No, I’m sorry, it’s not a blog post; it’s a press release. But if you’ll read on, I hope you’ll understand why I’ve placed it here, and indulge me this once. – Howard
NEW YORK (February 12, 2014) – The New School for Drama (Pippin Parker, Director) announces the launch of the Arts Integrity Initiative, a new project aimed at supporting and protecting the work of artists at every level of society and production. Under the leadership of arts administrator, writer and advocate Howard Sherman, Arts Integrity will not only examine and take an active role in instances of censorship and alteration of works, but also serve as a resource for the academic and professional arts communities.
The program is designed to ensure that audiences and practitioners alike have the opportunity to engage directly with challenging, vital work that reflects the very best the arts have to offer.
“As long as books are banned, creative works are rewritten, and plays and musicals are eliminated by schools because they deal with challenging issues, we need to be vigilant about protecting freedom of speech, quality education and the rights of artists,” said Richard Kessler, Executive Dean of The New School’s Performing Arts School and Dean of Mannes School of Music. “With this new program, The New School addresses the subject from multiple vantage points, developing students who understand the necessity of free artistic expression as a means by which to explore, reflect, and critique society.”
The program features new curricular opportunities for students that explore the value of free artistic expression, as well as enhanced community outreach and projects to confront the issue. These commitments will be amplified through a range of public programs to promote discourse on the silencing or manipulation of artistic works, copyright protection, and broader use of the arts as a vehicle for social engagement and justice.
Projects associated with the Office for Arts Integrity include integrated coursework in conjunction with a forthcoming Master’s degree in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship; a collective space for affected professional and community artists to raise concerns and seek guidance; an online publication chronicling challenges to artistic expression and offering original work speaking directly to those issues from within the New School community and expert outside voices; and public programs to raise awareness of the silencing of artistic works and devise strategies for mobilization of the creative and educational communities.
“Since he first picked up the anti-censorship banner, no one has been a more vocal, tireless, and effective advocate for the playwright’s right to be heard than Howard Sherman,” said John Weidman, President of the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund.
“I began doing work in this area on an ad hoc basis four years ago,” said Sherman, “and since that time I’ve increasingly found the need for a proactive resource to study and address arts censorship, supporting both academic and professional arts companies in their efforts to do work that has the greatest rewards for their constituencies. At the same time, I find more and more examples of works being altered unilaterally to appease often arbitrary assessments of what is appropriate or acceptable – or even simply appealing.”
Sherman continued, “Too often when challenges arise, those who are targeted don’t know where to turn, and I hope we’ll be able to provide those facing such restriction or tampering with guidance and on the ground resources, as well as collaborate with other organizations which share those goals, while bringing specific arts expertise to the table. In addition, our plan is to explore the roots of these issues in the arts and work collaboratively within schools and both the amateur and professional communities to develop best practices to reduce these high profile incidents over time, even as we look to explore cases that never reach the general public.”
Recent examples of obstruction of artists’ rights include the ongoing lawsuit preventing production of David Adjmi’s dark parody 3C and the unauthorized alteration of the musical Hands on a Hardbody in its Texas premiere in Houston. Recent arts censorship efforts have included the cancelations of Almost, Maine in North Carolina and Spamalot in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania; and the cancelations and subsequent restorations of Rent in Trumbull, Connecticut and Sweeney Todd in Plaistow, New Hampshire.
Howard Sherman is senior strategy consultant at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, a position he’ll continue in parallel to his new role at The New School for Drama. Sherman has been executive director of the American Theatre Wing and the O’Neill Theatre Center, managing director of Geva Theater, general manager of Goodspeed Musicals and public relations director of Hartford Stage. He has recently been recognized as one of the National Coalition Against Censorship’s “Top 40 Free Speech Defenders of 2014” and will be honored later this month with The Dramatists Legal Defense Fund’s second “Defender” Award. His writing about the arts has been seen in such publications as American Theatre magazine, Slate and The Guardian, and he is the U.S. correspondent for London’s The Stage newspaper. He blogs at www.hesherman.com.
There were, in my estimation, many interesting people at the first performance of Almost, Maine in Hickory NC this past Thursday night.
Almost, Maine program cover for Hickory NC
To begin with, there was the author, John Cariani, who had come out to support the production, something he can’t do very often given how frequently his show is produced around the country. There was Jack Thomas, who produced the New York City premiere of Almost, Maine a decade ago. There was the doctor who had helped to found OutRight Youth of Catawba Valley, a support center for LGBTQ young people in this rural North Carolina region, which the performances, in part, benefited. There were the two women who were part of the local “Friends of the Library,” who knew little of the show but just wanted to support the effort. There was a high school drama teacher from the Raleigh-Durham area who had driven two and a half hours to see the show – and had to drive home that very night.
Oh, and there was the guy out on the street as I entered the building who was carrying a cross and shouting about how we were all going to hell for supporting homosexuality, and that God had very specific intentions for how humans should use their genitalia in relation to one another – though he was somewhat less circumspect than I just was in his phrasing.
Blake Richardson and Jonathan Bates in the scene “They Fell” from Almost, Maine
This production of Almost, Maine in Hickory was originally to have been produced at Maiden High School in nearby Maiden NC, but the show was canceled, after rehearsals had begun, when the school’s principal buckled to complaints about gay content and sex outside of marriage, reportedly from local churches (one made itself known publicly shortly before performances began). Due to the determination of Conner Baker, the student who was to have directed the show at the high school and ended up performing and co-directing, and with the tireless support of Carmen Eckard, a former teacher who had known many of the students since she taught them in elementary school, the show was shifted to Hickory, where it was performed in the community arts center’s auditorium.
Ci-Ci Pinson and Nathaniel Shoun in “Where It Went” from Almost, Maine
There were shifts in casting due to schedule changes, due to the show no longer being school-sanctioned, due to the need to travel 15 miles or so to and from Maiden to Hickory. But nine young people, a mix of current and former Maiden High students and a few students from local colleges, made sure that Catawba County got to see Almost, Maine, the sweet, rueful comedy that is hardly anyone’s idea of dangerous theatre.
Save for Cariani and Thomas, I hadn’t anticipated knowing anyone at the show that evening, though I had been in communication with Eckard and Baker since the objections first arose at Maiden High. But I was very pleased to spot Keith Martin, the former managing director of Charlotte Repertory Theatre, now The John M. Blackburn Distinguished Professor of Theatre at Appalachian State University, who I knew from my days as a manager in LORT theatre, but hadn’t seen or spoken with in more than a decade. Keith’s presence had a special resonance for me, because nearly 20 years ago, before the cast of Almost, Maine was born, he had been at the center of one of the most significant and ugly efforts to censor professional theatre in that era, namely community and political campaigns to shut down Charlotte Rep’s production of Angels in America, a national news story at the time which saw lawsuits, injunctions, restraining orders and even the de-funding of the entire Charlotte Arts Council, all in an effort to silence Tony Kushner’s “Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” The efforts failed, but left scars.
Keith Martin
I spoke with Keith a few nights after we saw Almost, Maine, and even as he recounted – and I recalled – the fight over Angels, he told me of two other censorship cases in North Carolina in the 1990s. The first, with which I was familiar and which played out over much of the decade, began in 1991, when a teacher named Peggy Boring was removed from her school and reassigned due to her choice of Lee Blessing’s play Independence for students, which was deemed inappropriate by administrators. Boring didn’t accept the disciplinary action and brought suit against the school system, which went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately let stand a lower court decision which said that Boring’s right to free expression did not extend to what she chose for her students, an key precedent for all high school theatre and education.
The second occurrence which Keith told me about took place in 1999, when five young playwrights won a playwriting contest at the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte – but only four of the pieces were produced. The fifth, Samantha Gellar’s Life Versus the Paperback Romance, was omitted to due its inclusion of lesbian characters. The play was ultimately produced locally under private auspices and also got a reading at The Public Theater in New York with Mary-Louise Parker and Lisa Kron in the cast, but in the wake of the Boring case and Angels in America, it couldn’t be seen in North Carolina in a public facility or produced using public funds.
As we talked, as he told me firsthand accounts of situations both known and unknown to me, Keith was very concerned that I might focus too much on him when I sat down to write. It’s hard not to want to tell his story – or, perhaps, his stories – in greater detail. But since we both went to Hickory to celebrate Almost, Maine and the people who made it happen, here’s just a handful of the very smart and pertinent thoughts he shared.
