Let’s start with the basics: no one can possibly prevent critics from reviewing shows if they want to do. Whether it’s requested or even imposed by theatre company, a venue, a rights holder, or an author, members of the press – just like the public – can always buy a ticket to a theatrical production and express what they think. To actively prevent members of the press from entering a theatre is at least foolhardy if not potentially discriminatory; to prevent anyone from writing or broadcasting their opinion is a denial of their rights to speech. Just so we’re all on the same page.

Ari Fliakos, Kate Valk, and Scott Renderer in The Wooster Group’s production of Pinter’s The Room (photo by Paula Court)

That’s why a recent press release from The Wooster Group and the Los Angeles venue REDCAT quickly stirred up a hornet’s nest. It stated that the license granted to The Wooster Group for the REDCAT run of the Group’s production of Harold Pinter’s The Room, beginning tomorrow, contained the admonition, “There may be absolutely No reviews of this production; e.g. newspaper, website posts etc.” It also appeared in a press release issued by The Wooster and REDCAT, after an opening paragraph which stated “Samuel French, Inc., which manages the United States rights for Harold Pinter’s work, restricts critics from reviewing the world premiere of the Group’s production of The Room at REDCAT.”

Very little angers and piques the interest of the press more than being told what they can’t do, so it’s no surprise that following the initial word of the issue coming from the website Bitter Lemons, both the Los Angeles Times and New York Times did features on the ostensible critical blackout. But there’s more to the story, which both Times recounted.

In short, The Wooster Group acquired a license for “advance” presentations of The Room last fall, at their home The Performing Garage in New York, where it played an extended run in October and November of 2015. At the time the Group announced that engagement, press releases issued by the company spoke of the planned “premiere” at REDCAT, a return run in New York, and plans to make The Room the first of a trilogy of Pinter productions (The Wooster Group has subsequently spoken of plans to take The Room to France).

However, Bruce Lazarus, executive director of Samuel French, which licenses Pinter’s work in the U.S. on behalf of the Pinter estate’s London agent, says that the announcement of any presentation beyond the original New York license caught the company by surprise. The Wooster Group has confirmed that they had not secured licenses for any of the subsequent engagements beyond November 2015, with their general manager Pamela Reichen writing in an e-mail, “Our plans to do further Pinter pieces besides The Room were preliminary and tentative, when we first announced performances of The Room in New York City.  We did not have specific dates for these further productions, and so had not yet made an application for rights to Samuel French.”

Both parties agree that they began discussions about future licenses immediately after French learned of the company’s plans, but the pace and substance of those negotiations and terms are in dispute. What is not in dispute is that by the time rights for the REDCAT engagement were completed, the prohibition against opening the production for review was in place.

When this first hit the press, Lazarus issued a statement that read in part:

Samuel French is licensing agent representing the wishes of the Harold Pinter estate. The Wooster Group announced the Los Angeles production of Pinter’s “The Room” before securing the rights.  Had The Wooster Group attempted to secure the rights to the play prior to announcing the production, the estate would have withheld the rights.

Lazarus maintains that the Pinter estate had not been prepared to grant any subsequent license, because the British agent had lined up a “first class” production in the UK, which had an option for a US transfer. Lazarus points out that French could have simply said no. He said that French persuaded the UK agent to allow the LA production, with restrictions. “We said yes because they begged, said Lazarus, “They said, ‘We’ll lose money’.” At first the license was written so as not to permit any promotion of the production, but that was scaled back to being a limitation on reviews.

Queried about the “no reviews” language, Lazarus says French, “made it clear what we meant: don’t invite the critics and don’t provide press tickets. We were under no illusion that the press couldn’t buy a ticket and that if they did so, it wasn’t a breach of contract. We weren’t denying freedom of speech.” That said, whatever the content of the conversations were, in stark black and white contract language, the suggestion of a press exclusion appeared much more blunt, and became even more so when deployed in a press release verbatim. Lazarus allowed that in the future, should such stipulations be made, the language will be more specific.

Ari Fliakos in The Wooster Group’s production of Pinter’s The Room (photo by Paula Court)

In the Wooster/REDCAT release, Mark Murphy, Executive Director of REDCAT, says that the review restrictions were “’highly unusual and puzzling,’ adding that, ‘This attempt to restrict critical discussion of such an important production in print and online is deeply troubling, with the potential for severe financial impact.’” In point of fact, review restrictions have become increasingly frequent, for any number of reasons. Just last summer, Connecticut critics were strongly urged not to review A.R. Gurney’s Love and Money at the Westport Country Playhouse because the show’s ‘true’ premiere was to take place immediately following its Connecticut run at New York’s Signature Theatre. Several years ago, national press was “uninvited” from the premiere of Tony Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide at the Guthrie Theatre once a commercial producer optioned the piece. Major press was asked to skip The Bridges of Madison County when it was first seen at Williamstown Theatre Festival. I can think back almost 30 years to a time when I pleaded with a New York Times critic not to attend a production at Hartford Stage, even though local press had attended. And let’s not forget how long Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark spent in preview before the press finally got fed up and covered it despite the stated preferences of the production. Whether or not one likes the practice of letting producers decide when reviews are or are not “permitted” (Jeremy Gerard of Deadline, previously of Bloomberg and Variety, stakes out his position in a recent column), whether one feels the press is honorable or complicit in how they handle these requests on a case by case basis, it’s hardly a rare practice.

In the case of how the press was handled in connection with The Wooster Group’s unreviewed advance showings of The Room in New York in the fall, Pamela Reichen, general manager of the company, who responded to e-mail questions, writes, “The New York performances were not open to the press. We develop our work over long periods of time that involve work-in-progress showings – like the October-November showings of The Room – at our home theater, The Performing Garage.  We only open a show for review in New York or elsewhere once development is complete. The decision not to invite press to the advance showings was our decision, not a stipulation from Samuel French.  It was our intention to open the show for review in Los Angeles.”

In a phone conversation about this situation, Jeremy Gerard of Deadline noted, “There’s no other kind of journalism where the journalist says, ‘Is it OK if I report this kind of story?’” That said, the allowance for theatrical productions to be developed and previewed in front of paying audiences has become generally standard practice and important to countless creative artists, the result of a détente between the natural instincts of the press and the creative process of artists.

It’s impossible not to wonder whether the license was actually being denied because of dissatisfaction with the advance presentation in New York by French or the estate. Lazarus says that’s not the case. “No,” he stated, “This is not a value judgment on the production.” That seems consistent with the account by Pamela Reichen, who writes, “We received an appreciative note from the representative of Samuel French who attended an advance showing performance. We have not received any other communication from the estate or Samuel French relating to the concept or execution of our production.”

Asked whether the current denial of right to perform The Room for the foreseeable future after the Los Angeles run would effect their exploration of other Pinter works, Reichen wrote, “Because the rights are not being made available to us, we have no plans to explore other Pinter works. No significant work had begun on them. But our inability to perform The Room in New York or on tour will cause The Wooster Group a significant financial loss. We are a not-for-profit organization, and we fund our own productions. We therefore must recoup our investment over time through long performance runs and touring fees.”

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So let’s cull this down to the basics.

The Wooster Group entered into an agreement to premiere their production of The Room in Los Angeles without having secured the rights to do so, and predicated company finances on presentations of the work beyond the original advance shows in New York in the fall 2015. Whatever the circumstances of the negotiations for those rights, The Wooster Group moved forward with an additional engagement, and was planning for yet more, with no assurance that they could do the piece.

In ultimately granting the rights for the Los Angeles engagement, Samuel French, on behalf of the Pinter estate’s wishes, stipulated that the show at REDCAT should not be open for reviews, but with language that can be construed as a broadly sweeping admonition over any reviews appearing, as opposed to being merely that the venue not facilitate the attendance of critics. Could French and the Pinter estate have allowed the brief LA engagement to proceed with no restrictions, without materially affecting the fortunates of a UK first class production and avoiding the resulting fuss? Sure, but ultimately, it was their call.*

In accepting the terms as set forth by French, The Wooster Group and REDCAT apparently still bridled at them, and so instead of asking critics not to attend, they issued a media release which implied an actual, but entirely unenforceable, press ban by French.

I would suggest that The Wooster Group and REDCAT, instead of acquiescing to their agreement and abiding by its spirit, issued the press release they did precisely to incite the press to greater interest in covering The Room, and it worked like a charm. It resulted in more national press than a 10-day run in Los Angeles might have otherwise received, and it prompted the American Theatre Critics Association to issue a statement in support of the right of the arts press to cover work as they see fit. Editors are reportedly debating whether or not to honor – is it a ban or is it a request – the position that the Los Angeles production isn’t officially open for review, even when it’s perfectly clear that they can do as they wish and always could.

Ultimately, The Wooster Group and REDCAT may have won the battle, but they’ve lost the war, since there won’t be any further Pinter work by the company at this time. But they did successfully turn the press account of the situation away from their inability to secure rights on terms they found acceptable into one of press freedom. However, the impact of heightened alertness by the press to requests that work be protected from review in some cases or for some period of time may prove detrimental to other companies and productions in the wake of this scenario. I have always supported the right of artists and companies to explore their work in front of audiences for a reasonable period of time before critics weigh in, and will continue to do so, but in all cases, the press will have the final word. I’m not sure this situation was ultimately beneficial to the arts community because it puts a longstanding, unwritten mutual agreement under the glare of scrutiny that one day may have far-reaching implications.

The two sentences which finish with an asterisk above were inadvertently left out of the post when it first appeared, and were added approximately 90 minutes after this piece first went online. Bruce Lazarus’s title at Samuel French was incorrect in the original post and the text has been altered to reflect his correct position at the company.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jonathan Larson’s Rent at PACT in Tullahoma TN (photo by Howard Sherman)

I honestly wish I could figure out what makes one blog post a roaring success, and another a blip on the radar. Certainly the topic under discussion has some impact, but readership seems just as likely to be affected by the title, a photo, the Facebook algorithm, the timing of a tweet, what else is happening in the world, and so on. In short, I have no idea.

In looking over my most-read posts of 2015, I do know which ones took a great deal of research and time, and which were dashed off in under an hour. I know which ones were written after a great deal of consideration, and which were wholly reactive to something I read or heard. They don’t necessarily correlate to readership at all.

I am surprised by the way in which my most-read posts were grouped in the latter half of the year, with seven coming since October 29. Is there any correlation with the fact that I began regularly working out of The New School Drama offices starting in early October, in my new role as director of the Arts Integrity Initiative? I think it’s just coincidence, but it’s possible that the new environment meshed with some significant incidents to yield my most successful writing.

While it may seem paradoxical to offer up my most-read work once again, I have no doubt that there are plenty of people who didn’t read one or more of these when they were first posted, and perhaps there are a few people who would like to catch up with them now. You’ll note I’m not providing them in order of popularity, because it’s not a contest, but I can say that even within these ten, there’s a differential of some 10,000 views.

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July 3: Preparing For Anti-“Rent” Messages From Tennessee Pulpits

I had spoken with the leadership of the PACT community theatre in Tullahoma, Tennessee when they first began experiencing resistance to their production of Rent, but they decided that they’d prefer to try to address the opposition on a local basis. But ten days before performances were to begin, they learned of a letter in opposition to the show that was being circulated to the local clergy, and felt it was time for me to take up their cause and make it a national issue. I traveled to Tullahoma for the opening night, where I was welcomed by numerous members of the community, including the mayor, but the opposition had failed and the show played to an enthusiastic crowd. A prayer circle outside the theatre, in quiet protest of the production, drew only four people, including the two pastors who had been most opposed to the show.

