put into the show because the authors had at the time wanted to accommodate Hovis, who had a large TV fan base. I told him I did not want the song to be in the show.
“Recently I heard a rumor that the song, in fact, was going to be in his production, so I called him to remind him he didn’t have permission to use it. Literally, in the first five minutes of the phone call, he became very upset, began to shout and claimed that I had told him he could “do whatever [he] wanted” with it. He was extremely arrogant and disrespectful and reasonable conversation was impossible, so much so that I eventually just hung up, something I’ve never done in any professional situation before.”
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Having not seen the production of Hands on a Hardbody in Houston, let alone having watched it with script and score in hand, I can’t adjudicate independently how the show there on opening night differed from the written version. When I asked Lumpkin why he thought the authors were asserting that sweeping changes had been made, he simply said it hadn’t happened. But there’s no question in any account that the show was altered by Lumpkin without any permission given by the authors, or even sought by TUTS. Despite his repeated statements to me about how wonderful the show is and how well it’s playing with his audiences, to my mind, protestations that reordering a musical does not rise to the level of “changes” strike me as semantic disingenuousness.
Given my prior writing, I won’t restate my conviction about authors’ rights, which align very closely with those expressed by Wright. While I have been challenged by theatre artists from other countries over my fealty to the concept of authorial primacy in many types of theatre, while artists in this country have suggested that I am hiding behind unfairly restrictive copyright law, I have been trained from the beginning of my career to honor and respect authors’ words (and music), and I remain unswayed by other arguments.
I also do not believe it should be incumbent upon authors and their representatives to endlessly travel the country insuring that their works have not been altered without authorization; it is impractical if not impossible. In fairness to Lumpkin, he wasn’t exactly trying to slip his changes by with the hope that no one would notice; he wouldn’t have invited the authors if that was the case. But even if his goals were as well-meaning and admiring as he claims, he didn’t take any initiative to confer with the authors about his intent, and showed his revision to audiences and the press before the authors could even consider his take on their show. That the author of another show asserts Lumpkin’s aggressive stance on a requested and denied change starts to suggest a troubling pattern at TUTS. It will certainly bring the company under greater scrutiny, but it should also serve as notice to other theatres and other directors that authors don’t take changes to their work lying down and that their rights will be asserted.
I have to ask: why risk conflict, why face extra expense, when communication and collaboration might yield the desired result? And let’s face it: I was able to get in touch with Green and Wright within three hours time. A professional theatre company is certainly capable of doing the same.
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Addendum: June 20, 12:15 pm Subsequent to this post being published at approximately 10:30 am, the Dramatists Guild issued a statement (read it in its entirety on the Guild site) recounting accepted professional practices regarding scripts, saying that the statement would be sent directly to Bruce Lumpkin at TUTS. It reads, in part:
Fortunately, most professional theaters respect authorship and the standards of the theater industry (and their own contractual obligations) by either asking for permission to make changes upfront or staging the work as written. They don’t want to run afoul of the licensing agents, nor do they want to bear the extra financial burden of having to stop performances and restage a production, or to endure the costs of litigation. Nor, we imagine, do they want to earn the enmity of playwrights everywhere, who have made ownership and control of their work the core value of their professional lives.
But there are some theaters that take a different tack in this regard. Those theaters engage in the practice of rewriting shows they present without authorial approval, in direct violation of the theater’s contractual obligations and industry standards. The Dramatists Guild of America, a national association representing the interests of over 7000 playwrights, composers and lyricists worldwide, vehemently and unequivocally objects to such illegal practices.
When we become aware of such a theater, we keep apprised of the theater’s ongoing activities and report on it to our membership and their representatives. We hope that writers, agents and publishers will consider this information when deciding whether or not to issue licenses for any works they represent.
Addendum: June 20, 3:15 pm The Dramatists Guild provided me with a copy of a letter they have sent to Theatre Under The Stars, detailing the unapproved changes made to Hands on a Hardbody. Following the listing of infractions, the letter, signed by Ralph Sevush, Executive Director, Business Affairs, continues:
When caught in blatant breach of this contract, it has been reported that you still have only partially restored the play for its few final performances, with the cast having little time to rehearse the changes, and are still including some unauthorized alterations.