Why had he made the hour-long trip to Hickory? Because, he replied, “When one of us is threatened, we as a theatre community are all at risk.”
Why is this important even in high school? “Teenagers aged 13 to 17 are, I believe, among the most marginalized voices in America today,” said Martin. “It’s ironic, because they’ve developed a sense of place, they have a spirit of activism, but they’re not yet of a legal age to give voice to their passion.”
Regarding efforts to minimize controversy in theatre production, Keith said, “Theatre has always been the appropriate venue for the discussion of difficult subjects and it provides a respectful place where people of goodwill who happened to disagree about different sides of an issue can see that issue portrayed on stage and then have a healthy, informed debate.
Is there something special about North Carolina that led to these high profile cases emerging from the state? “Angels in America was portrayed as having happened in a southern, bible belt town. But what happened after that?” Keith asked me, going on to cite the controversies and attempts to silence Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi at Manhattan Theatre Club and My Name is Rachel Corrie at New York Theatre Workshop.
The team behind Almost, Maine in Hickory NC, including playwright John Cariani
As I said at the beginning, there were many interesting people at the opening of Almost, Maine. I suspect the students in the show didn’t know, or even know of, Keith Martin, and this post is one small way of putting their work in a broader context that he embodies in their state. I have no doubt that there were other people with personal experiences and connections relating to what the students had achieved, and it’s pretty much certain that neither they nor I will ever know them fully. But just as Keith said to me in our conversation that, “these kids need some recognition that their efforts have not gone unheard,” it’s important that they know that their theatrical act of civil disobedience does not stand alone, be it in North Carolina or nationally. The same is true for everyone who had a hand in making certain that Almost, Maine was heard over the cries of those who wanted it silenced.
In one of my early conversations with Conner Baker, as we discussed her options, her mantra was that, “We just want to do the play.” She and her classmates and supporters did just that, in the least confrontational way possible, but in doing so their names belong alongside those of Peggy Boring, Samantha Gellar, Keith Martin and many others in the annals of North Carolina theatre, at the very least.
I’ll leave you with one last connection between Keith Martin and Almost, Maine. The SALT Block Auditorium where the show was produced is located in an arts center which is the former Hickory High School. Keith Martin attended that very school decades ago and performed on the stage where Almost, Maine was produced last week. The role he recalled for me when asked? The title character in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I suspect that even James Thurber’s famous daydreamer couldn’t have imagined the controversy surrounding Almost, Maine…or its happy ending. Maiden’s reactionary, cowardly loss was Hickory’s heroic gain.
“I hope that The VaginaMonologues is a point of departure – it’s not a panacea, it’s not the only play, it’s not the definitive play. It’s a play, it’s an offering.”
Those are the words of Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, spoken in the wake of the controversy that has arisen over the decision by the campus theatre group at Mount Holyoke College to abandon its annual production of The Vagina Monologues in favor of a newly written student work that is, in their judgment, more inclusive of a wider range of women’s experiences than Ensler’s influential work from 1996.
At its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman…Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive.
As the story broke wide, many seized upon the school’s recent decision to begin accepting students who identify as women as being at the root of the decision by the theatre group. Some commenters to the spate of articles, all derived from the Campus Reform story, spoke of censorship. Mount Holyoke, in a statement, responded, saying in part:
A story/post in the online publication Campus Reform included inaccurate and incomplete information regarding the student-led decision to cancel a student-run production of the “Vagina Monologues” at Mount Holyoke College. The story also incorrectly connects the play’s cancellation with the College’s transgender admission policy.
The Mount Holyoke College student organization Project: Theatre notified the student body on Jan. 14 of its decision to cancel the play “Vagina Monologues” after evaluating input from peers about the production.
The students’ decision to cancel the play was made independently of the College’s transgender admission policy.
As a women’s college with a long tradition of educating women leaders, Mount Holyoke College supports and encourages students to take the lead in establishing and governing their own organizations.
In the initial rush of stories, no one spoke with Ensler about her work and the decision by the Mount Holyoke drama group. A story published last night by The Guardian was the first to reach Ensler, and also included a bit more from Murphy, although she did not agree to release to full text of her original e-mail to them. Because I have known Ensler casually for several years, I wanted to hear more from her, and we spoke this morning. I also tried to reach Erin Murphy at Mount Holyoke (using the student activity contact form on the college’s website as well as LinkedIn), but without success. Some articles have reported on various tweets coming from other students on the campus who oppose the decision to no longer produce the play, but I have opted to not cull from Twitter searching.
Playing off the title of her newest play, I asked Ensler whether the decision by the Mount Holyoke students was a case of O.P.C. – Obsessive Political Correctness.
“I think there’s so many issues running through all this,” said Ensler. “I don’t want to label it as such because there are genuine concerns that people are having that I want to be very thoughtful about.
Eve Ensler (Photo by Brigitte Lacombe)
“This is my perspective on it: The Vagina Monologues is a play. It’s one play. It was never meant to speak for all women and it was never a play about what it means to be a woman. It was a play about what it means to have a vagina. It was very specific. I don’t think I ever said that the definition of a woman – that a woman is defined by having a vagina. I think we have to be able to live in a world where talking about our vaginas is legitimate, due to the fact that three and half billion women have them.
“I wish the play was irrelevant. I wish we had reached a state where women are liberated and safe and not under this kind of ongoing oppression of violence and degradation and inequality. But that hasn’t happened yet. I don’t think we’re close.
“I think that it’s also really important that trans and transgender people have voice and have access to voice and have plays and ways of articulating their concerns and their issues. Ten years ago there was an all trans production of The Vagina Monologues and I spent quite a bit of time with trans women and we actually went away for a weekend and we shared stories and experiences and as a result they asked me to write a piece for them called ‘They Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy’ which I did and which has been an optional monologue. It was included in the V-Day performances of The Vagina Monologues for the last 10 years and trans women and trans men have been performing The Vagina Monologues for 10 years. So I feel like there has been inclusion.”
My own reaction when I read about the situation at Mount Holyoke was that the students had every right to make any decision they wished about what to produce, but that perhaps they hadn’t needed to be so negative about Ensler’s work, instead simply moving on to the new work they plan to create. Ensler’s response to how it was handled?
“I believe it’s Ken Wilber, in this wonderful book called Up From Eden, who says this really, really brilliant thing. He says that every time we evolve in our brain, our human consciousness, to the next level, we make a terrible error of not integrating the stage before, so that our evolution, our brains do not become wholly integrated.
“My feeling is that there have been many places in the world who have been doing The Vagina Monologues for years who then felt there are other voices we want to give voice to. There are other stories we want to give voice to and they took the momentum of The Vagina Monologues and the experience of that and that spurred them to create their own pieces. But they didn’t feel the need to annihilate The Vagina Monologues in the process.
“I think I have to say that we have to live in a climate and in a world where women with vaginas feel safe and free and open about articulating the stories about their vaginas. That has to remain a possibility and something that we cherish and celebrate in the same way that I would honor transgender people giving voice to their own realities. I think there’s something about the ‘either or-ness’ about it that I find problematic.”
Later in our conversation, Ensler observed, “I think we have to be careful as we’re evolving and exploding more and more voices that we don’t silence other voices. That’s the thing we always have to be very concerned about and having our attention paid to. It isn’t one thing or the other. We’ve come to the point where we want to now integrate and want other voices. That is fantastic. Go and write a play that does that. Celebrate that. I encourage that. I’ve been celebrating artists my whole life who are giving voice to new strains and pushing the edge and challenging the givens and the status quo.”
* * *
For perspective on perceptions of The Vagina Monologues, I asked Jill S. Dolan, Annan Professor in English, Professor of English and Theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts, and Director, Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University, for her thoughts.
“First, let me say I admire the cultural work Ensler’s play did,” Dolan wrote to me. “When it was first performed, seeing this white woman, barefoot on a stool in a pool of light, wearing a long dress, sitting in front of a microphone, talking about vaginas in such an explicit way, felt very radical. Not so much because what she was saying was radical, especially not to those of us who came of age with feminism, and were accustomed to a kind of frankness about women’s bodies, but because she was telling these stories Off Broadway, in a theatre venue where these stories hadn’t been told. When the show took hold, and performances expanded to include other women, the same fascination (and, let’s be frank, titillation) continued to make it popular. It’s still performed in regional theatres all over the country (and probably, the world).