August 1: Disrespecting Playwrights And Their Words with Young Players in

Minnesota

Words Players Theatre found itself in the midst of a firestorm when several bog posts, mine among them, questioned their practice of soliciting plays for production with their teen actors, but saying that the director had the final word over the show, contrary to the tenets of The Dramatists Guild. I stand by what I wrote at the time, but I was troubled by the degree of vehemence that some directed at the company, which didn’t necessarily seems the best way to educate students, their parents and the company’s leadership about respect for scripts in production. I ultimately wrote a second post, trying to walk back some of the rhetoric that surrounded this situation, not just mine, by the way.

September 15: Putting On Yellowface For The Holidays With Gilbert & Sullivan & NYU

I was far from the only person to speak out against the archaic, stereotypical use of yellowface in a production of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players production of The Mikado, but I was among the first, with my blog post going online alongside two others on Tuesday, September 15. The groundswell of reaction grew very quickly in subsequent days, and advocates against the practice of yellowface awoke three days later to find, with great surprise, that the production had been canceled. NYGASP says they will return with a reconceived Mikado that’s appropriate to 21^st century America. Perhaps I’ll be writing about that in 2016.

October 29: When A White Actor Goes To “The Mountaintop”

It took three weeks after the production closed for word of Katori Hall’s Olivier Award-winning play being produced with a white actor as Martin Luther King to find its way to general awareness, but once it did, it brought great scrutiny to this production, at a community theatre based out of Kent State University’s Department of Pan-African Studies. What was even more remarkable, and remains still less known, is that the concept of having white and black actors each do four performances as Dr. King never happened – the white actor played the role for the entire run.

November 1: She Has A Name: Casually Diminishing Women In Theatre

I wasn’t exactly mystified as to why an interview with Pam MacKinnon carried a headline that mention her collaborators Al Pacino and David Mamet, both more famous, but it didn’t seem right that the person the paper actually spoke with was subordinated in this way. Intriguingly, not long after I posted my piece, the headline was altered, removing Mamet and Pacino – but it still didn’t mention MacKinnon by name. I was intrigued to discover that in coming up with a headline, I had birthed a Twitter hashtag: #SheHasAName.

November 2: A Seattle Theatre Critic Flies Past An Ethical Boundary

Critic offers his extra complimentary press ticket for sale, via the personals section. This one pretty much wrote itself. But I have to say that I quickly came to regret the tone of this piece, because I let myself succumb to snark precisely because it was so easy in this case. I should have stuck to the facts and let the story speak for itself. My feelings about what this critic did (or tried to do) haven’t changed, but I should have done better.

November 13: Erasing Race On Stage At Clarion University

Coming on the heels of the Mountaintop situation at Kent State, this dispute over racial representation in a college production of Jesus In India at Clarion University led to playwright Lloyd Suh pulling the rights to the show. There was a backlash against Suh from those who didn’t understand, or didn’t wish to understand, what it means to have white actors, even students, playing characters of color. Statements from university figures to the press only fed the uproar. But it has led to multiple offline conversations between Suh and the professor who was directing the show, and between the professor and me as well. Suh and I will be visiting the KCACTF Region 2 festival in a few weeks where we’ll meet for the first time and discuss the issue with the college students and their professors in attendance.

December 2: What Is Being Taught About The Director-Playwright Relationship?

After the heated dialogues that both The Mountaintop and Jesus in India engendered, on social media, in comments sections and in direct correspondence, I was moved to wonder aloud about how the playwright-director dynamic was being addressed in college training programs, both undergraduate and graduate. It prompted yet more comments and e-mails, and frankly helped me to learn a great deal more and provide the basis for further exploration. The post became the basis for a panel added to the KCACTF Region 3 festival, and I’ll be headed to Milwaukee to participate in the conversation right after the first of the year.

December 3: What Does “Hamilton” Tell Us About Race In Casting?

With Hamilton being cited as a reason why white actors should be permitted to play characters of color, I took the opportunity of a previously scheduled and wholly unrelated interview to ask the show’s writer-composer-star Lin-Manuel Miranda for his take on race on stage, both in his own work and the work of others. He was, as always, thoughtful and eloquent, during his dinner break on a two-show day.

December 9: Black Magic Crosses Directing & Design Line in Connecticut

When a community/semi-professional theatre in Connecticut staged a production that looked startlingly like a professional production that had been stage nearby three years earlier, it was an opportunity to address the issue of appropriation from other productions and what constitutes originality in directing and design. While the company in question suspended performances within 24 hours, and have subsequently restaged the show on a new set, the outpouring of anecdotes (and expressions of frustration) about productions that have slavishly copied others came pouring out. I expect to write more on this subject.

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October 16: When A Facebook Comment Says More Than a Long Blog Post About Diversity

While it didn’t make the list of my ten most read posts, top on my list of posts that I wish had been more widely read is this one. Written on a day when a combination of medications for an infection laid me low and found me laying on my sofa most of the day, an array of tweets and comments roused me to string together a few sentences which were probably my only coherent thoughts until the drugs wore off. Even if you don’t read the whole post, take a look at the italicized midsection, which is what I actually wrote that day; the rest is subsequent framing.

June 9: If The Arts Were Reported Like Sports

Truth be told, this was one of my ten most read posts of 2015, but that has little to do with what I actually wrote and everything to do with the video I’d discovered and embedded, once again with framing material that isn’t essential to enjoying the video. My greatest contribution was a snappy title. But if you haven’t seen it and need a laugh at year end, this vid’s for you.

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My thanks to everyone who read, commented, shared, tweeted or wrote to me in connection with my writing this year, and special thanks to those who brought situations to my attention so that I could explore them and share them even more broadly. You all have my very best wishes for a safe, happy, arts-filled 2016.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts and interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

The Bad Seed at Portage High School (Photo by Sarah Farthing-Hudson)

I am delighted to report that all of the smoking, drinking, drugging and sexual references will be intact – tonight, tomorrow and Sunday – in the production of Maxwell Anderson’s 1950s psychodrama The Bad Seed at Portage High School in northwestern Indiana. This may seem entirely unremarkable, except that just 11 days ago, students were still being instructed to strike out lines in their scripts and change stage directions to purge the production of all such content. Even the presence of an ashtray wasn’t going to be permitted.

Mind you, I’m not specifically celebrating cigarette smoking, drug use, alcohol consumption or sexual activities among teens, but rather their ability to portray these activities in a script some six decades old. More importantly, I want to congratulate the students for responding in the best possible– and effective – way when they were instructed to censor the script, knowing full well that no approval had been sought from the licensing house or the author’s estate.

I caught wind of this situation last Wednesday morning, when NWI Times published a story about Portage Thespians appearing at a school board meeting the night before, to express their dismay over the editing they had been instructed to undertake. Per the newtimes.com account, the school board chair professed to know nothing about any censorship, and she asked the superintendent to investigate.

I received the article via Facebook within an hour of it appearing online in Indiana, and I quickly undertook to track down the students who had so responsibly brought the issue to the school board. By noontime, after some social media searching, I was in communication with several students who had been part of the appeal at the board meeting. I quickly learned that the school superintendent had asked to meet with the students after school that very day. I offered some general counsel about broaching the subject at that meeting, and then simply waited for a report as to how things were proceeding.

The Bad Seed at Portage High School (Photo by Sarah Farthing-Hudson)

Imagine my surprise when, just a few hours later, I learned from the students online that The Bad Seed would be performed intact. Students tweeted happily about erasing crossed out lines from their scripts. All was well. The next day, the nwitimes confirmed the news in a followup story.

When situations like this arise at other schools in the future, those committed to the ethically and legally correct path of producing plays as written would do well to remember the words of Portage superintendent. “The director is encouraged to do the show and given the support to use his best judgment to do what is right for the students,” wrote superintendent Richard Weigel once the situation was resolved. He’d already said, in a statement, “From my perspective, the purpose of theater is to provide insights into characters that reflect different ways of thinking. Theater provides an opportunity for our students to reflect on those characters, not become those characters.”

More importantly, people should emulate students like Lydia Gerike, Sara Dailey and Valerie Plinovich (all named by the NWI Times), who spoke out with clarity and integrity in support of the play and their exploration of it. They didn’t need any coaching from anyone, it seems. They knew just what to do to put the situation right.

Mind you, it’s never come entirely clear who demanded the changes to the script, but it seems reasonably safe to assume that it happened somewhere above the drama program’s director and below the level of the superintendent. Infer what you will about who in the school hierarchy might have been behind the effort.

Calm, rational, righteous heads set thing right in Portage, so that homicidal Rhoda Penmark can wreak havoc tonight, tomorrow night and at Sunday’s matinee. I applaud the Portage Thespians from afar. I may not have occasion to be in touch with any of them again. But they deserve credit, along with their superintendent and school board, for making sure things happened as they should, with the play performed as written and students freed to explore characters and habits not necessarily their own. Now all of those involved just need to keep their eyes open for any subsequent homogenization of Portage High School productions, to make sure that the censorship doesn’t happen before future plays are chosen, and the unknown bad seed in this censorship story doesn’t succeed in the long run by foisting bland material on the next wave of shows and students.

So the only thing left to say to the Portage Thespians, as is only appropriate for a show like The Bad Seed, is: knock ‘em dead, kids.

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

The story practically writes itself: fundraiser for anti-censorship group gets censored. Ironic headline, attention-grabbing tweet, you name it. That’s exactly what appears to have happened in the past few days as the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture’s decision to cancel a rental contract with the theatre group Planet Connections Theatre Festivity has been made public. Planet Connections was producing a one-night event, “Playwrights for a Cause,” on the subject of censorship, which would in part benefit the National Coalition Against Censorship.

“Neil LaBute’s Anti-Censorship Play Is Censored, With Chilling ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Echoes,” was the headline of an article by Jeremy Gerard for Deadline. “Neil LaBute NYC Anti-Censorship Theater Event ‘Censored’ to Prevent Muslim Outrage,” topped a piece by Kipp Jones for Breitbart News. “Sheen Center Cancels Event Featuring Neil LaBute Play About ‘Mohammed’” was the title for Jennifer Scheussler’s story in The New York Times.

In the wake of the cancelation, the situation was described in a press release:

“Playwrights For A Cause,” an evening of plays by award-winning playwrights Erik Ehn, Halley Feiffer, Israel Horovitz and Neil LaBute, and a panel discussion concerning censorship in climate science and more inclusion of LGBT, women, and minorities in the arts, originally scheduled for June 14, 2015 at The Sheen Center at 18 Bleecker Street, has been canceled by the management of The Sheen Center.

Although their management originally approved the event and accepted full payment for the venue, a recent change in management resulted in the Center’s decision that some of the speeches the panel speakers were going to make, along with Neil LaBute’s play Mohammed Gets A Boner, are not acceptable or compatible with their mission statement.  The diverse panel of speakers included Cecilia Copeland, speaking on the censorship of women in the arts; Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin, speaking on the censorship of environmentalists and climate scientists; Michael Hagins, speaking on the censorship & underrepresentation of minorities in the arts; and Mark Jason Williams, speaking on the censorship of LGBT artists.

On Tuesday, May 12, The Sheen Center canceled the entire event, including the Planet Connections opening night party which – ironically – was benefitting the National Coalition Against Censorship.

Upon my inquiry as to the cause of the cancelation, William Spencer Reilly, executive director of the Sheen Center, responded:

At the Sheen Center we are 100% for the right to free speech for every American, and always will be. However, when an artistic project maligns any faith group, that project clearly falls outside of our mission to highlight the good, the true, and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages.