And you have done all this begrudgingly and unapologetically, with a history of having done so before…
Addendum: June 20, 3:35 pm: Samuel French Inc. has now sent a cease and desist letter to Theatre Under The Stars. In the letter, Lori Thimsen, Director of Licensing Compliance at French, states:
As a result of your breach of contract, Samuel French hereby revokes Theatre Under The Stars’ license to produce Hands on a Hardbody. Accordingly, demand is made that you immediately cease and desist from the advertising, promotion, presentation and performance of any production of Hands on a Hardbody, cancel all remaining performances and confirm your compliance with this demand in writing to the undersigned no later than close of business today, Friday, June 20, 2014.
Four performances remain in the scheduled 10 performance run, one tonight, two on Saturday and one on Sunday.
TUTS has found itself in a last minute contractual dispute that prevents the continued performances of HANDS ON A HARDBODY. We regret this unexpected occurrence and we thank you for your support of TUTS and our Underground series.
Years from now, when the musical Wicked is eventually made available for school and amateur productions, will some high school administrator declare it inappropriate? After all, among its many plot strands is the story of (spoiler alert) the manipulative Madame Morrible, a school headmistress who schemes against those in Oz who don’t conform precisely to her standards, be they green girl or anthropomorphic animal. It’s a terrible portrait of pedagogy gone wrong and surely doesn’t foster the collaborative, supportive relationships that school leaders must seek with each successive generation of students, as well as with their faculty and staff. From that perspective, it’s seditious.
Of course, what’s acceptable to the powers that be at one school, in one town, may be considered problematic in another. Earlier this year in New Hampshire, Sweeney Todd was canceled at Timberlane High School (since reversed) even as another school just a few towns away readied their production of the same show. In 2012, Sonja Hansen lost her position directing shows at Loveland High in Ohio after her production of Legally Blonde was declared inappropriate, yet according to the EdTA’s annual survey, its was the fourth most popular musical in high schools nationally.
So I’m very interested in the new “Public Performance Policy” that has been put into place at the Junior/Senior High in South Williamsport PA, where a production of Spamalot has been canceled by the principal for reasons that remain unclear. The drama director Dawn Burch asserts that Principal Jesse Smith stated, in an e-mail, that the show’s gay content was a factor. Smith himself has been silent since this story broke, and while the school administration has taken exception to one element of the first report about the issue (since corrected), it has yet to produce the e-mail in question to clear things up. Two “Right To Know” requests have been filed seeking that e-mail and related documents; one of those requests is mine.
If this policy is meant to be general guidance for teachers (and contractors), shouldn’t it be constructed as such? Wouldn’t it be better to use affirmative language about supporting and advancing society through inclusive representations of race, religion, age, gender, or sexual orientation, instead of saying it simply won’t demean people on those grounds? As it is now, the policy seems more a declaration for the public, and a very general yardstick that teachers might be struck with should they violate its amorphous tenets. Since the school already has a practice of the principal approving the drama productions, it seems that process would presumably address content concerns, based upon reading the text and exploring productions and educational materials from other schools as aids, but in an open dialogue that would negate the need for future Right To Know inquiries. That said, I don’t favor shows going to any manner of public vote, and school boards shouldn’t decide play selection any more than they tell a coach what athletic plays to run.
I wonder, however, where the concerns were when the South Williamsport High School did Grease and Once Upon A Mattress? Certainly there are those who would find the plot points about pregnancy out of wedlock in those shows both offensive and suggestive. Grease, frankly, is rife with suggestiveness, at least as I construe it, but I don’t happen to find it offensive; but it was more than enough to cause a school in Missouri, following a 2006 production, to cancel the next show on the schedule: The Crucible. What about Urinetown, produced at the school in 2009? All that talk of toilets and body functions must have offended the sensibilities of some in South Williamsport. The world’s most famous teen suicide story, Romeo and Juliet, was staged, but I wonder whether the school provided educational programs and material to students and the public about the dangers of romanticizing exactly the sort of behavior Shakespeare depicted?
Obviously they passed muster, because Pippin and Little Shop of Horrors were produced at the school before Dawn Burch was hired. With this new policy, could any of the aforementioned shows be done again? Indeed, since there are – sad to say and sad as it is – still people who find homosexuality offensive, would LGBT life in any play or musical be precluded from the South Williamsport stage in deference to their reactionary sensibilities?