“I much admired Ensler’s industry in making the show the center of V-Day activism. She did a lot to raise awareness on campuses about violence against women, and the play became the center of an activist project that was easy for students to latch on to, because it came pre-packaged. Ensler licenses the play with very specific rules about how it’s to be performed and who its local activist collaborators should be. I think this is where the tensions began around the play and the production—Ensler’s control came to be seen as too constraining.
“But in my own critical reading, The Vagina Monologues were always only partial. Ensler’s play represents her work interviewing women around the world about their lives and their relationships to their bodies via social interdictions, but the monologues aren’t verbatim (Anna Deavere Smith-style), nor are they ethnographic to the extent that she uses the interviews in edited form. Ensler says the monologues are ‘based on’ her interviews, but she filters them through her own perspective as a white Western woman. That’s where much of the criticism lies; that the whole show is, in a way, a white Western woman’s perspective on female experience. She’s been criticized for being imperialist; for being a western feminist who presumes to ‘save’ women of other cultures and experiences; and for being tone-deaf to cultural difference and women’s agency.”
I asked Dolan whether The Vagina Monologues might be losing relevancy because it doesn’t represent enough different constituencies.
“The issue about trans inclusion is really just the latest salvo here. Because Ensler is very particular about how The Vagina Monologues are staged and produced, I know of many colleges and universities that simply bootleg the show and rewrite it as they see fit. The best thing about The Vagina Monologues phenomenon, from my perspective, is that it’s clarified the importance of telling women’s stories, or telling stories of those who aren’t part of the ‘mainstream’ on particular college campuses. That people gather annually to participate in or to hear these stories has made it an important rite of passage for many students. I know of students who were absolutely radicalized by participating in The Vagina Monologues production on campus (or by doing their own version). That’s hugely important activist theatre work.
“That said, I think students are realizing that the occasion of the show might actually give them permission to tell their own stories, or to seek out other ways of putting together activist performance work. And that’s a very good thing. Is it a period piece? Well, most plays are . . . and Ensler has tried to revitalize the show by adding new monologues every year. That said, I do think The Vagina Monologues movement might have crested, partly because the play is showing its age. It’s just not as radical anymore to stand in public and talk about vaginas . . . That’s what’s changed.”
* * *
Ensler has written an essay for Time magazine, coming out Monday, on the decision by the Mount Holyoke students, and she raised it in our conversation as we discussed the issue of representing more constituencies.
“I’ll share with you something that I wrote in the Time piece, because I think it’s connected to this: ‘Inclusion doesn’t come from refusing to acknowledge our distinctive experiences and trying to erase them in an attempt to pretend they do not exist. Inclusion comes listening to our differences and honoring the right of everyone to talk about their reality free from oppressing, bigotry and silencing. That’s real inclusion’. I think we have to create a world, where people with vaginas and people without them who identify as women, all of us get to address our oppressions, dreams, desires, and secrets and that we keep creating a landscape where there’s room for everyone.
So, I wondered, is Ensler concerned about the play’s perception today and future popularity, as highlighted by the decision of the Mount Holyoke Project Theatre?
“First of all, I think that looking at the dialogue that’s going on, I don’t really think that’s happening. There are 715 productions of The Vagina Monologues that are about to happen right now around the world and there are every year. My feeling is if it’s time for a new play or new plays to come into being that have new voices, that should happen. I don’t feel like anybody has to do my play. It’s great if they want to do it and it’s great if they don’t. It’s been 20 years.
“But I also want to say that I do think that women talking about their vaginas and articulating what happens to and about and around their vaginas is something that’s going to remain important to women. And if that changes, it will change. I actually think that the dialogue that’s being generated around this is good. We have to keep looking at everything and examining everything. I wrote that play 20 years ago. The world was a very different world then. Now people write plays that reflect this world.
I asked Ensler whether, if invited, she would attend the new piece being created by the Mount Holyoke students.
“Of course I would,” she replied, “and I would totally celebrate the new work.”
This post was updated on January 19 to include a link to Eve Ensler’s essay for Time magazine.
Hands on a Hardbody at Houston’s Theatre Under The Stars
Are these my “best” blog posts of 2014? I couldn’t say. All I know is that they’re my most read, from a year in which page views on my site more than doubled over 2013.
Certainly 2014 was a year in which my writing found more focus, and whether the most-read posts bear out readers’ interest in that focus, or are simply a byproduct of a somewhat narrower range of subjects, I also don’t know. But if you’ve only discovered me part way through the year, or only read me sporadically, maybe there are a few posts here that escaped your attention, and if you’re interested, this will save you some scrolling and clicking.
Curtain call for Little Shop of Horrors at Jonathan Law High School
Before I start the official list, I want to bring your attention to a post which finished just out of the Top 10, the sad and yet remarkable story which bears out the sentiment “the show must go,” even when the show is a high school musical and when one of the cast members is murdered. To me, this story encapsulates so much about what theatre can offer, even at the worst times.
Here’s the full rundown of the Top 10, in publication order, with some related posts included in my comments so as not to be too repetitive. Clicking on the titles will take you to the individual pieces.
Was I surprised by this instance of unauthorized text alterations to a Brian Friel play at the Asolo Rep? Yes. But this turned out to merely be the precursor to a more widely-known incident yet to come, in Texas in June. Still, it was evidence that the issue of copyright and author’s rights isn’t just about high schools tinkering with “inappropriate” content – it can happen anywhere.
It’s not usually fair to criticize a critic for a review of a production, since it’s their opinion, so when I wrote this piece taking a Philadelphia critic to task, I tried to do so on the basis of text and fact, not opinion. I received a lot of response about this piece, a great deal of it privately.
Some found my stated “solution” overly simplistic, so either I failed to make, or they failed to recognize, my point about arts journalism lasting only as long as the metrics bear out an interest on the part of readers.
If you find me rather grouchy every Monday at 3 pm, it’s because that’s when the Broadway grosses are released, with one or more shows variously pronouncing the achievement of a new “sales record.” A number of outlets report these figures week in and week out, even though there’s usually a limited amount of actual news that matters to anyone outside the business. The “season” and “annual” compilation figures tend to provoke me even more, due to the perpetually positive spin even when the real story can be found by looking just a bit more carefully at the numbers.
I was a bit surprised that this piece got the attention it did, as I wrote it after several West Coast outlets had already reported on this incident. Why my account drew lots of eyes I’ll never know, but I do hope it’s used in many arts management classrooms to speak to the essential nature of a well-trained front of house staff, no matter what size your theatre may be.
The movie’s out. Now people can like the changes or not, but at least they’re judging the complete work, not stray accounts (which even Sondheim ended up disavowing). I’m seeing it on New Year’s Eve, FYI.
I remain the only writer to interview Theater Under the Stars artistic director Bruce Lumpkin about his reworking of the text and score of the musical Hands On A Hardbody. The theatre pretty much circled the wagons as soon as my piece came out, even declining to speak with American Theatre magazine when Isaac Butler looked at the incident and the issue a few months later.
Let’s hear it for anonymous tips! I was the first to report this story, an unpleasant account of the ousting of an artistic leader by a board that sought to portray it as a voluntary separation (foreshadowing the scenario between Ari Roth and Theater J just this month). I do find myself wondering why the outcry over Theater J has been so much greater, when the Women’s Project situation had some notable similarities.
This was certainly the biggest school theatre censorship story of the year that I covered, as it played out over the course of nearly four months, from when it was first reported in the local Pennsylvania media. It was the final, unfortunate post that received the most attention, but for those who don’t want to start at the end, two other highly read posts on the situation in South Williamsport PA were “Trying To Find Out A Lot About A Canceled Spamalot” (July 15) and “Facts Emerge About School ‘Spamalot’ Struck Out Over Gay Content” (August 21). I wish I had written a blunter headline for the latter story, because it revealed that school officials had indeed lied about the reasons behind the cancelation of the show, and I regret not calling them out as strongly as possible. To my knowledge, they have not been held to account for spreading disinformation.
While the school was let off the hook for buckling under to outside pressure because the students took matters into their own hands, it’s encouraging to know that their production of Almost, Maine is only weeks away, as detailed in “Falling For ‘Almost, Maine’ in North Carolina in January.”
Though I don’t place it in the official Top 10, because it’s a compilation rather than something I actually “wrote,” my piece chronicling the censorship and restoration of work by my friends at the Reduced Shakespeare Company as they embarked on a tour starting in Northern Ireland is also one of my most read for 2014.