We were disappointed to learn only a few days ago that one of the plays commissioned by Planet Connections Theater Festivity for the Playwrights For a Cause benefit event was called “Mohommad Gets a Boner” [sic].  We were totally unaware of this, and their Producing Artistic Director was fully cognizant that plays of this nature were unacceptable vis a vis our contract. (That contract, FYI, was with Planet Connections Theater Festivity, not with National Coalition Against Censorship.)

In light of this clear offense to Muslims, I decided to cancel the contract. Just as newspapers the world over have chosen not to publish cartoons offensive to Islam, I chose not to provide a forum for what could be incendiary material.  At the Sheen Center, we cannot and will not be a forum that mocks or satirizes another faith group.

I am confident that the programming at the Sheen Center will continue to demonstrate our commitment to meaningful conversation about important issues, and will do so in a respectful manner — to people of all faiths, or of no particular faith.

Reilly wrote, in a separate e-mail, that he learned of the content of “Playwrights for a Cause” from a staff member on May 11, saying that his staff knew of three of the plays prior to his start as executive director in late January, that he signed the contract on February 10, and that his staff only learned of the La Bute play on May 8, when they “discovered” it on the Planet Connections website.

*   *   *

Before continuing, I should note my pre-existing relationship with NCAC. I have worked collaboratively with them on several instances of school theatre censorship, most notably on the cancelation of a production of Almost, Maine in Maiden NC and most recently on a threat to student written plays in Aurora, CO. Last year, they named me as one of their “Top 40 Free Speech Defenders.” They first informed me of the cancelation of “Playwrights for a Cause” because they were seeking suggestions of where they might relocate the event, and they did not solicit me at any time to write about the situation.

*   *   *

In the wake of the cancelation, the NCAC indicated to me that the contract for the event, signed by Planet Connections, provided for cancelations pertaining to content concerns. The statement from the Sheen Center (“unacceptable vis a vis our contract”) seemed to confirm that proviso. However, when I asked Glory Kadigan, producing artistic curator of Planet Connections about provisions for cancelation in the contract, she responded,

It does say no abortions on the premises. And it does say it can’t be pornographic. However the Sheen did not cite pornography as the reason they were breaking contract. They cited religion. I do not see anything in the contract that states ‘religious differences’ as a reason they are allowed to break contract. I also can’t find a clause that states that ‘not upholding their mission’ is a reason they can break contract.

Kadigan reaffirmed this in a subsequent e-mail:

When breaking contract with us – [a Sheen staffer] stated in an email that they had a right to break contract for “religious differences/being offensive to a religion” and not upholding their mission statement. The contract does not state this anywhere that we can find. This was just something she said in an email when breaking contract but it is not actually in the contract.”

Kadigan also said there was no provision in the contract for review or approval of content. In a follow-up e-mail, after two prior exchanges, I asked Reilly if he could share the specific contract language that provided for cancelation due to material that might prove offensive to any religious group. I received no response. He also did not respond to my inquiry asking if the decision to cancel the contract based solely on the La Bute play or if the content by the featured speakers part of the decision.

*   *   *

The website of the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture doesn’t make explicit that it’s a project of New York’s Catholic Archdiocese, although it does so in a current job listing for a managing director position on the New York Foundation for the Arts website. However, there are clear public indications that the new arts center has a Catholic underpinning, via its mission statement:

The Sheen Center is a forum to highlight the true, the good, and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages. Cognizant of our creation in the image and likeness of God, the Sheen Center aspires to present the heights and depths of human expression in thought and culture, featuring humankind as fully alive. At the Sheen Center, we proclaim that life is worth living, especially when we seek to deepen, explore, challenge, and stimulate ourselves, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, intellectually, artistically, and spiritually.

“Sheen Center for Thought and Culture” is also not the complete name of the venue, since its letterhead notes that it is in fact “The Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Center for Thought and Culture.” I wouldn’t begin to suggest that the Center is hiding its affiliation with the church, but it is inconsistent in making the relationship clear.

I think it would benefit the Sheen Center enormously to clarify this, because a religious organization certainly has the right to determine what activities are appropriate in its own facilities. In making its facility available to outside groups for rent, rather than relying solely on its own productions, it behooves the Center to make clear how they might choose to assert their prerogative.

In an article last year in the Wall Street Journal, Elena K. Holy, who runs the New York International Fringe Festival, an early tenant of the Center, discussed her conversations with the Center’s leadership about content, prior to Reilly’s tenure:

The new spaces appealed to Ms. Holy, whose festival typically includes shows that would raise the eyebrows of conservative churchgoers. “We’ve had conversations about it,” said Ms. Holy. “They approached us. And my initial response was ‘Are you sure?'”

Ms. Holy said she was given no restriction on style or content, with one caveat: “They wanted to avoid anything that is hateful about a one group of people. And that probably wouldn’t be accepted to Fringe NYC anyway.”

Of course, the Fringe has the benefit of playing in more than a dozen venues, so presumably it can program its work at the Center accordingly, to avoid running afoul of its content restrictions. From this year’s crop of upcoming productions at the Fringe, I would say we’re unlikely to see Van Gogh Fuck Yourself, Virgin Sacrifice, The God Gaffe, or Popesical at the Sheen Center. I have no idea what they would make of An Inconvenient Poop or I Want To Kill Lena Dunham.

I do find myself wondering about another booking at The Sheen Center, specifically The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group Spotlight series. Since the beginning of April, and concluding next week, The Public has presented two free readings of each of ten new plays. While the titles don’t indicate any potential controversy as La Bute’s did – they include Optimism, The Black Friend, The Good Ones and Pretty Hunger – it’s hard not to wonder whether ten new plays by young writers by sheer coincidence manage to not make any statements that could be perceived as contrary or insulting to any faith. Since it doesn’t appear that the Sheen Center requires script material to be submitted in advance, is it possible that if a Sheen staff member attended a 3 pm reading in The Public’s series and heard statements they deemed to be contrary to the center’s mission, the 7 pm reading of the same script might be prevented from going on?

*   *   *

Reilly stated that the Center is “100% for the right to free speech for every American.” However, truly free speech means that we have to allow for both words and ideas that may not be acceptable to everyone. As a project of the Catholic Church, the Sheen Center certainly has the absolute right, as do all religious institutions in the US, to assert its prerogative over what is said and performed on its premises – but that is not 100% free speech for their tenants during their stay, even if the goal of restrictions is to foster, in Reilly’s words, “meaningful conversation that reaches for understanding and not polarization.”

While Reilly’s comments were not shared with her, Kadigan, in her final e-mail to me, seemed to directly confront the idea that the event was meant to polarize. She wrote:

‘Playwrights For A Cause’ is a great event in which we are building bridges. We had two Muslim actors performing that evening who were going to be on our panel.   We also have African American artists performing and Asian American writers speaking.  Women playwrights and LGBT playwrights were also going to be on the panel. Erik Ehn (one of the other presenting writers) is a devout Catholic.  Israel Horovitz is Jewish. All of these people would be on the panel so we had a lot of different opinions/voices.

The events of the past week make it abundantly clear why the Sheen Center needs to be more transparent in its affiliation and restrictions. It should not enter into rental contracts which may be canceled for content concerns unless it makes explicitly clear what lines cannot be crossed in its facility – allowing arts organizations seeking to use the facility to consider whether they want their work subject to such scrutiny, or to work in a facility that imposes such content limitations on others. That way, all parties can be fully informed in their dealings at the very start, understanding that the Sheen Center, in the words of New York Times reporter David Gonzalez, “was envisioned as a vehicle for the church to evangelize through culture and art.”

As for “Playwrights for a Cause”? I’m told by the National Coalition Against Censorship that they and Planet Connections may have a line on a new venue. I hope they do (maybe even one I suggested), and that the result of this conflict will be to fill whatever theatre they end up performing in. After all, one of the results of silencing speech, even in those rare cases where the right exists to do so, usually has the effect of spreading the original message even further.

Update May 19, 2:45 pm: Planet Connections has announced that “Playwrights for a Cause” will take place as scheduled on June 14 at New York Theatre Workshop. However, the program will no longer include Neil LaBute’s piece. The playwright released a statement regarding his decision to withdraw the piece:

Unfortunately the event was starting to become all about my play and its title and not about the fine work that Erik Ehn, Halley Feiffer and Israel Horovitz were also presenting that evening, along with the accompanying speeches and the cause of the evening itself. “I had hoped my work would be viewed on its own merits rather than overshadow our message or become a beacon of controversy. I am honestly not interested in stirring hatred or merely being offensive; I wanted my play to provoke real thought and debate and I now feel like that opportunity has been lost and, therefore, it is best that I withdraw the play from “Playwrights For A Cause.”

Howard Sherman is the director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama.

When it was all said and done, three student-written short plays, part of an evening of playlets, monologues and songs, went on as scheduled at Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora, Colorado. But in the 10 days leading up to that performance, the students claim they were told the plays and one student-written monologue were canceled. The students successfully garnered the attention of a local TV station, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama over the impending cancelation.

However, the school claimed the shows were never canceled and that the students misunderstood, but first delayed the performance of the pieces in question and then rescinded that delay, which would have pushed the plays to a later date. The school cited lack of proper process for approval, issued permission slips to the parents of all participating students and sent a broader memo to parents regarding the content of the pieces, defining them as “suitable for mature audiences.” Amidst this, rumors suggested that some contemporaneous school vandalism was the work of the drama kids. One student-written monologue was canceled entirely because the student’s parents reportedly denied approval for it to be performed.

What precisely triggered all of this activity around brief student-written plays? LGBTQ subject matter.

*   *   *   *

The cast and creators of “Evolution” at Cherokee Trail High School

Students in Cherokee Trail’s Theatre 3 class developed the “Evolution” evening under the banner of their student-run Raw Works Studio, working on them both in class and after school for more than a month. According Theatre 3/Raw Works students – including Josette Axne, Kenzie Boyd, Brandon McEachern, Dyllan Moran, and Ayla Sullivan, with whom I shared phone calls, texts and e-mails at various times beginning April 16 – they were informed by the school’s Activities Director Christine Jones on April 15 that because of the LGBTQ content in the student written works, the pieces could not be performed and would be excised from the pending performance set for April 24.

The students immediately took action, reaching out to the local media, setting up a Facebook page called “Not Original,” contacting the National Coalition Against Censorship (which in turn contacted the Arts Integrity Initiative), all over their understanding that the plays were being cut from the performance. After first speaking with Axne, I spoke and corresponded primarily with Sullivan in the first few days.

By the time Channel 9 in Denver, NCAC and Arts Integrity made contact with the school’s administration on April 16, Principal Kim Rauh had prepared a response, which portrayed the situation in a different light. It read, in part:

The student written plays will be performed at Cherokee Trail High School. The decision that was made was to postpone the date of the performance to allow our theater process to be completed.  Students were invited to meet with us to work through the process and give the necessary time to work through all of the “what ifs” and attempt to be proactive as opposed to reactive and to plan for success. With every production there is an element of both directorial and administrative review and approval. The plays were submitted after the due date for final approval for the original performance date.  We have extended the process timeline to allow the plays to be performed at a later date at Cherokee Trail High School.

Channel 9’s account of the situation, the only significant local news story, was reported on the evening news on April 16, stating that the pieces would now be performed on May 9.

*   *   *   *

“Not Original”’s Facebook post about school vandalism

On Friday morning April 17, shortly before 8 am Colorado time, I received, in the space of ten minutes, an e-mail and phone call from Ayla Sullivan. She was deeply concerned that an act of vandalism at the school overnight was being attributed to the Theatre 3 students, even though she said it had been covered up before students arrived at the school that morning, so that not only were she and her classmates not involved, they didn’t even know the nature of the vandalism. Sullivan asked how the drama students should address this, and I advised them to tell the truth and make clear their position about whatever had occurred. Ten minutes later, the following message was posted, as a screenshot from a cellphone, to the “Not Original” Facebook page:

The vandalism we are now aware of that happened earlier this morning was not done by any member of Raw Works Studio and is not affiliated with the Not Original Movement whatsoever. Due to none of the members even seeing this vandalism, we do not know what it says and if it is even related to us. Whatever the markings say, we can not see it because it was covered as early as 6:45 this morning.

If someone wrote something that is related to Not Original through vandalizing public property, we absolutely oppose it. We do not support vandalism, violence, or hate speech. We do not support this action. We are, and have always been, a peaceful movement.

This is not the way towards change. This is not acceptable.

To date, the students say they haven’t heard anything more about the vandalism. It was a brief source of anxiety, but not central to the dispute.

*   *   *   *

On April 17, I sent a series of questions about the events of the past two days to Principal Rauh, copying Tustin Amole, the director of communications for the school district. It was Amole who responded, very promptly. Describing the reasons and process for what was happening with the plays, she explained:

All student performances are subject to administrative review prior to rehearsals beginning. The teacher is responsible for submitting material for consideration. I do not know how soon prior to that the students finished the plays. Regardless of when the materials are submitted, there is a long-standing process which must be followed.

In cases where the material may be mature or sensitive, the school meets with the parents of the students involved to make sure that they have permission to participate. We would then inform the broader community so that they are aware of the subject matter and can make a decision about whether they want to come and perhaps bring younger children.

Because I had pointed out that the new date set for the student written works (all of the other pieces were to be performed as originally scheduled) conflicted with tests for Advanced Placement and the International Baccalaureate, Amole wrote me:

In our effort to ensure that the students have the opportunity to perform the plays, we selected a date that allowed time for the process. We understand concerns about the timing, but this is the only available opportunity before school ends.

Following this exchange, I wrote again to Amole, inquiring as to the school’s specific concerns about the material, which had gone unmentioned. She replied:

The plays concern some issues around sexuality and gender identity. We would not censor the subject matter, but do work to ensure that all parents were informed and give consent for participation, and that attendees know the nature of the material. In other words you would not take children to a movie without knowing what it is about, nor are you likely to allow children to participate in an unknown activity. In the Cherry Creek School District, parents are given the option of reviewing activities, books and other materials and asking for alternatives if they object to what is assigned.

As for when the review process had begun, she responded:

The conversations with the students began when the material was submitted to administrators for review. We were looking for alternative dates to complete the review process when some of the students decided to call the media. Because they did not have that class yesterday, they were unaware that a new date had been determined. Had they waited to talk to their teacher during the next class, they would have been informed. They also always have the option of coming to the principal to express their concerns and they chose to call the news media instead. We regret that they chose not to work through our long established process.

That same day, the students told me, there were two meetings with Christine Jones, who outlined for them the plans for going forward.

*   *   *   *

After all of this, imagine my surprise when, just before 5 pm Colorado time on Monday, April 20, the NCAC and Arts Integrity Initiative received the following e-mail from Ayla Sullivan:

We have officially gotten our show back! Thank you so much for your help and support. Your belief in us is the only reason we have this. Thank you.

I wrote Rauh and Amole minutes later, to find out how the timetable had been restored to the original date. Amole replied two days later, sharing the communication that was going out to parents that day, which read in part:

I wanted to take this opportunity to communicate an update regarding the Theatre 3 production at Cherokee Trail High School, Evolution. Evolution contains a series of vignettes including songs, original student works and published scenes centered around the theme of love, some of which contain topics that may be considered best suited for mature audiences.

Because we are not putting topics on the stage, but rather actual students with actual feelings it was our desire to ensure that we had the time to adequately communicate the nature of the production with our parents and community members to help ensure the safety and well-being of all involved. The events of the past week have allowed us to do so and as such the administration, director and students have determined that we can perform the show on the originally scheduled date of April 24.

In response specifically to me, Amole added:

As of now, we do not have permission from all of the students’ parents to participate. While we continue to work to obtain the required permissions, we will honor the parent’s wishes, as per district policy. The performances of those students who do have parent permission will go forward.

*   *   *   *

Graphic design for “Evolution” at Cherokee Trail High School

On April 24, the following student written pieces were performed as part of “Evolution”: A Tale of Three Kisses by Kenzie Boyd and Brandon McEachern , Roots by Dyllan Moran, and Family: The Art of Residence by Ayla Sullivan and Brandon McEachern. The evening was, in the words of Dylan Moran, in an interview with KGNU Radio that he gave the day of the performance, about “how love evolves, both through time and within ourselves.”

On April 29, five days after the performance, I spoke with the students to ascertain how the performance had gone. They reported attendance in the neighborhood of 300 people, which while it only filled the orchestra section of their theatre, they said was comparable with other performances of this kind, and they seemed satisfied with the turnout. But had there been, when it was all said and done, any censorship of the work?

Brandon McEachern replied, “The only thing that was asked to be changed was certain curse words. There was no content change. It was just not having the word ‘shit’ or something like that. Those are the only changes they asked for the shows.”

“Certain words were allowed to fly in certain shows that weren’t allowed in others,” Moran continued. “It was very touch and go. There wasn’t any set rule. We’d be performing and it was like, ‘That one’s not OK,’ and we’d move on. Life Under Water did have changes, not as extensively as the original ones, probably because it had already been produced.”

I wondered, given the representations of Amole on behalf of the school district, whether the students had in fact misunderstood their conversation with Jones on April 15, given all that had transpired since. The unanimous reply of Boyd, McEachern, Moran, and Sullivan was that they hadn’t.

“It was very clear to us, on the day, that the show would not be happening,” said Moran. “There was no editing, there was no pushing it to a later date, there was no discussion about it. It was only when we got involved with the media that they changed their story and said, ‘No, we are going to push it back. We told them we were going to push it back, they just didn’t listen to us’.”

Sullivan continued, “There was also the sense of, when we were approached later, that Friday, which was April 17, by our activities director, that we were being guilt tripped, that we didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt and we immediately met with the media outlets and tried to make this a bigger thing than what it was – that it was our fault for misunderstanding, which never happened. It was very clear.”

When asked if it was made clear to them why there was concern over the material, Sullivan said there was a single reason given, that it was about “how the community would react to LGBT representation.” The students said it was on Friday that they were told by Jones that if they could meet all the necessary requirements by Monday, in terms of parental permission, the school leadership would reconsider the May 9 plan.

Had the students anticipated any pushback against the student written shows? “When we were going through the entire process,” McEachern said, “I didn’t think the school would tell us that these were controversial issues and it would make people uncomfortable. I just thought it would go on like a regular show. I didn’t think there would be any backlash.” Sullivan added that once the news broke, “there was nothing but support.”

Referring to sentiment within the school, Boyd said, “I think immediately, as soon as we found out, that there was an immediate buzz on Twitter, everyone from school and even from out of state, that were talking about this and how disappointed they were in the school. I think it was definitely at first – the whole situation is definitely a lesson for schools in general and even for society in general, to really look at people and look at what they’re saying versus what they’re doing. Because everybody’s always talking about equality, equality, equality but then when they actually get the opportunity, it gets shut down pretty fast. So I think it’s a big lesson, but I also think that in a positive manner other than just lessons, it really brought everyone together, because I’ve never seen this school so united.”

*   *   *   *

But what of the student-written monologue, Ever Since I Was A Kid? The students I spoke with, who explained that it had been cut because the parents of the student author had declined to give permission, spoke freely of the piece. They shared that it was a personal account of a teen who was in the process of gender transition. It suggests that this piece was, at least in part, what Amole referred to on April 22 when she wrote me that not all permission slips had been received.

I must note that I spoke to the author/performer of “Ever Since I Was A Kid” on April 20, before it was clear that  parental permission was being withheld and that the piece in question would not be performed. Because the situation had changed and I was not able to speak with this student again, I have withheld the content of our interview because, despite sending messages through the other students, I could not confirm whether the author was still comfortable with my using our conversation. The students I spoke with said their classmate was permitted to perform in other parts of “Evolution,” just not with the original monologue.

*   *   *   *

As much as I have tried to reconstruct the timeline of this incident, it is clear that the students’ account and that of the administration differ. The students say they were told originally, in no uncertain terms, that the student-written pieces were being cut. The school maintains that they simply needed time to put the work in context.

Missing from this report is any account of the circumstances from either the Theatre 3 teacher, Cindy Poinsett, or the Activities Director, Christine Jones. Because it is typical in most schools that faculty and staff do not speak to the press without approval, and because after the first response to my inquiry to the principal, all responses came from the school system’s spokesperson, I did not attempt to contact either Poinsett or Jones. Should either of them choose to contact me directly, I will amend this post to reflect their input.

I have to say that throughout this period, the students I spoke with were remarkably poised in their accounts of what took place. While as I noted, the school was very responsive to my inquiries, there is one notable shift in the timeline they created: on April 16 they said it would take three weeks to put everything in place in order to allow the student written pieces to be performed. Two business days later, everything had been accomplished that allowed the pieces to go forward as originally scheduled.

That the original “solution” would have excised these pieces from the April 24 performance and isolated them as their own event, that May 9 was initially the “only” possible date on which they could do so, suggests that the administration was responding on the fly, in response to external inquiries. If the students had misunderstood what they were originally told, why on April 15 didn’t the school simply say that all would go on as planned if the students brought in signed permission slips by April 20, as they ultimately did, instead of promulgating a new date?

I also have to wonder why, as has so often been the case when potential incidents of censorship arise in high schools, was the initial reason given for the action the assertion that an approval process had not been followed? The students say they had been working on the pieces for more than a month and were never given any deadline or reminded to get their materials in by a certain date. Is Principal Rauh suggesting that the students and their teacher had been keeping the work under wraps? Was there a disconnect between the teacher and the activities director, or between the activities director and the administration?

At the root of this incident remains the skittishness that schools have regarding any public representation of LGBTQ issues and lives to their community at large. While opinion polls show that six out of every ten Americans support marriage equality, that percentage jumps to 78 percent for people under 30. Presumably that is at least the same for the general acceptance of LGBTQ Americans overall, although to quote a New York Times editorial, “being transgender today remains unreasonably and unnecessarily hard.”

So it seems that whatever precisely took place at Cherokee Trail, it derives from the students having a more evolved attitude towards equality than the school fears the local adult community may hold. How long will students be required to get permission before they can tell true stories of their own lives and the lives of those around them? When will all schools stand up for student expression of their lives and concerns on the stage from the outset, and stand firm against those who continue to oppose the tidal wave of equality that will inevitably overtake them?

*   *   *   *

I asked several of the students what the ultimate takeaway was from their experience.

Sullivan said, “We got a lot of positive support and had a positive show, but my biggest concern is that now that our department has made a name for itself for doing original content, the administration is going to create a harder process, a new deadline. I’m concerned that student-written work will not be able to be performed the way it should, that now they will have something of a deadline process to fall back on and use that to censor other voices and censor experiences in that light. That kind of worries me, because we’ve already seen an attitude of they don’t want this to continue and they don’t want to have to deal with this again.