Finally, my thanks to you for reading, clicking, liking, favoriting and sharing, and for your comments on the posts themselves, on Twitter and on Facebook. It’s truly appreciated.
Many of you already know the story of the Maiden High School production of John Cariani’s Almost, Maine, shuttered by school officials this fall due to the content of a single scene in which two men discover that they love one another. The cancellation rightly got a great deal of attention, not least because Almost, Maine is the most popular new play done in high schools nationally, a widely accepted work that hit a wall in one North Carolina town due to the school administration caving in to their own worst instincts and to outside pressure, even though the source of the pressure managed to remain under the radar.
So in the season of love and good cheer, it seems the optimal time to affirm that Almost, Maine will go on next month, with students taking the show off campus, producing it independently in a nearby town with the help of Carmen Eckard, a former teacher who taught a number of the students when they were in elementary school.
Hosted by the United Arts Council of Catawba County, Almost, Maine will be presented at the SALT Block Auditorium in Hickory NC on January 15, 16 and 17 at 8 pm. While there have been some shifts in the cast, the production will feature seven current Maiden High students, two recent graduates and a Maiden High student as stage manager. Conner Baker, the student who was directing the show at the school has joined the cast, so she’ll be co-directing the show with a local attorney, William Morgan, who previously directed the show at an area community theatre.
Many familiar with this story will also recall that in order to produce the show independently, Eckard and Baker launched a Kickstarter campaign that sought to raise $1,000 to cover expenses. That effort yielded over $6,500 in funds, and with program ad sales, the production is sure to bring in yet more revenue by mid-January. In a bright silver lining to the cloud cast by the school’s censorship, the bulk of the donations to the production will be shared by the Arts Council and OutRight Youth Catawba, which seeks, in their words, “to reduce the isolation felt by LGBTQ youth by providing a sense of community and developing programs and services to counteract the prejudice and oppression that LGBTQ youth often face.”
Both tickets and program ads are available from the production’s website: http://almostmaiden.com
As for a fall show at the high school, I’m told there was no replacement once Almost, Maine was nixed. That’s a loss for every student at the school and a black eye for every administrator, school board member and community member who worked to shut down Almost, Maine. I can only hope they’ll all make the short trip from Maiden to Hickory to support the show and the students who kept it going – and to, in part, counteract a narrow-minded decision that gave in to suppression of young people’s ambitions and lives, rather than standing for love.
To say that Newman University’s production of the musical Legally Blonde was performed with its book and lyrics intact this past Saturday and Sunday would seem to be a wholly unremarkable event. But because that wasn’t the case at Thursday and Friday’s shows, the fidelity of the latter two performances is rather more intriguing. How did a university production suddenly shift away from censorship halfway through a four performance run? How, to paraphrase a lyric from The Producers, did Legally Blonde go right?
* * *
Newman University in Wichita, Kansas is a Catholic school with an undergraduate enrollment of 2,795, according to data from the U.S. News and World Report online rankings. It was founded by a religious order, the Adorers of the Blood of Christ as a women’s college in 1933, becoming co-ed in 1965.
The theater program at Newman is in just its fourth year. It was only in 2013 that students could declare as theatre majors, and the program currently has 18 majors and 12 minors. The school boasts two theatres and the theatre program produces four shows each year. Past productions include Lend Me A Tenor, Iphigenia in Aulis and in Taurus, Measure For Measure, and this fall’s Buried Child. Director of Theatre Mark Manette notes that there have been some rumblings about the content of some of the department’s productions in the past, including sexual content in Tenor and Pippin, citing one 2012 letter to the school newspaper saying that the school was producing plays with “a heaping helping of sexual innuendo.”
In announcing Legally Blonde, Manette felt he was choosing a mainstream, modern show for his students, aware that it is one of the most popular musicals in high school theatre. Save for making some very minor script emendations – “god damn” is a problem at a faith-based university, for example – the show went into rehearsals using the script as written. In the words of senior C.L. Smet, a theatre major who was cast as Paulette, “There were very light hints of censorship early on, but only the type of things that we are used to. In most shows we are asked to take out all instances of using the lord’s name in vain because we go to a Catholic university.”
* * *
Manette’s purview over the theatre department does not require him to submit his play selection for approval to the university. But with rehearsals underway, he was called to the Provost’s office on November 6, in order to address rumors that had begun to swirl about the content of Legally Blonde.
“When I was called into the office I was told that our production featured live masturbation, drug use, and two guys kissing,” said Manette. “My response was that the show features none of these things. But the seed of the rumors could be traced to the two changed lines: ‘Masturbatory emissions’ and ‘Get you high and laid’.”
Although Manette clarified the show’s content, he was still asked to make changes to the script. “I was told that I had to make the changes or else,” said Manette. “I did send a letter to the Provost stating that I had signed a contract not to make any changes to the script. He took that up the ladder, so to speak, and told me to go forward with making changes.”
C.L. Smet and Trevor Farney in Legally Blonde at Newman University (Photo courtesy of Newman University)
According to Smet, “Nothing seemed weird until a few days before tech week started, when individual cast members started being pulled aside and told that we had to change lines. For instance, my line ‘What’s she got that you don’t got, three tits?’ had to be changed to ‘three boobs’ this was a very minor change compared to many others but was still frustrating and unnecessary right before tech week. We were told by our director, music director, and the head of our department that these changes were from the administration directly. We were told that several higher-ups…were lodging complaints about the content.”
“We were also told repeatedly not to raise hell about the issue, because if we were to dig too deep we might cause more harm than good,” Smet related. “Obviously, however, we decided to pursue the matter. I was one of the loudest about my disappointment with the administration. I attempted to have a meeting with the President of our college. However, when I told them it was regarding Legally Blonde censorship, I was told she ‘didn’t speak to students,’ which I find very hard to believe. Many other students were confused and bothered by the censorship. A few of them were willing to just lay low and let it pass, but most of my fellow theatre majors saw the utter illegality of the changes and wanted to do something to help. Apart from the legal issues, many students were just sad that at the college level we were expected to perform a watered-down play, as if the world would end if somebody say “masturbate” on stage. It was a very frustrating and confusing time for everybody involved.”
* * *
On the evening of the first performance, the school newspaper, The Vantage, published its weekly print edition with a lead story on the censorship of the Legally Blonde text. The story was assigned by the paper’s editor-in-chief, senior Matt Riedl – who happened to be a member of the Legally Blonde ensemble.
“It was my decision as editor-in-chief to pursue the story,” said Riedl. “It wasn’t something that was being brought out by the administration. We thought it was our responsibility. Every viewpoint can be voiced. There had been a few voices that had been pro-censorship, but we thought it was important that every viewpoint be represented.”
The story by Delaney Hiegert, ran with the headline “Legally Blonde Censorship Rankles Cast Members,” as well as a subheadline, “Illegally Changed?” It cited Provost Michael Austin confirming that the show would be a censored version.
There were at least six lyric changes to the musical, as well as multiple dialogue changes, in order to make the play more appropriate for all audiences, he said. The changes involved taking out any sexually derogatory remarks, references to sex and drugs, any use of the word “Christ,” and most all cursing.
For instance, Elle Woods’ line “masturbatory emissions” has been changed to “accidental emissions,” and Professor Callahan’s line, “Get you high and laid,” has been changed to “Get you entertained.”
“When we do plays, we are inviting not just the campus, but the community to come watch,” said Austin. “We have to be very careful to represent the values of the institution.”
The Vantage article spoke not only to the changes to Blonde, but the greater potential impact of the censorship on the theatre program. Quoting freshman Trevor Farney:
“I loved being a part of Buried Child. I love the directors and the people I’ve gotten to work with,” Farney said. “But I don’t want to act in something that’s just going to be a watered-down version of what it should be. In Legally Blonde, the censorship is annoying but it doesn’t hurt the production that much. But if the censorship continues, I don’t even know if I’d want to stay in the program. And that’s a shame.”
The Vantage story made the alteration of the Blonde script a campus-wide issue. Riedl cited that the piece received 1500 page views on the paper’s website, in contrast to the prior month’s top story, which had only 700. He noticed that in some places, in particular the theatre’s lobby, someone had flipped the papers upside down in their racks, so that the headline wouldn’t show. He said that his girlfriend reported sitting in the theatre pre-show and watched as many people read the paper’s front page.
“The article in the Vantage was huge,” said Smet. “It had a massive impact around campus and the entire Wichita theatre community. The outpouring of support was awesome, and it encouraged the cast to continue fighting.”
* * *
Legally Blonde at Newman University (Photo courtesy of Newman University)
The first two performances of Legally Blonde at Newman contained the mandated cuts and substitutions imposed by the administration. But C.L. Smet says that change was already afoot.
“Once the Vantage article was published, cast members became even more open about not being okay with the censorship,” Smet said. “For our Saturday performance we returned 100% to the written word of the script – we did the play that was actually written. We joked that it was the first Legally Blonde performance we’d done, and after the show we all had a group bonding moment celebrating the uncensored show.”
Riedl described the decision in similar terms. “We decided to perform the musical in its full uncensored form on Saturday and Sunday,” he said. “It was kind of a group decision. We had a little meeting before our performance on Friday and we talked about it. The coverage was getting so widespread and everyone was talking about it so we decided we weren’t going to put up with it any longer. We were going to subvert the order to change.”
The student motivated changes don’t precisely jibe with the account from Provost Michael Austin.
“We ended up not making the changes,” said Dr. Austin. “They went on according to script. We looked at what might be possible but decided that we’d do it the way it was in the script.”
Austin did say that the issue was a major one for the school, saying it was “hotly debated and discussed.” He said that he attended the show on Sunday and that the show was performed as written, but could not speak to whether the complete text was in use at all performances.
Riedl professed surprise when informed that the administration had withdrawn its requests for text changes. “Really? That’s interesting,” he said. “Because I was under the impression it was a cast decision. There’s definitely some confusion there. I had not heard that. That’s very interesting.”
Riedl went on to recount a moment during the Saturday night show, during the song, “Blood in the Water.” “‘Get you high and get you laid’ was supposed to ‘get you entertained,’ he recounted. “From the stage, I heard someone whisper, ‘I thought that was supposed to be censored.’ It took some power to not break character from that.”
With somewhat conflicting stories about how the show was restored to its original text, Manette seemed to walk a careful line about what had taken place. He ascribed the choice to the students, noting that, “The people who had called for the censorship were not the ones behind the decision to do the show as written.”
* * *
The issue of censorship is not an off-limits topic on the Newman University campus. It’s worth noting that all freshman this year were assigned to read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the now classic novel in which censorship is taken to its ultimate extreme, with all books being sought out and burned by “fireman,” forcing lovers of knowledge into clandestine circles designed to preserve knowledge and texts.
“There is artwork all over the building regarding censorship related to that novel,” Manette said. “Most members of the faculty and audience were appalled at the idea of censoring a production. Two pieces of art work across from the entrance of the theatre were mysteriously taken down on opening night – one was a nude – and they were miraculously replaced after the show closed. Coincidental?”
Smet told a similar story. “There was a great deal of other censorship happening in our arts department — nude paintings and “controversial” art work were removed from the hallways against the art department’s will. The entire fine arts sector of Newman was upset that they were being censored. Many people told us they supported us ‘fighting the power’.”
* * *
It’s unclear precisely where the complaints about Legally Blonde began and it’s also not certain exactly when or if approval was given to perform the show as written, as it was at the latter two performances. Precisely who in the administration really wanted the show edited remains somewhat vague, and no one with direct knowledge would speak to it on the record. But certainly the students took matters into their own hands, perhaps with the tacit approval of some members of the school administration.
Dr. Austin was quite clear about lessons learned from the imbroglio.
“Generally, I can say that the incident was not handled well,” he wrote to me, “for which I take full responsibility. We will not be suggesting changes to plays in the future, nor do we have any plans to exercise prior restraint on plays chosen by the Theatre Department.”
Austin’s statement is very encouraging, suggesting that Mark Manette will be able to continue to build Newman University’s theatre department and give his students the opportunity to work on a wide range of shows – as they were written. For the staff of The Vantage, they’ve gotten proof of the power of independent journalism to foster change. As for the cast of Legally Blonde? They’ve demonstrated that the words spoken on a stage matter, and that the words of authors come first.
* * *
Note: interviews for this article were conducted through a combination of voice interviews and e-mail correspondence. The word “said” may apply to both voice and e-mail communications.
Earlier this month, the administration at Maiden High School in Maiden, North Carolina tried to put a stop to the student production of John Cariani’s Almost, Maine. With permission slips in hand, the cast chosen and rehearsals just underway, the school announced the show was off. But it’s only off school grounds. The play will go on.
* * *
As first reported last week by WSOC TV in two reports [here and here], with additional reporting from Think Progress, Almost, Maine was shuttered because of a single scene, entitled “They Fell,” in which two buddies reach the startling discovery that they love one another – by actually falling down. Repeatedly. There’s no sexual innuendo, no physical contact, and the words “gay” and “homosexual” aren’t spoken. The scene takes up six pages of a 54 page text.
It’s not as if the school didn’t know the play was in the works. Maiden High School junior Conner Baker, who was to direct the production, said that when the administration was asked for permission, they gave it within a day.
“Our teacher advisor spoke to our principal,” said Baker, “who then spoke to the superintendent. We were told through our student advisor.”
She explained that students had to get permission slips with parents expressly agreeing to let their children participate, which hadn’t happened before in her experience. Of the permission slip, she said, “I don’t remember it word for word. It was along the lines of, ‘We have chosen Almost, Maine as our fall play this year. The play includes nine vignettes about love, one of which is centered around two male best friends who realize they are in love with each other’.”
Baker also described parents being required to come to one of two meetings in person to give their approval, also a new requirement. “Whenever a parent came in, I explained to them the content of the play and told them that for their child to audition, they needed to sign the permission slip.” Students also were permitted to audition with the scene in question, but Baker said she didn’t know where that requirement came from. “We were told by our teacher, though I know it wasn’t her decision. I also do not know why.”
After the show was cast and had just begun rehearsals, the word came that the show was off. “We were told by our teacher. They said the community isn’t ready for it. There wasn’t really a big discussion about it.”
* * *
Maiden High School’s logo
In spite of all the strictures placed on the audition process – the permission slips, parents coming to meetings – the school’s statement, issued after the news media began to pick up the story, clearly sought to obfuscate the issue, using the ‘approval hadn’t been given’ excuse that crops up so regularly in instances of school theatre censorship. Issued by Principal Rob Bliss (Robert_Bliss@catawbaschools.net) , it read:
“Our faculty and staff are still in review of potential performances to be conducted by our students this fall. At this time, no final decision has been made regarding whether and what drama performances are to be presented this fall. In regards to the request for students to perform the play “Almost Maine,” careful review and consideration was given to the contents of this play. The play contained sexually-explicit overtones and multiple sexual innuendos that are not aligned with our mission and educational objectives.
“As principal of Maiden High School, I have an obligation to ensure that all material, including drama performances is appropriate and educationally sound for students of all ages.”
The consensus in conversations on Facebook between various students was that some adults and churches in the area had made their displeasure known to the school administration, focusing on the gay storyline. None of them appear to have made their concerns known publicly. Yet this prompted the school to pull the plug without giving any hearing to those in support of the play.
* * *
Upon learning about the cancelation, one area adult, Carmen Eckard, a former local teacher, sent an e-mail to a number of administrators at the school. She wrote, in part:
“These kids have spent years fostering their love of theatre. In fact, I taught many of them at Startown Elementary, and they loved theatre class! That has blossomed into a real appreciation and dedication, and the decision to cancel a play after rehearsals had begun is extraordinarily disrespectful, and counterintuitive to education.
“Their passion is now spurred, and they will show you how dedicated they are. I’m sure you’ll quickly realize that a mistake has been made.
“My advice would be to reinstate the play, before Huffington Post picks up this story. It’s just the kind of thing they love, and I’m sure we’ll all appreciate not being highlighted in national news as a ‘backwards’ town, again.”
She received a response from the school superintendent Dr. Dan Brigman (dan_brigman@catawbaschools.net), who thanked her for writing, but didn’t address Almost, Maine at all, simply saying another appropriate play would be found. [For legal reasons, I am paraphrasing the superintendent’s brief reply.]
It seems a shame that Brigman didn’t heed Eckard’s warning, given the media attention that has resulted from the cancelation (even reaching up into Maine). As for being highlighted in the national news “again,” while I didn’t ask Eckard what she was referring to specifically, I am assuming it was the 2012 stories about local Pastor Charles Worley of the Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden. Worley got lots of press, far beyond HuffPo, for stating that gays and lesbians should be confined behind an electrified fence. Plenty of North Carolinians spoke out against Worley at the time, but his church remains active in the community.