“I definitely feel that our principal and our activities director have found that this has created such a mess that they don’t want student-written work to continue, that they don’t want Raw Works, the studio itself, to be representative of the theatre department anymore and that they don’t want student-directed student works.”

Boyd picked up that thread, saying, “I don’t think it’s as much concern about it continuing, as much as they’re going to make it so hard to continue that we’re going to have to stop ourselves. I definitely think there’s been so much backlash on them now that they can’t just say no more original work, but I do think that the process next year is going to be a lot harder to the point that it may be impossible to put on original works.”

When I pressed the students on whether anything explicit had been said about the future for student written work, McEachern said, “Right now, it’s just a concern of ours. They have not said anything.”

In my last communication with Tustin Amole, I asked whether the events surrounding “Evolution” would have any impact on the Theatre 3 class, Raw Works or student written plays in the future, and received the following reply:

Our process will remain unchanged. As I have already explained, it is the standard process that has worked well for us for a long time.

The class also will be unchanged. Students will be able to write and perform their own work.

So for now, all we can do is watch and wait until next year, to see what stories get told at Cherokee Trail.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School for Drama.

Students watching The Last Days of Judas Iscariot outside at the Florida Thespian Festival

A theatre scene performed al fresco on a spring Florida evening sounds idyllic. But when Tomas Roldan and Matthew Ferro, juniors at New World School of the Arts High School, took their award-winning scene from Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Last Days of Judas Iscariot to a plaza outside the Florida State Thespian Festival in Tampa on March 28, they weren’t doing so seeking charm or fresh air. They made the performance choice as a third option after being given two official choices by festival leadership: alter Guirgis’s words or don’t perform at all.

*   *   *

The Florida State Thespian Festival is the largest such gathering in the country. Over a long weekend, high school students gather for talks, workshops and competitions all focused on theatre; in Florida, there are more than 7,000 people in attendance from the large state’s 16 designated districts. This year’s festival included full productions of, among others, Ragtime, The Great Gatsby, Night of the Living Dead, The Threepenny Opera, Violet, Pippin, and Seascape; there was even a concert by The Skivvies, the musical theatre duo known for their talent, their wit and their commitment to performing in their underwear.

Woven throughout the festival are the competitions, where students from schools across the state perform short scenes from a wide range of shows, assembled into groups of competitors so that one set of adjudicators can make decisions on those competing in that defined grouping; the festival is simply too large, and too brief, to allow for an American Idol-type winnowing to a single champion, so each group produces its own winners. Ferro and Roldan received a Critic’s Choice honor for their scene between Jesus and Judas from Guirgis’s play, which Roldan said had been their goal from the time he and Ferro started working on their scene, nearly a year earlier.

The winners of Critic’s Choice in each group are invited to perform in the Critic’s Choice Showcase on the final evening of the festival. Given the number of winners, it is held in segments (or acts) throughout Saturday night in the largest venue used by the festival, the Straz Center’s main hall, seating nearly 3,000. The audience is made up of students, teachers, parents and family. Because competitions are happening on a rolling basis throughout the weekend, the run of the evening is still coming together even as the first performers come to the stage at 6 pm.

*   *   *

It is the policy of the Educational Theatre Association, which runs the International Thespian Society, not to censor the work of writers. The director of the Florida chapter, Linday M. Warfield Painter, echoed that sentiment, saying, “I don’t condone the changing of a playwright’s language any more than the next person.”

In Florida, students competing with scenes that may have potentially controversial or even offensive content are asked to “asterisk” their scenes, noting what some might find problematic. This doesn’t preclude their competing, but serves as notice for those attending the competitive rounds that if they wish to avoid such material, they should step out before the scene is performed. Roldan and Ferro’s scene was duly asterisked for its language – the scene contains iterations of the word “fuck” some dozen times – and for its contemporary portrayal of religious figures Jesus and Judas. The Florida guidelines also require that school principals sign off on the choice of scenes to be performed by their students – except for schools in Miami-Dade County, where a teacher’s approval is sufficient. New World School of the Arts High School is part of the New World School of the Arts, an arts university in Miami affiliated with Miami-Dade College and the University of Florida.

The asterisk system, implemented less than a decade ago partly in response to consternation at the state capitol over content seen at the festival, apparently works well enough in the many small competition rooms, but it becomes problematic, and even irrelevant, at the critics choice showcase. Given the size of the theatre and the numerous brief scenes being performed, the policy is that the audience cannot come and go as they please, so there isn’t a steady attrition of audience once the students they come to see have completed their scenes. If an audience member exits at any point during one of the acts, there is no readmission. So it’s not feasible to offer the audience the opportunity to leave if a scene might offend them, leaving the asterisk process in the dust.

As a result, after winning in their group, the winners have to perform one more time, for adjudicators who will determine whether the scene is appropriate for the large audience. That’s where Roldan and Ferro said they were surprised.

“They knew our piece was asterisked for religious content and for language,” recalls Roldan. “They asked us how severe the language was and we said we drop, we have a few f-bombs in there. Then they told us OK – well we’ll listen to it and tell you what we can do about the language. So we performed the scene again and they told us, ‘Wow, that’s a really great scene, except you guys curse way too much and there’s too many f-bombs in the piece. So you guys have to fully, completely clean it up or you wouldn’t be able to perform it’.”

Ferro, interviewed separately, described the process similarly, saying, “We performed it for the two people who were running the show, the Critics Choice show. And it was almost right then and there that they were like ‘We love the piece, we really do. But the language is an issue.’ From the get go, those two people, Ed and I think it was Amy, said ‘We’re going to fight for you. We want you guys to perform this, but we have to find a way.’ So originally they gave us options like changing the language; then it was how about we perform at the very end and we’re going to caution people about our content. Then it was like, ‘We’re going to roll the dice and we’re going to ask our bosses what they think we can do’.”

Both Ferro and Roldan say they were urged to get dinner while the issue was explored, which they did. “When we came back,” continued Ferro, “they had already spoken with their bosses, the person who was running the whole thing and they told me and Tomas that we could not perform with the language. We had to change it or just go on stage and tell them that we couldn’t.”

In response to an inquiry about what transpired, Painter said, “I wasn’t in the screening room for this event. I had entrusted other volunteers within the organization to do that for me and they had asked, ‘We’ve got 12 f-bombs dropped in the piece.’ I can see why the two teachers screening it said, ‘Guys, can we clean that up a little bit just for this one moment [the showcase].’ I don’t think that has been – I’m positive that’s not the first time that’s happened, that they’ve been asked to clean up language. As far as whether or not a piece – they weren’t asked not to perform. They were given the option, so it wasn’t like, ‘No, you have bad language, you may not perform.’ The option was there.”

Asked to clarify who is in attendance at the showcase, Painter explained that it is not a public event per se. “We have a mixed crowd as far as different communities from across the state,” she said. “We have Christian schools, we have private schools, we have different schools that are from more conservative communities across the state that are all packed into the 2800 people house. That’s really the reason that we do any kind of screening. And the screening is just, that’s all they’re looking for, if it is an asterisked piece, what is it asterisked for? If it’s something that it’s a simple matter of staging that we could restage really quickly without compromising the integrity of the acting and all that. This piece was probably, had I known ahead of time, that the judges did not give us an alternate, I probably would have suggested it not even necessarily be – just to save them the heartache of having to go through that moment. It’s just because of the content, there’s so much of the language issue with it.

“I can tell you that my community I’ve gotten away with all sorts of shows at my school, I’ve done Rent and Threepenny Opera and Cabaret, even my community wouldn’t be OK with a bunch of f-bombs being dropped on stage. It’s a tough one.” At another point, she said, “For that general audience, they were asked to remove at least a few of the f-bombs to take it down from a “rated R” to at least as PG or PG-13 for the general audience. And they refused to do so, which is their prerogative and their right as artists. I respect that, but we couldn’t out it on our stage in front of a general audience.”

Recalling the scene backstage, as she argued on behalf of the students, one of Ferro and Roldan’s teachers, Annie McAdams, recalls one of the adjudicators for the Showcase saying to her, “’Look, it’s just the word “fucking,” we can’t have “fucking” on this stage, it’s too big a house.’ I said, ‘That doesn’t make sense, how come we have asterisks? What if they say we can let the lights up and everyone can leave if they don’t like it?’ And they said, ‘No, we can’t do it. It’s OK in the little rooms, but it’s not OK in this big room.’ Oh, and they also said that the adjudicators know that and they are not supposed to advance material that will be offensive, they are not supposed to do this. Then I said, ‘Well why do we have that policy if it doesn’t matter? Why do we say that they can do this material if in fact they’re not going to get advanced, they’re not going to be considered?’ So how many other students haven’t been considered? And they never knew.”

*   *   *

Michael Higgins was the director of the Florida State Thespians for approximately 17 years (he didn’t recall exactly); his tenure concluded in 2010 and Lindsay Painter’s began in 2013. Last week, he spoke of what was happening with the language in competing scenes when he first took on his role. He had not attended the 2015 Festival.

“At the time it was not regulated as far as any kind of censorship issue,” said Higgins. “Then, as all things do, it became more and more of an issue as students were choosing that adult material and more than that it was getting inordinate positive response by the judges. My feeling at the time was since you were trying to get a monologue performed in two minutes, oddly enough the shock words gave you more punch and power in those two minutes and got you more notice than perhaps a much better written monologue, but it didn’t have such immediate punch that you could get in 90 seconds or two minutes. So unfortunately it moved a tide toward more adult language and away from what was much better material without that.”

After a staffer in the lieutenant governor’s office attended a showcase some 15 or so years ago and voiced language and content concerns to Higgins, as did some letters he received, he said the state board of the Thespians moved to address the issue.

Higgins explained, “At the state level we were told that we could not edit these Miami-Dade kids at all or offer any roadblock to their performing because if we did, that county, which was the biggest participator of the state festival would pull out. Then we thought we needed a merger of these ideas here, how could we accommodate what at that time was a quite liberal south Florida from what’s always been a quite conservative north Florida, especially northwest Florida.

“We weren’t going to get into that game of saying one word’s bad or another situation’s bad. What we were going to do was create an asterisk, essentially putting the responsibility back on the artists, saying, ‘Artist, you want to do something that may offend some people for whatever reason. You have a responsibility before your piece to inform your audience that there is something that maybe some would consider objectionable, give a very brief synopsis of what that may be and then allow time for anybody who chooses not to be part of that to get up and leave the space before you do your material,’ putting the onus on the actual performer.

“That worked well for many, many years. It became a bit of an issue when at big events like closing ceremonies, Critic’s Choice when all the winners were showcased and we were doing these in big theatres, 1,000 seats theatres and then on practical terms when Susie got up to do her monologue and said before it, ‘it contains objectionable material’ that the audience was in no way going to be able to make a choice to leave or stay. So we had to address that concern now. Do you only select Critic’s Choice pieces that are suitable for the quite conservative or do you say to heck with everybody and allow every piece to go and just field the complaints of those who are troubled by it?

“The solution that was found at that time was that I as state director took the responsibility on myself as head honcho and I would watch all of the pieces and I would let the piece know ‘this does contain some objectionable material.’ Do you want to edit out these couple of words or option two, not perform it but still get your notice, awards, prizes and mentions at the festival? But now you as the artists have got to understand that you have an audience that is mixed in their liberal/conservativeness, they do not have the option to exercise their right to exit and not participate in theatre, so in order to preserve the festival there is something greater than your free choice at this adolescent age and you must work for the greater good. That worked for quite a while with some groups deciding I don’t want to be censored, so they didn’t perform yet won all of their awards and bells and whistles, and others saying, ‘oh sure, if it’s a matter of getting rid of the word fuck twice I can say that is not really a big deal to me and I understand that the audience has changed from what happened in a small room of 30 people to an audience now that has 10,000 people with young children and families and all kinds of people.’ The switch is for the audience, just like good old theatre.”