* * *
Conner Baker (l.) and Carmen Eckard (photo by Eckard Photographic)
Eckard did more than just write a letter. She got involved.
“As soon as I realized that it was my old students and the play was Almost, Maine, I started looking for ways to help,” she wrote in an e-mail. “By Friday, Connor and I had scheduled a meeting, and people had started contacting both of us, asking for ways to help.”
In my very first communications with Baker and Eckard, both immediately said they hoped to try to do the play off-campus, so I asked them both whether they considered fighting the decision.
Referring to the response she received from the principal, Eckard continued, “The response I received convinced me pretty thoroughly that trying to change the ruling would be a waste of time. It also gives the power in the situation completely to the school board – it’s their decision. The community is extraordinarily conservative.”
Conner Baker said, “I think at first we considered that, but as a group, we just want to do what’s best for us. Our whole reasoning behind speaking out was to be able to do the show.”
While many outside groups and individuals offered their support, Baker and Eckard felt it was best not to be antagonistic as they went forward.
Eckard explained, “The kids said, ‘The main thing we want to do is that we don’t want to alienate the community, we want to keep things positive. We’re going to take our play somewhere else for people who want to see it.’ I think this way will make people happy-ish.”
* * *
Before learning that the show might go on off-campus, playwright John Cariani learned of the situation in Maiden and crafted a reply that was posted to the Almost, Maine Facebook page. It read, in part:
“If Maiden High School administrators take issue with ‘They Fell’ because it’s about two young men who are simply stating their feelings for one another, they are calling into question the validity of same-sex love by making it seem wrong and different and other. They are allowing a dangerous cycle of fear and self-hatred among LGBTQ youth to continue, and, consequently, they are tacitly promoting homophobia. This is simply not necessary. Nor is it helpful. We don’t need any more Tyler Clementis or Jamey Rodemeyers and Jamey Hubleys. We need kids to know that it’ll “get better.” Falling in love is tough enough when you’re young. Let’s remove the stigma of falling in love with someone of the same sex…
“By canceling the play, it seems to me that school officials are pleasing parents and pillars of the community rather than serving the students. I think there’s a better solution than to stop the production.”
In a phone conversation, I asked Cariani if he had originally conceived of his play being performed by high schools, where it is enormously popular, landing as number one on the Educational Theatre Association’s list of the most produced plays in high school theatre this year. (You can see a list of upcoming productions by searching on the Dramatists Play Service website’s Page to Stage page.)
John Cariani, author of Almost, Maine
“Not at all,” he replied. “I thought it was a play for adults. The first high school production was Cape Elizabeth High School in Maine. They were a great theatre program when I was growing up [also in Maine, but in another school system]. Their teacher approached me and I thought, ‘High school students can’t do this play.’ But I got to see their production. The teacher helped me to understand that high school kids are on the verge of adulthood, but still optimistic of what the world can do for them and what they can do for the world. That is what makes high school kids, when they do it well, do it super-well.”
Cariani said he knew of a couple of instances in the past where there were efforts to censor or cancel the play. He noted one at Bel Air High in Maryland where the American Civil Liberties Union was instrumental in insuring the play went on. He also echoed Baker and Eckard’s sentiments about how to go forward.
“It’s important that we achieve our goals without being mean,” he offered. “It’s dangerous.”
But, I wondered, given the countless productions around the country, wasn’t it possible that some school might have already done, or might be planning to do, the show and altering “They Fell” unilaterally? What would he like to say to anyone who has done that or contemplates that, against the legal contract of the license and copyright law?
“It’s lying,” said Cariani, “because that’s not the play.”
* * *
Some of the Maiden High Students who will continue to work on Almost, Maine (Photo by Eckard Photographic)
Last night, October 20, Baker and Eckard held a small meeting to begin organizing the play for production away from Maiden High School, discussing possible venues, budgets and timing.
I asked Baker whether she thought she might lose any of her cast, since the show is no longer a school activity, especially because the school has already begun surveying students as to their interest in participating in an alternate play under official auspices.
“Only one person for sure said they couldn’t do it anymore,” she replied. “But the show really is meant for four actors and we have a cast of 20, so even if half of them dropped out, we could still do it.”
Maiden senior Logan Riley wrote to me, regarding the school’s effort to mount its own show, “The school system wants to have another show to settle the unrest in the community. This does not mean that we will actually put on another show.”
Moving the play off school grounds could still result in opposition. Are either Baker or Eckard concerned?
“We don’t care if they oppose it,” said Eckard. “Free speech! It won’t matter if they are against a public performance, because those of us involved aren’t under any particular employment or jurisdiction that would cause us to fear retribution.”
Baker echoed the sentiment. “I mean, people will complain no matter where we perform it. We aren’t forcing anyone to come out and see it, but if people do protest, it won’t stop us from performing it.
* * *
So the students of Maiden High School are going forward with Almost, Maine, targeting the first weekend in January for production. They’ve set up a Kickstarter page to raise the funds they need and hope to confirm a location shortly. Their cleverly named website-to-be is www.almost maiden.com.
This isn’t the first time students have taken a show off of school grounds to get it done (there are many precedents, including Wilton CT and La Grande OR) and one has to applaud the Maiden students’ commitment to seeing the show happen, with its myriad messages of love intact. I have to confess to feeling that the school is getting off easy, since the relocated production also shifts the spotlight off of their efforts to silence the students and the play, leaving intact the utterly unacceptable official message that LGBTQ love is something to be hidden away – even as North Carolina begins legal same sex marriages.
But Conner Baker has a simple reason for how the play will now happen, and it’s pretty hard to argue against.
“We aren’t doing it to upset anyone,” she says. “We just want to do what we love doing.”
Aside from being the month of copious pumpkin flavored foodstuffs, October also brings two perennial theatrical top ten lists that are worthy of note: American Theatre magazine’s list of the most produced plays in Theatre Communications Group theatres for the coming season and Dramatics magazine’s lists of the most produced plays, musicals and one-acts in high school theatre for the prior year. They both say a great deal about the state of theatre in their respective spheres of production, both by what’s listed explicitly, as well as by what doesn’t appear.
In the broadest sense, both lists are startlingly predictable, although for different reasons. If you happen to find a bookie willing to give you odds on predicting the lists, here’s the trick for each: for the American Theatre list, bet heavily on plays which appeared on Broadway, or had acclaimed Off-Broadway runs, in the past year or two. For the Dramatics list, bet heavily on the plays that appeared on the prior year’s list.
But in the interest of learning, let’s unpack each list not quite so reductively.
American Theatre
As I’ve written in the past, what happens in New York theatre is a superb predictor of what will happen in regional theatre in the coming seasons, especially when it comes to plays. Any play that makes it to Broadway, or gets a great New York Times review, is going to grab the attention of regional producers. Throw in Tony nominations, let alone a Tony win – or the Pulitzer – and those are the plays that will quickly crop up on regional theatre schedules.
Anyone who follows the pattern of production would have easily guessed that Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike would proliferate this year, being a thoughtful, literary based comedy with a cast of only six. That American Theatre lists 27 productions doesn’t even take into account the 11 theatres that did the show in 2013-14, and certainly there are non-TCG theatres which are doing the show as well. It’s no surprise that Durang has said he made more money this past year than in any other year of his career; it’s a shame that financial success has taken so long for such a prodigiously gifted writer and teacher.
In general, shows on the American Theatre list have about a three year stay, typically peaking in their second year on the list, but this can vary depending upon when titles are released by licensing houses and agents to regional theatres. 25 years ago (and more significantly years before that) theatres might have had to compete with commercial tours, but play tours are exceedingly rare birds these days, if not extinct.
Perhaps this rush to the familiar and popular and NYC-annointed is disheartening, but it’s worth observing that the American Theatre list notes how many productions each title gets, and that after the first couple of slots, we’re usually looking at plays that are getting 7 or 8 productions in a given season, across TCG’s current universe of 474 member companies (404 of which were included in this year’s figures). Since the magazine notes a universe of 1,876 productions, suddenly 27 stagings of a single show doesn’t seem so dominant after all. Granted, TCG drops Shakespeare from their calculations, but even he only counted for 77 productions of all of his plays across this field. So reading between the lines, the American Theatre list suggests there’s very little unanimity about what’s done at TCG member theatres in any given year, a less quantifiable achievement but an important one.
Dramatics
While titles come and go on the American Theatre list, stasis is the best word to describe the lists of most produced high school plays (it’s somewhat less true for musicals). Nine of the plays on the 2014 list were on the 2013 list; 2014 was topped by John Cariani’s Almost, Maine, followed by A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the two titles were in reverse order the prior year. The other duplicated titles were Our Town, 12 Angry Men (Jurors), You Can’t Take It With You, Romeo and Juliet, The Crucible, Harvey and The Importance of Being Earnest.
Like the American Theatre list, the Dramatics survey doesn’t cover the entirety of high school theatre production; only those schools that are members of the Educational Theatre Association’s International Thespian Society have the opportunity to participate, representing more than 4,000 high schools out of a universe of 28,500 public, private and parochial secondary schools in the country. Unlike the Dramatics list, there are no hard numbers about how many productions each show receives, so one can only judge relative popularity.
Almost, Maine’s swift ascension to the top rungs of the list is extraordinary, but it’s due in no small part to its construction as a series of thematically linked scenes, originally played by just four actors but easily expandable for casts where actor salaries aren’t an issue. Looking at recent American Theatre lists, they tend to be topped by plays with small casts (Venus in Fur, Red, Good People and The 39 Steps), while the Dramatics list is the reverse, with larger cast plays dominating, in order to be inclusive of more students (though paling next to musicals where casts in school shows might expand to 50 or more).
The most important trend on the Dramatics list (which has been produced since 1938) is the lack of trends. Though a full assessment of the history of top high school plays would take considerable effort, it’s worth noting that Our Town was on the list not only in 2014 and 2013, but also in 2009, 1999 and 1989; the same is true for You Can’t Take It With You. Other frequently appearing titles are Arsenic and Old Lace, various adaptations of Alice in Wonderland, Harvey, and The Miracle Worker.
No doubt the lack of newer plays with large casts is a significant reason why older classic tend to rule this list; certainly the classic nature of these works and their relative lack of controversial elements play into it as well. But as I watched Sheri Wilner’s play Kingdom City at the La Jolla Playhouse a few weeks ago, in which a drama director is compelled to choose a play from the Dramatics list, I wondered: is the list self-perpetuating? Are there numerous schools that seek what’s mainstream and accepted at other schools, and so do the same plays propagate themselves because administrators see the Dramatics list as having an implied educational seal of approval?
That may well be, and if it’s true, it’s an unfortunate side effect of a quantitative survey. But it’s also worth noting that many of these plays, vintage though they may be, have common themes, chief among them exhortations to march to your own drummer, to matter how out of step you may be to the conventional wisdom. They may be artistic expressions from other eras about the importance of individuality, but in the hands of teachers thinking about more than just placating parents, they are also opportunities to celebrate those among us who may seem different or unique, and for fighting for what you believe in against prevailing sentiment or structures.
* * *
Looking at musicals on the American Theatre list is a challenge, because their list is an aggregate of plays and musicals, and while many regional companies now do a musical or two, it’s much harder for any groundswell to emerge. In the last five years, only three musicals have made it onto the TCG lists, each for one year only: Into The Woods, Spring Awakening and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. That doesn’t mean there’s a dearth of musical production, it simply shows that the work is being done by companies outside of the TCG universe.
Musicals are of course a staple of high school theatre, but the top ten lists from Dramatics are somewhat more fluid. While staples like Guys and Dolls, Grease, Once Upon a Mattress, You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown and Little Shop of Horrors maintain their presence, newer musicals arrive every year or two, with works like Seussical, Legally Blonde, Spelling Bee, and Thoroughly Modern Millie appearing frequently in recent years. At the peak spot, after a six-year run, Beauty and the Beast was bested this year by Shrek; as with professional companies, when popular new works are released into the market, they quickly rise to the top. How long they’ll stay is anyone’s guess, but I have little doubt that we’ll one day see Aladdin and Wicked settle in for long tenures.
* * *
When I looked at both the American Theatre and Dramatics lists over a span of time, the distinct predictability of each was troubling. Coming out when they do, before most theatrical production for the next theatre season is set, I’d like to see them looked at not as any manner of affirmation, but as a challenge – whether to professional companies or school schedules. I admire and enjoy the plays that are listed here, and nothing herein should be construed as critical of any of these shows; audiences around the country deserve the opportunity to see them. While I do have the benefit of living in New York and seeing most of these popular shows there, I must confess that I am most intrigued by the theatre companies and school groups that might just say to themselves, ‘Let’s not do the shows, or too many of the shows, that appear on these lists. Let’s find something else.’ Those plays may never appear as part of any aggregation, but I suspect the groups’ work will be all the more interesting for it, benefiting both artists and audiences.
Even if I were to attend the Board of Education meeting of the South Williamsport Area School District in Pennsylvania this coming Monday, September 22, I couldn’t speak. That’s because the district only allows comment from residents and taxpayers, and I am neither. Even if I were permitted to speak, I very likely would only be permitted to make a statement, since many school boards allow public comments at meetings, but don’t necessarily engage in dialogue. I have no idea what the practice is in South Williamsport.
I remain very concerned about the school’s decision to cancel the musical Spamalot due to, in the words of Principal Jesse Smith, “homosexual themes.” This is no longer an issue about play choice, but about institutional bias. As a result, I have a lot of questions I wish I could ask, both at that meeting and elsewhere in South Williamsport, about all that has transpired over this clear effort to suppress any portrayal of gay life at the Junior/Senior High School, even in a piece as non-doctrinaire as a Monty Python musical.
So all I can do I toss my questions out into the universe, hoping that perhaps a resident or taxpayer might ask them, or speak to them, before Monday night, during the Board of Education meeting itself, and afterwards.
1. Principal Jesse Smith: when this story was first reported, a quote was falsely attributed to you, which has rightly been corrected and/or excised. In school e-mails, you expressed concern that this falsely attributed statement made you look like a bigot. However, the central issue remains – you don’t think it appropriate for homosexual characters or relationships to appear in a school show. This leads me to ask an obvious question: do you personally support or oppose equal rights for all people – gay, straight, bisexual and transgender? Do you personally think the portrayal of gay characters in Spamalot is inappropriate in a school setting, or are you acceding to the opinions and wishes of those who do?
2. Superintendent Mark Stamm: internal e-mails from the school have you declaring that Mr. Smith’s original decision on this issue is “sound.” Therefore, it’s only natural to ask you the same question put to him: do you personally support or oppose equal rights for all – gay, straight, bisexual or transgender?
3. Board of Education chair John Engel: On July 3, regarding the initial assertions that Spamalot was canceled due to gay content, a story from PennLive/Patriot-News said, “Homosexuality did not enter into that decision, Engel said.” The released e-mails prove that homosexuality was the reason for the decision. So, were you given false information by school district staff that led you to make this incorrect statement, or were you attempting to obscure the facts? As an elected official, what is your position regarding the dissemination of incorrect information to the public by any member of the school staff or school board?
4. WNEP Television: You first reported the story of the cancelation of Spamalot and, regrettably, that story contained a noteworthy error which proved distracting. Several days later, you aired a second story about the community coming together. However, since then, you have not reported on the story at all, even after multiple sources revealed that indeed it was the show’s gay content that provoked censorship. Is this fulfilling your responsibility as a source of local news? Have you scared yourselves away from covering an important story?
5. PennLive.com/Patriot-News: You also wrote about the Spamalot controversy when it first broke in July, but have not written about it since the school e-mails were revealed. Why do you not consider those facts newsworthy, especially since they contradict material you previously reported?
6. The news staff of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette: Why did it take a blogger and a progressive advocacy organization to bring forward the truth of the reasons for Spamalot’s cancelation through Right-to-Know requests? Given the information you published originally, it was clear there were varying accounts, and there was an obvious way to clear things up. Why didn’t you do this on your own? Why, once the e-mails were revealed, did it take you another 10 days to report the story?
7. The editorial page staff of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette: Since your paper ultimately wrote about the release of e-mails which made clear that Spamalot was canceled due to its “homosexual themes,” and prior statements from school administrators had been designed to obscure that fact, you have not mentioned this issue at all – either with any letters to the editor or an editorial. In fact, you haven’t offered an editorial about this situation at all since the story first emerged in early July, even though you have managed 10 pieces relating to the Federal government, including terrorism and the IRS, among many others, in that time. Why haven’t you written a word about a case of anti-gay bias in your own backyard?