*   *   *

The Guirgis scene was suggested to Ferro and Roldan by one of their teachers, Elena Maria Garcia, an adjunct at New World School with 14 years experience.

Stephen Adly Guirgis

“I love [Guirgis’s] work,” said Garcia, “and I said to the boys, ‘If there’s anybody in this class who will really understand this piece, and just be able to play it, not for the shouting or any of that stuff, because it’s really easy to do that, but for the compassion and the struggle – really what that scene is about between Judas and Jesus. I said you guys can pull this off.’ They struggled a lot but they finally got it and it was just glorious. It was just one of those moments that you go ‘Wow, this is why I teach. This is why I sit in traffic ever day.’ When you see moments like that you go, ‘Damn’.”

Annie McAdams, a faculty member at NWSA, was new to the school and the world of Thespian competition at the start of the current school year. Asked whether she had any initial concerns about the scene being in competition, given the language, she said, “I was not worried about the content of their scene. I wondered if the Thespians would like the content of their scene, and it occurred to me that it might be a hard piece to win a festival with because of the content. Not only that it had profanity but also the subject matter – that it’s Jesus and Judas arguing. I moved to Florida from New Jersey which is a blue state. Everyone feels that Florida is liberal, but I’ll tell you, it’s not as liberal as the northeast. So yes, it occurred to me that they might not win with it, but I knew that they could compete.”

When asked about their awareness of any guidelines about content or performance, both Garcia and McAdams cited the asterisk rule. McAdams said she didn’t know of more, while Garcia said she knew there were some for the state festival, but deferred to McAdams as the official head of the troupe.

Asked about this, Painter cited the following guidance on the Florida Thespian website:

The board wishes to restate its position that the sponsor and student should choose material that they would feel comfortable sharing in front of their peers and their school.  The material chosen should match the community standards of your school district and your town!  There should NEVER be an attempt to choose material for competition that you would “never be able to do on your own stage.”   There is no shortage of prize-winning, world-class drama that would be acceptable in any high school in the state!

To this end, you will find the following statement in the registration for state.  Both you, the sponsor, and the principal* or his/her designee are asked to sign the following:

The board requests that you verify that each piece which will be performed representing your school has been screened by the sponsor and endorsed by the principal or his/her designee.  We ask you to certify that each piece meets your community standards and the standards set by your school and your school board. We also understand this caveat will not guarantee that all material presented will fit the guidelines of all schools. To that end, we will continue to use the asterisk as a further means of denoting material which might be considered sensitive for some viewers. 

*NOTE: In Dade County the teacher, not the principal will be asked to certify that the piece meets community standards.

Set off separately, the statement continues:

Florida State Thespians does not pre-approve the material which is presented at this conference. The individual director is the ultimate judge of what is suitable for his/her students to perform for their home school audience. They are also responsible for placing the asterisk on any of their entries which might be questionable in nature. All material performed at this conference has been approved by the principal of the originating school. That approval indicates that he/she attests that the pieces submitted from that school would be suitable for general audience presentation at the school from which it came.

Even with these warnings and precautions, we realize that some of the more mature material may trouble some of our audience.  We have endeavored to forewarn by the use of the asterisk and, at the Closing Ceremony, by identifying edgy material prior to its presentation. Should any member of our audience be offended by any performance, we encourage them to voice their concern to the State Director who has been directed by the State Thespian Board to forward those letters of complaint to the administrator involved. The administrator who approved the material in the first place is the person who should be able to defend his/her choice.

We cherish the right to free expression, but we also understand that, as educators, we have a responsibility to use that freedom wisely.  We have tried to differentiate between words which might offend and ideas which might make the audience uncomfortable. Theatre, at its highest, may create dissension and make people examine their beliefs. Blasphemy and blatant sexual references are not suited to this conference. We have encouraged everyone to be sensitive to them starting at the district level. Discussion of contemporary issues and problems are the stuff of real theatre and deserve a place on our stages. Community standards differ widely in our state and this is a thorny issue we do not take lightly. As theatre educators, we cannot solve the problems of society by refusing to give a platform where those problems can be examined in an intelligent and forthright manner. We feel giving audience members the opportunity to challenge some of the choices local administrators make will give a greater voice to everyone in our large and extremely diversified audience.

Julie Cohen Woffington, executive director of the Educational Theatre Association said that there are no such restrictions on the national festival. As for guidelines for each state group, she wrote, “We have suggested guidelines for the individual events program that are available online, but they do not refer to choice of material or language.” Asked about any policy regarding the alteration of texts for competition or performance at the national festival, Woffington replied, “We have a statement on Freedom of Expression on our website. We also have information in the individual events guidelines that require securing performance rights.”

*   *   *

Returning to the night of the showcase, Roldan describes his reaction at the Sophie’s Choice he and Ferro had been given: remove the language or forego performing.

“At that moment, I was kind of disappointed,” Roldan said. “I was pretty sad. It was heartbreaking to hear that we would have to clean it up or not perform. The thing is, we always thought that the words were put in there for a purpose and they do have a meaning in the piece. So you might be able to change a few but even if you do the piece might lose some of its importance and some of its value.”

Asked if they had given any thought to changing the piece, Ferro said, “I was considering it. Tomas was calling Garcia – we were both shocked a little bit. So he called Garcia and I was thinking maybe we should change it. I just wanted to perform it. It was Tomas, who after he hung up with Garcia, who turned to me and said I guess we can’t perform it. He had already kind of made the decision. That’s how me and Tomas work, we kind of take turns making big things like that and I agreed with him completely. I don’t even know what I was thinking. You’re right, we shouldn’t perform it.”

McAdams recalls asking the students, “Are you sure you don’t want to just change the language? So that you can perform? I knew they were so proud, and I knew they had worked so hard, and honestly I didn’t think they had a chance of winning really because of Jesus and Judas, more than the profanity.  So I really wanted them to have that experience of performing in front of their peers on that big stage. They said absolutely not.”

With McAdams’s help, Roldan and Ferro crafted a brief statement, which they read from the stage during the Showcase instead of performing their scene. It said:

Today we will not be performing a duet scene from The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis. We were thrilled to be awarded the Critic’s Choice for our category. We chose a scene we love by an artist we respect. The scene is asterisked for language and content. Tonight Florida State Thespians is asking us to alter our scene by removing the offensive language. We feel as young artists that this language is an integral part of the author’s intention in the scene. Rather than censor our scene, we have chosen to perform our piece outside. In 15 minutes we will be outside by the steps to perform. Please join us to support Art.”

*   *   *

I’d like to make some observations about what transpired in Florida two weeks ago.

It is clear that the state organization does have guidelines for performances at the showcase which differ from the guidelines that apply to competing works. It is certainly unfortunate that Garcia and McAdams were either unaware or not fully aware of them. While Lindsay Painter admitted to me that, “I don’t think it’s terribly easy to find and obviously after this conversation and this issue this year, we will make sure that’s easier to locate,” the way events unfolded for Roldan and Ferro might have been anticipated had they seen that language or been advised of it. That said, it’s worth noting that according to the young men, at no point in the adjudication process, either at their district level (where they did not receive an award and so were not eligible to perform) or the state level did anyone affiliated with the competitions make Roldan and Ferro aware of the potential restrictions on their performance until after they’d won and were at the final screening.

But perhaps it’s a good thing that things fell this way, because it reveals the strain of censorship that does affect the public performances at the Festival. Deploying language about “blasphemy and blatant sexual references” in performance, it is clear that the Florida festival is exercising judgment over what is permissible and what isn’t, and doing so rather late in the game to boot. There is no way of deciding definitively what is or is not blasphemy or blatant sexuality, even if you’re willing to grant that such a restriction is appropriate; it’s always going to be a judgement call. It’s worth noting that while a synonym for “blasphemy” is “obscenity,” “blasphemy” in its primary usage refers to “impiety” and in some cases irreverent behavior towards anything held sacred, not simple cursing. In the scene from Guirgis’s play, the word “fuck” or “fucking” is used as an interjection or adjective; at no time does it refer to a sexual act.

If in fact scenes that aren’t “appropriate” for the final showcase are being scored poorly to avoid the sort of conflict that arose over the scene from Judas Iscariot, that’s a black mark on the entire adjudication process. Not only did McAdams say that she had been told this was the case, but let’s also recall Painter’s slightly ambiguous, halting, “This piece was probably, had I known ahead of time, that the judges did not give us an alternate, I probably would have suggested it not even necessarily be – just to save them the heartache of having to go through that moment.” That can be construed to corroborate what McAdams heard about judging, although it stops short of being explicit.  [Updated: please see addendum below with Lindsay Painter’s clarification of position on the issue of instructions and process for adjudication.]

I should note that late in our conversation, Painter introduced the idea that the reason Ferro and Roldan were not permitted to perform was because of how they behaved when given their choice, suggesting they had “started harassing other troupes and other humans.” I suspect that teenagers hearing such news for the first time may well have acted out in some way, though Ferro denied it and McAdams said she saw no such behavior and was told of no such behavior when she arrived backstage. I was surprised when Painter raised it 22 minutes into a 29 minute conversation; if it was central to the decision, it seems it should have been brought up as a factor much sooner.

Because of the Festival’s policy of placing the responsibility for the scenes chosen on school officials, with Miami-Dade having a different policy than the other districts, there has always been the potential for crossing some invisible line as Ferro and Roldan did. But by actively urging them to alter the author’s language, the festival applies censorship pressure as a prerequisite for performing some winning “asterisked” work, and based on the accounts from both Painter and Higgins, this is common practice. That is a poor example to set for students, teachers or parents – the work of authors cannot and should not be altered to meet the perceived need of an audience. That the festival has codified such actions in order to defend the festival against those who would dictate content to all is troubling, to say the least.

I will acknowledge that the State Festival organizers have challenges, not least the huge scale and popularity of their successful event. More importantly, they grapple with the reality that few states or even individual towns have unanimity about what is blasphemous, blatantly sexual, or obscene, and they’re trying to maintain an event statewide. But I think it’s fair to say that even the most liberal school has a sense of what is appropriate for their students, and by leaving the content, and quite explicitly any blame for that content, to the schools, the Florida festival must find a better solution to its current practice of altering content and staging to suit a homogeneous audience in an effort to minimize complaints. Perhaps “asterisked” scenes should be adjudicated together and have a defined portion of the showcase evening, while the self-identified inoffensive material is gathered separately at all stages. In that way, students whose schools permit them more latitude will be assured of both fair judging and the opportunity to perform. But altering a playwright’s words violates copyright law, and doing so in order to placate sensibilities remains censorship, no matter how it is rationalized.

I have written before that I believe that school theatre is first and foremost for the students – not for their parents, their siblings or the general public. Students should have the opportunity to take on challenging work, contemporary as well as classic work. If that work contains “strong” language but is within the education parameters of their school, so be it. “Protecting” the students, or an audience, from words or ideas should not drive education or school-related activities.

*   *   *

Ferro and Roldan both cite the idea of performing their scene outside as having come from one of the same adjudicators who gave them the “censor or don’t perform” ultimatum, saying he seemed genuinely sympathetic to the decision they faced. I asked them both how the impromptu performance went.