8. Superintendent Stamm: When you spoke to the Sun-Gazette about the released e-mails, you spoke about statements being taken out of context. However, as the Right-to-Know administrator for the district, you were personally responsible for redacting the context in the e-mails, presumably with advice of counsel. Is it reasonable to complain about lack of context that you blacked out? Also, you defended Mr. Smith’s signature on a check for the rights to Spamalot by saying the attached contract was folded. Is folded material a legitimate excuse for not understanding why disbursements are being made?
9. To the (claimed) South Williamsport area parent who contacted me via my website: You wrote, “I have a child that attends the So. Wmspst school district and would never want him exposed to that sexual sin. There are still parents and students and many members of our community who do not agree with homosexuality or gay marriage… We have freedom of speech also-I don’t want to see our innocent children exposed to that. They don’t need to grow up thinking that it’s normal. Some of us still have morals. Keep it out of South!” Your freedom of speech absolutely does guarantee you the right to express your opinions. However, a public school has the responsibility to prepare students for life and to teach them about the world beyond their local community. Do you believe that your disagreement with aspects of the world can dictate what students learn and perform?
10. All officials and residents in South Williamsport: national news reports on this issue have the potential to leave a lasting image of your town as one that does not believe in inclusion and equality. Will you make a public effort to assure members of the local, regional and national community that South Williamsport accepts, respects and welcomes all people as equals, without regard to gender, age, race, religion, disability or sexual orientation?
I realize that my questions go far beyond the scope of a Board of Education meeting. But that meeting is as good a reason and opportunity as any to start raising these questions, since they arose from a school issue. Now all I can do is hope that they get asked.
Among the many responses I’ve received to my accounts of the censorship of the musical Spamalot at South Williamsport Junior/Senior High in Pennsylvania was a tweet from Dane Rooney, an English teacher and drama director in Shenandoah PA, who spoke of his own school’s Spamalot. I invited him to e-mail me with more information, but instead of a handful of bullet points, I got an essay. I asked if I could share his communication and, with a few adjustments by Dane for wider readership, this is his account of productions of both Spamalot and The Producers at this Central Pennsylvania school of less than 500 students across six grades. – Howard Sherman
BY DANE ROONEY
Ever since I was in kindergarten, I wanted to act and direct. Coming from Shenandoah – a small town in the hard coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania – opportunities to act were scarce. Even entering high school, there wasn’t a consistent theater organization. That is until 2001, when I was a sophomore and my brother Colin was in seventh grade. We joined the club and performed in Grease, and since then, the Shenandoah Valley Drama Club has produced a musical every spring. I graduated college and was hired as an English teacher at SV in 2007. I also began directing the musicals.
The Shenandoah Valley High School cast of Monty Python’s Spamalot with the visiting ambassador of Nigeria.
Every single year I hoped that Monty Python’s Spamalot would become available. Hours before the opening of Grease in 2001, we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail to relieve some of our nerves. It became a ritual for a while, and so when Colin and I saw the Broadway tour in Hershey in 2008, I felt that one year, the SVDC would have the opportunity to produce the hit comedy. Colin passed away that year from meningitis, so producing Spamalot took on a deeper meaning than just a silly comedy.
Just like South Williamsport High School planned for their 2015 production, SVDC wanted to produce Spamalot after success with How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. Once the rights were available in PA in February of 2013, the Shenandoah Valley High School principal and superintendent approved the show without any “school edition” edits or optional dialogue/lyrics, which Eric Idle makes available through Theatrical Rights Worldwide. The administration and school board trusted me with the show’s material and felt that it would be a great production choice. On April 19th 2013, the Shenandoah Valley Drama Club became the first high school in Pennsylvania to produce Monty Python’s Spamalot.
Not only was I excited to direct one of my dream shows, but the students were thrilled about the choice to perform in Spamalot as well; many of them already loved the film version. Typically high school drama clubs have a majority of girls in the cast, however over the last four years, our drama club has become a predominantly male cast. The show fit us perfectly: the cast, the humor, the edginess, and that certain strangeness in most Python works.
Though Shenandoah is an even smaller town than Williamsport (located about 60 miles from us), no questions were ever raised about the gay marriage or the gay characters in the show. In fact, I was more concerned about the song “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway” which is a song poking fun at Broadway and the large Jewish community involved in Broadway productions.
Danny Schaffer and Eric Rooney at the wedding of Sir Lancelot and Prince Herbert at Shenandoah Valley High School’s Spamalot
The students who played Sir Lancelot and Prince Herbert (the couple who get married at the end of the show) treated their characters with seriousness and humor. Both actors were nominated for Best Comedic Actor at our local high school awards, and the senior who played Lancelot (and other various characters) won the award. “His Name Is Lancelot”, the song in which Lancelot comes out of the closet, was by far a crowd favorite. The trick was casting some of the most charismatic students in our school as the gay male rumba dancers. I assembled four football players, the school mascot, and a class clown and we tried to keep it as much of a secret from the student population as possible. We worked countless late night hours at dance rehearsals, working around their sports schedules. When they appeared and the song began, I could hardly hear the music; the crowd burst into an uproar of applause, laughter, and cheers. I’m not even sure if they know the impact they had on the drama club, the student body, and the community; but I hope they know now and I know they were proud to portray gay characters in such a great scene and I am proud of them for doing it so bravely.
This song and this play became a highlight for our drama club. The audience loved the show and, to up the ante even further, we chose to perform The Producers the next year (April 2014). Because of the success of Spamalot (in which our cast size was about 30), we had over 60 kids in seventh through twelfth grade make the cut for the cast of The Producers. With stellar comedic actors, we pulled off another edgy musical, even topping Spamalot according to most audience response.
Angelo Maskornick as Roger De Bris and Eric Rooney as Carmen Ghia in Shenandoah Valley High School’s The Producers (Photo by Mary Sajone)
In The Producers, the students who played Roger De Bris and Carmen Ghia, the gay director and his partner/assistant, were so believable that audience members were “aww-ing” at some of the more tender moments between the pair. During the song “Keep It Gay” in which Roger explains that all theater must have something gay in it, the members of Roger’s production team pulled audience members onto the stage to join in the dance and conga line. The audience couldn’t stop laughing and enjoying themselves. On our final performance, the junior who played Roger went all out after “Springtime for Hitler” by laying a surprise kiss on his onstage partner, sending the audience into an uproar that nearly resulted in a premature standing ovation. It was as if our audience wanted them to be as affectionate as any straight couple in a high school musical.
However, I heard of one concerned comment that was made. Someone was worried about any closeted seventh grader watching upperclassmen portray gay characters in a satiric way. This person’s concern was that a closeted youngster might feel even more afraid to be themselves. I, however, feel passionately that, by choosing shows with gay characters and portraying them in a truthful way, we lighten the weight that a closeted seventh grader holds on his or her shoulders. Seeing a popular junior and sophomore act as a loving gay couple in a successful show like The Producers allows that seventh grader to fear no more; it allows a community to accept, to laugh, and to love. It also opens the doors for other actors to expand the roles they audition for in upcoming years, to make it okay to play any type of role. The high school actors playing gay characters in both Spamalot and The Producers performed for the thrill of acting, entering the stage with humor and bravery; what they never expected is that when they took their final bows, they left that stage heroes.
This year, we estimate that 80 to 90 students will be auditioning for the musical – that’s nearly a fifth of the school’s population. We have become the most popular and largest organization in our school, including all sports and extracurricular activities. Theater is alive and well at Shenandoah Valley High School.
As an educator, it is my duty and an honor to provide my students with everything they need to succeed. It is my job to ensure the safety of my students, and that means creating an environment free of judgment, prejudice, and hate. This story of how the SV Drama Club includes gay characters is one that I’m proud of, but the fact of the matter is, it never needed to be explained or justified over a year ago when we produced it. I am happy to share our story if it means that a high school may stop and think about the harm they are doing upon their community and student body if they decide to exclude a show based on the show’s inclusion of gay characters.
The fact is this: Spamalot is a perfect show for any high school, and if you’re lucky, it will have an astounding effect on your students, community and organization as it did at Shenandoah Valley High School.
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Projects associated with the Office for Arts Integrity include integrated coursework in conjunction with a forthcoming Master’s degree in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship; a collective space for affected professional and community artists to raise concerns and seek guidance; an online publication chronicling challenges to artistic expression and offering original work speaking directly to those issues from within the New School community and expert outside voices; and public programs to raise awareness of the silencing of artistic works and devise strategies for mobilization of the creative and educational communities.