Roldan said, “Well at that point we were all adrenaline, I would say, especially Matthew. He really got on board and once he got on board he was completely on the bull and he was just going at it. We just performed it, a whole lot of people came and it was a great experience. The scene itself, I felt that while we did it outside, it wasn’t the best we did it, because at that point we were doing it now out of frustration and we had all those emotions inside of us, so I felt that maybe made us deviate from the scene. It still came out great, but not as good as it came out when we showed the piece for the first time in the competition.”

Ferro also felt the scene lost something. “I gotta be honest, it wasn’t the same,” he said. “For myself, I wish it hadn’t gone down that way because I feel like the whole point was kind of lost, the whole point of just doing the scene, the beautiful scene, was lost. I wouldn’t say it was because of Tomas. I kind of blame myself because I was so amped up on trying to get the crowd to listen to me and I was very energetic, I don’t think I was able to calm down and perform the piece like we’d rehearsed a thousand times. I don’t know. For me, it’s sad that the piece wasn’t as good as we had done it a million times before.”

Garcia viewed it very differently. “I’m thinking, OK, because there’s a massive dance where these teens go to right afterwards to celebrate the end, I said to them, I think you might get a few [people to watch]. I don’t think you’ll get that many kids because they’ll want to go to the dance. How wrong was I? There were over 200 kids standing on the lawn in their beautiful gowns and high heels going into the soil. They didn’t care, they were all there in silence watching these boys do their piece. It was right out of a movie. I was like, I can’t believe, they will never forget this. This is such a wonderful moment right now. I just thought Guirgis would be, ‘My god, they’re still hearing my work.’ These kids are anti-censorship and they kept hugging the boys and saying, ‘Thank you so much for doing the right thing. This is what its about – we’re artists and we shouldn’t have to change our work.’ It was beautiful.”

Though the young men refused their achievement prizes that night, McAdams brought them home, suspecting they’d ultimately want them, and both Ferro and Roldan expressed regret that they hadn’t ultimately accepted the recognition that evening, that they hadn’t respected the Festival more even at a moment of crisis.

When asked whether she might recommend different material for students in the future as a result of what transpired, McAdams said, “I guess there would be a discussion I would have with the kids: ‘Look, if you want to win, here are the parameters you need to be in.’ But as a teacher, I would say, ‘Pick material you respond to, pick material that you are passionate about. Pick writing that’s good’.”

Ferro, asked if he had known all that was going to happen, would he have chosen a different scene, said simply, “No, I really wouldn’t have.”

I’m pleased that Ferro and Roldan are juniors, not only because they will have the opportunity to compete and perhaps win one more time (Garcia says she’s pointed them towards True West) but because it gives the Florida Thespian Festival the opportunity to right a wrong – and I believe it is a wrong, regardless of the forewarning on their website. Roldan and Ferro should be given the opportunity to perform their scene from The Last Days of Judas Iscariot on the main festival stage next year, all “fucks” intact.

And, of course, they still have a shot at the National Festival in June. I’m rooting for them.

*   *   *

Addendum, April 15, 3:50 pm: Upon reading this post, Lindsay Painter asked me to include the following information regarding the adjudication process.

The judges are not encouraged or told to be concerned about the asterisks when providing a score and feedback. In fact, when I meet with them each morning of the festival, it is one of my main points I make. The students of Florida should be receiving honest non-bias feedback from the professionals we hire to adjudicate. To suggest otherwise, in regards to how our organization has been handling the showcase is faulty. The judges have nothing to do with the showcase. They give us their picks for who the best in the room was, (all regards to content aside) and that makes-up the list for showcase. But, they have nothing to do with our asterisks system or the system we’ve had in place for preparing the showcase presentations.

Painter further requested that the following distinction be made, and because I write in the interest of constructive dialogue on these issues, I share it as well:

This is a Theatre Festival, not a competition. There is no prize, no winner. Each performance is provided an assessment. We showcase one piece from each room as a way to celebrate the work the students of Florida have brought to the festival. It’s not a thing to win or not win. And if they are not able to perform, an alternate does. This is the spirit of the festival. There is no placing or winning of the Florida State Thespian Festival. Only of presenting, receiving valuable feedback, and celebrating the work of the student artists. These students were not impacted in any way in the feedback or rating they received by the judges. They were given their superior. That is the highest honor they, or any student at the festival, can hope to achieve.

Correction, April 15 3:45 pm: This post originally stated that Michael Higgins was Lindsay Painter’s direct predecessor. That was incorrect, and is now accurately reflected above.

Correction, April 16, 11:30 pm: This post has been corrected to reflect that New World School of the Arts is affiliated with the University of Florida, not Florida State University, as previously stated.

Full disclosure: I delivered a keynote and conducted a workshop on the subject of school theatre censorship last summer at the Educational Theatre Association’s annual teacher’s conference. EdTA paid me an honorarium and provided me with round-trip travel to Cincinnati and accommodations while there.

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

Vandalized “Women of Purpose” (photo courtesy of Kate Czaplinski, Trumbull Times)

Last night, a painting hanging in the town library in Trumbull, Connecticut was defaced, while in the same building, the library board was holding a meeting about the display of said painting. I wish I could say I was surprised that this happened, but to be honest, I’m not. I’ve been expecting it. I believe this was the inevitable result of a series of events that broke into public awareness two weeks ago, when the town’s First Selectman ordered the painting removed.

Let’s review the timeline:

• A collection of paintings entitled “The Great Minds Collection,” commissioned by Trumbull residents Richard and Joan Resnick has been on display at the Trumbull Library since the fall of 2014. It had previously been on display at nearby Fairfield University.
• In mid-February, the Bridgeport Archdiocese made it known publicly that they were displeased about one painting in the collection, “Women of Purpose,” because it included in its depiction of influential women both Mother Teresa and Margaret Sanger. The library itself received eight calls of complaint and a religious order in India notified the town that any use of Mother Teresa’s image was a copyright violation.
• In response to the copyright claim, which experts – save for the town attorney – agreed was specious, the First Selectman Timothy M. Herbst ordered the librarian to remove the painting to protect the town. He said he required an indemnification from the Resnicks against any copyright claims that might arise from the painting, which the Resnicks had already provided verbally and were happy to commemorate in writing. This action generated significant press attention throughout the state.
• When the First Selectman then said he required indemnification against any claims that might arise from possible damage to the collection while in the town’s care, publicly chastised the librarian and library board for not having secured one previously, and accused the librarian of ethics violations in her dealings with the Resnicks.
• The Resnicks agreed to sign an indemnification agreement against damage to the collection, but balked when the town reportedly proffered language that could have made them responsible for such instances as one of the paintings falling off the wall and causing damage or injury, as well as requiring that the Resnicks foot the bill for repairing and repainting library walls when the exhibition concluded.
• On Friday, March 6, the town added a rider to its own insurance policy covering the paintings and “Women of Purpose” was rehung at the library.
• Five days later, someone defaced the image of Margaret Sanger.

As quoted in the Trumbull Times, First Selectman Herbst responded to last night’s vandalism by saying, “I think this proves exactly what we have been saying for the last three weeks.”

Here’s what’s faulty with Herbst’s argument: this wasn’t a public issue until he made it one. By demanding the removal of the painting, by sending a barrage of communications to the Resnicks and others and by simultaneously releasing them to the local press, he elevated dispute into controversy, all the while saying he was doing it to protect the town. His tactics likely led to the painting becoming a target, in a way it hadn’t been before.

Why didn’t Mr. Herbst simply ask the Resnicks for indemnification, working through the established channels of their relationship with the library? Why, if the town had such language ready for works that might be displayed in town hall, wasn’t that immediately offered to the Resnicks? Why did Herbst accept the sole legal opinion that encouraged removal of the painting, instead of seeking further guidance from an intellectual property lawyer? Why if the concern was for the safety of the paintings while in the possession of the town did he demand only that the single painting, the one which had been the subject of complaints, be removed, when surely his liability concerns pertained to all of them?

While I don’t deny that some of the responses from the Resnicks and their attorney were part of the escalation of tensions, the fact is this could have all been handled quickly and quietly as part of an administrative process. Instead, by selectively removing the one painting that had received some complaints – an act of censorship, not protection – this was transformed into a culture war: of art, of ideas, of expression and of religion.

In all of the discussion of the painting itself – and I respect the beliefs and opinions of all of those who are distressed by it – I haven’t seen anyone make the argument about the fact that in this work, Mother Teresa and Margaret Sanger are at the opposite ends of the frame. I’m not art critic, but one could validly say that while all contained are influential women, the great nun and the family planning pioneer are literally as far apart as they can get, opposite ends of the spectrum. Might that not reflect their divergent views? It’s one simplistic interpretation, I know, but might it not be a valid one? Does their mere presence in the same image declare that one endorses the tenets of another?

I am impressed that Dr. Resnick has stated that he will not press charges if the vandal is caught, which is a generous statement that shows his desire to return the conversation to one of ideas, not vindictiveness. That said, Mr. Herbst must be held to his statement to the Connecticut Post that, “”We’re going to nail the person who did this and Police Chief (Michael) Lombardo and I are mutually committed to holding the person who did this accountable.” Without that investigation, without someone held responsible, the town sends the message that vandalism is an acceptable form of debate anywhere in the town of Trumbull, let alone inside a town property.

It’s unfortunate and infuriating that we’re seeing the many faces of censorship in Trumbull. It’s also unfortunate that the actions of town officials set it in motion on the pretext of municipal protection, rather than handling what was obviously a potentially charged situation with finesse and with care for the protection of open public discourse and the expression of ideas through art.

 Howard Sherman is Director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama.

Note: crude or ad hominem attacks in comments will be removed at my discretion. This is not censorship, but my right as the author of this blog to insure that conversation remains civil. Comments will not be removed simply because we disagree.

It is the policy of London’s Underground, commonly known as “the tube,” to not accept advertising which, in the words of it supervisory authority, Transport for London, “may cause widespread or serious offence’.” By judging posters for the West End transfer of Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews as potentially doing so, and therefore banning them, TfL may well be giving greater widespread offense for its oversensitivity, even if it comes from a place of genuine concern, which now rises to the level of censorship.

I don’t want to discount disturbing reports of rising anti-Semitism in Europe, but this poster won’t feed that trend. A Jewish playwright and a Jewish producer shouldn’t be prevented from their promoting their work because of fears of how some might misinterpret its name.

True, there is no governing body preventing the production of the play itself, and numerous other outlets – all presumably with a set of advertising standards – haven’t apparently taken issue with the ads. But in cutting off the miles of pedestrian tunnels used by countless shows to reach both natives and tourists alike, TfL has put a dent in what, by my own observations when visiting London, is a foundational part of a great deal of theatre marketing.

Had the poster been a stark white sheet with nothing but the words “Bad Jews” in big block letters and a tiny print phone number and web address, one might possibly mistake it as a political statement. If the play title were “Jews Are Bad,” you might at least be able the comprehend the protective concern. But the Bad Jews poster, with its rash of review quotes, billing of actors and creative team and clear identification as a theatrical production, can hardly be mistaken for anti-Semitic propaganda. It is, unquestionably, a show poster.

Presumably, this has not occurred because representatives of TfL have seen the play and decided that it’s ‘not good for the Jews.’ If that were their criteria, then presumably they have also banned posters for the current London run of The Ruling Class, a pitch dark satire whose targets include the Church of England and whose central character is a nobleman who believes he’s Jesus.

Let’s remember that the authority which has banished Bad Jews from The Tube is the same one that saw no problem with (strikingly clever, IMHO) ads for the English National Opera’s Don Giovanni in 2012, the ones which showed an open condom wrapper and offered the slogan (in big block capital red letters) “Don Giovanni. Coming Soon.” Surely the parents of some small children, asked to explain this image, may have felt offense. (I saw a modified version of the poster that read “Opening Soon.”) Perhaps, like so many censorious authorities before them, TfL misses innuendo until it’s pointed out to them, but sees offense in the straightforward. And, like so many censors, it makes arbitrary decisions that it can’t justify.

Of course, this is also the same authority that blurred out the face of Prince Charles on posters for the play King Charles III, again to avoid causing offense. I have little doubt that the Don Giovanni campaign was designed to be provocative, and generate buzz around the production, but it was consistent with the efforts of so many opera companies to attract younger audiences by marketing their work in a manner that blows the dust off of perceptions of the art form. In the case of King Charles III, the image was arresting, but probably tamer than many an editorial cartoon about the monarchy. I know many British people have great affection for the Royal Family, but was the original poster really offensive to anyone beyond the family, who as public figures have been subjected to worse (such as the puppets of Spitting Image) and who I imagine don’t spend any time in the tube? The British government may have abolished the censorship authority of their Lord Chamberlain in 1968, but perhaps former staffers or acolytes of that role have holed up in the Underground.

Like so much public censorship, the decision on Bad Jews has produced a round of ridicule in the British press, which also brings with it untold free marketing for the show. Transit for London may have kept the words “Bad Jews” off of its walls, but it has placed the show on the lips of people everywhere, and if that prompts even more people to see that very provocative, probing play about Jewish identity among millennials in America, one is almost tempted to thank them. Save for the genuine worry about what TfL, in their seemingly absolute authority, might seek to censor next.

 Howard Sherman is Director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama.

Remember Trumbull, Connecticut?

That’s the town where a new high school principal canceled a production of the student edition of the musical Rent in the fall of 2013. The resultant outcry from students, parents, town residents, the media and interested third parties (including me) was such that three weeks later, the show was reinstated. It was produced at the high school in 2014 without any incident.

After my advocacy for Rent, I hate returning to the subject of the arts in Trumbull, for fear of being accused of piling on. That said, there must be something in the water supply in Trumbull, because it’s right back at the center of an arts censorship controversy again. Timothy M. Herbst, the town’s first selectman, has ordered the Trumbull Library to remove a painting by Robin Morris from a current exhibition, “The Great Minds Collection,” commissioned and loaned by Trumbull residents Richard and Jane Resnick. The painting in question, “Women of Purpose,” features representations of a number of famous women, including Mother Teresa, Betty Freidan, Gloria Steinem, Clara Barton and Margaret Sanger.

The Bridgeport Archdiocese of the Catholic Church has already made its dismay over the painting known, due to the juxtaposition of Mother Teresa with Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood. Library Director Susan Horton says she has received eight messages complaining about the painting, all from men. It is not yet known what complaints may have gone directly to Town Hall, prompting Herbst to pull the painting (the Resnicks’ attorney has filed a Freedom of Information Request to determine whether his client’s property is being unfairly singled out).

In fact, Herbst won’t admit to complaints being the cause for the painting’s removal at all. He refers instead to threats of copyright infringement for depicting Mother Teresa and the lack of an indemnification from the Resnicks against any claims arising from the display of the paintings.

“After learning that the Trumbull Library Board did not have the proper written indemnification for the display of privately-owned artwork in the town’s library, and also being alerted to allegations of copyright infringement and unlawful use of Mother Teresa’s image, upon the advice of legal counsel, I can see no other respectful and responsible alternative than to temporarily suspend the display until the proper agreements and legal assurances are in place,” Herbst said. “I want to make it clear that this action is in no way a judgment on the content of the art but is being undertaken solely to protect the town from legal liability based upon a preliminary opinion from the town attorney.”

I heard Mr. Herbst in action during the Rent incident, when he went on radio several times trying to assume the role of peacemaker. Instead, he merely offered unworkable solutions that were clear to anyone familiar with the school and the town’s youth theatre troupe. It should be noted that as first selectman, he doesn’t control the school system. That is the purview of the elected school board, which is chaired by his mother, who was all but silent throughout. As before, I find his current protestations to be a smokescreen.

First, this isn’t a copyright issue, since the painting is an original work of art and no one appears to have claimed that it is in some way derivative of another copyrighted work. There is the possibility that Mother Teresa’s image may have some trademark protection, as claimed by the Society of Missionaries of Charity in India on their website, but the assertion of trademark is not proof of ownership and the organization offers no documentation of their claim; it’s worth noting that there are numerous organizations operating in Mother Teresa’s name, which suggests that policing of the trademark is shoddy at best. Additionally, the fact is that a privately commissioned painting in private hands is unlikely to constitute an infringement of rights that causes confusion in the marketplace, something trademark is meant to protect.

Second, Richard Resnick has said he would be pleased to offer indemnification to the town for the display of the painting, which would make any issue disappear. Herbst asserts he needs time for an attorney to draft something, but any attorney with even limited experience could produce straightforward “hold harmless” language in perhaps an hour’s time. Frankly, I have more than a few on my hard drive from literary agreements, since it’s not uncommon for playwrights to hold producing organizations harmless from any claims against a work that as challenged as not being wholly original to the author. The fact that Herbst has already tried to throw the town librarian under the proverbial bus for not getting such documentation is shameful, since if such protection is regularly required, why hasn’t the town’s attorney prepared a document for each and every exhibit the library has ever shown, that can just immediately be pulled out of a file? If Horton failed to get one signed, then it should be readily available for Resnick’s promised immediate signature; if it hasn’t been required previously, then the fault lies with Herbst and the town’s attorney.

When Principal Mark Guarino tried to defend his cancellation of Rent, he took refuge behind vague terms like ‘challenging issue.’ Now we have Herbst hiding under the guise of proper legal procedure, which is a flimsy excuse for what seems quite obviously an attempt to censor work which some find displeasing. In doing so, Herbst has placed himself in the unenviable situation of being damned either way: if the painting stays down, he’s a art censor (which he adamantly claims he is not) and if it’s restored he’s alienating members of his constituency who may object to the painting on religious, ideological, political or even artistic grounds. This is a fine mess he’s gotten himself into, and for someone who apparently harbors greater political ambitions – he lost the race for state treasurer by a narrow margin in 2014 – he’s placed his ideology squarely in front of voters for any future campaign, while ineptly handling a situation that is quickly rising to the level of crisis.

Regarding theological opposition to the painting, it’s worth noting that it was on display at nearby Fairfield University in 2014 without any incident. Oh, and for those unfamiliar with the colleges and universities of southern Connecticut (where I grew up), it’s important to note that Fairfield is a Catholic school. Why didn’t the Archdiocese or the Society of Missionaries in Charity raise their issues during that three-month exhibition?

Tim Herbst could make the charges of censorship go away instantly with one single document. But as he keeps throwing up roadblocks, it’s obvious that he’s not protecting the town from legal claims, but rather serving other interests. If Herbst is trying to establish his conservative cred, he may well get himself exalted in certain partisan quarters only to be vilified in others. The question is whether his actions are bolstering the profile and needs  of Trumbull, Connecticut, or those of Timothy M. Herbst, the once and future candidate?

While it’s a tenuous linkage, I’d just like to toss into the pot that Herbst’s town budget has zeroed out the annual allocation for the town’s popular summer theater operation, the Trumbull Youth Association. This is the same TYA program that Herbst suggested could provide a home for Rent if it couldn’t be done at the high school (although that wasn’t a workable alternative for several reasons). If we’re looking for patterns about art and Trumbull, one does seem to be emerging.

And just to cap this off, it has been noticed that in discussing the withdrawal of the painting from the library exhibit, the Trumbull town website reproduced the painting itself. If Herbst is so concerned about copyright infringement, didn’t he just place the town at risk once again? Seems like a contradiction to me.

Update March 4, 2 pm: I just spoke briefly with Jane Resnick, as we both called in to “The Colin McEnroe Show” on WNPR in Connecticut. Mrs. Resnick affirmed that she and her husband had always been prepared to indemnify the town against any damage that might occur while their paintings were on display in a town facility and that, while they had not anticipated the need, they would also hold the town harmless from any copyright claims that might possibly be forthcoming.

Update, March 4, 4 pm: Regarding First Selectman Tim Herbst’s efforts to zero out the budget of the Trumbull Youth Association, it has been reported today by the Trumbull Times that just last night, the town’s Board of Finance overruled the cut, and the funding was restored, against Herbst’s wishes.

Update, March 4, 5:15 pm: The Hartford Courant, the state’s largest newspaper, declares in an editorial, “Public works of art, like library books, should not be held hostage to the complaints of a few whose sensibilities are offended.”

Update, March 4, 5:30 pm: The Trumbull Times reports, via e-mails it has seen, that organized opposition to the display of the painting originated with the Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus, and indicates that a town councilman assured members of the group that the painting would be coming down as early as February 14, and suggested that First Selectman Herbst was in support of its removal. Herbst, however, denies that this was the case, and says that an indemnification agreement has been provided to Dr. Resnick and that, “As soon as the agreement is executed by Dr. Resnick, the artwork can be re-hung in the library.”

However, Herbst goes on to say that “Public buildings should bring people together to have an open exchange of alternate points of view,” which seems positive, save for the fact that it is immediately followed by, “Public buildings should not make any member of the community feel that their point of view is secondary to another,” which seems exceedingly vague and undercuts the prior statement. A single work of art rarely pleases everyone. If dissatisfaction or dislike of a work of art, or a book, can be construed as making someone feel “secondary,” what is to prevent future efforts to remove controversial content from the Trumbull Library?

Update, March 6, 12 pm: The Trumbull Times reports that Dr. Resnick has returned a signed indemnification agreement to the Town of Trumbull. There is no word yet on whether the painting has been restored to its place in the library.

Update, March 6, 3:30 pm: While the disputed painting has been rehung just now, the Town of Trumbull is now demanding a “comprehensive indemnification” for all of the paintings from their owner Dr. Richard Resnick, without which the entire collection will be taken down as of 5 pm. The letter from first selectman Herbst to Dr. Resnick’s attorney has been made public by the Connecticut Post.

Update: March 9, 12 noon: So far as I know at the moment, the entire collection is currently hung at the Trumbull Library. A series of claims and counterclaims between First Selectman Herbst and attorney Bruce Epstein on behalf of Dr. Richard Resnick have been made in correspondence, and shared with all interested parties via the Trumbull Times. They are: “Painting back up for now; but all could come down soon” (March 6, with updates); “Herbst and Horton: Chief wasn’t at meeting” (March 7, with updates), and “Resnick: I won’t be intimidated by Herbst’s demands” (March 8).

Update, March 11, 11:00 pm: At approximately 8 pm this evening, as the painting was being discussed at a meeting of the library board, an individual defaced the painting, reportedly by obscuring Margaret Sanger’s face. The Trumbull Times reported on the developments.

As of March 12, there will be no further updates to this post, but please refer to my newer post, “The Shameful, Inevitable Result of The Trumbull Art Controversy” for any additional details.

Howard Sherman is the director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama in New York.

Note: crude or ad hominem attacks in comments will be removed at my discretion. This is not censorship, but my right as the author of this blog to insure that conversation remains civil. Comments will not be removed simply because we disagree.