It is not, sad to say, news that controversy has surrounded a production of Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi. It is certainly not surprising to hear that such controversy took place on a university campus. But when one hears that Corpus Christi became the subject of controversy as a result of a production at a Christian faith-based university, the reflex is to wonder how anyone ever thought it could be done there in the first place. But the production of Corpus Christi that was to have been produced this past weekend at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia reveals a situation that demands something more than a reflexive scoff, as it reveals a great deal about the struggle between the tenets of faith and academic freedom, between traditional ways and where our society is in the 21^st century.

The basic facts are this: Christian Parks, a senior majoring in theatre at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) proposed as his senior project a production of Corpus Christi, which was, according to him, approved by the school’s theatre faculty in the spring of 2014. Since January, due to increasing concerns by the school administration over the content of the play, Parks was called into a series of meetings about the play, which escalated from expressing concern to reducing the number of performances from four to two and severely limiting who would be permitted to attend to the show being completely canceled. It seems to echo many cases of academic theatre censorship, although there appears to have been significantly more dialogue surrounding the process as it accelerated – and how the final decision was made, and by whom, seems unique in my experience.

*   *   *

For those unfamiliar with Corpus Christi, it is McNally’s 1998 play in which he reimagines the story of Jesus as told and enacted by 13 gay male friends in the present day. When it was first announced for its premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club, it was thrust into the center of controversy over its content – which few people had seen or even read – resulting in violent threats against MTC and the production, causing it to be briefly canceled and then restored, with strong protests outside the theatre during its run and security measure put in place to protect the theatre, the show and its patrons.

The play subsequently had numerous productions around the country, many which had their own controversies where it played, again, often over what people imagined to be the content rather than the play itself. It has been produced at colleges and universities, provoking similar reactions. Now, 17 years later, the play is produced intermittently, hardly surprising for any play that, in its way, had such a huge “moment” in the late 90s.

Writing of the play in the preface to the trade paperback edition, McNally describes it as follows:

Corpus Christi is a passion play. The life of Joshua, a young man from south Texas, is told in the theatrical tradition of medieval morality plays. Men play all the roles. There is no suspense. There is no scenery. The purpose of the play is that we begin again the familiar dialogue with ourselves: Do I love my neighbor? Am I contributing to the good of the society in which I operate or nil? Do I, in fact, matter? Nothing more, nothing less. The play is more religious ritual than a play. A play teaches us new insight into the human condition. A ritual is an action we perform over and over because we have to. Otherwise we are in danger of forgetting the meaning of the ritual, in this case that we must love one another or die. Christ died for all of our sins because He loved each and every one of us. When we do not remember His great sacrifice, we condemn ourselves to repeating its terrible consequences.

All Corpus Christi asks of you is to “look at what they did to Him. Look at what they did to Him.” At the same time it asks you to look at what they did to Joshua, it asks that we look at what they did one cold October night to a young man in Wyoming as well. Jesus Christ died again when Matthew Shepard did.

*   *   *

The play is set in the present day and employs language that might raise concerns within religious groups, but McNally’s message of dialogue and ritual seems particularly well suited to the discussion of faith in present day life. That said, it helps to know something about the Mennonites. Here I’ll draw from the website of Mennonite Church USA.

Mennonites are Anabaptists

We are neither Catholic nor Protestant, but we share ties to those streams of Christianity. We cooperate as a sign of our unity in Christ and in ways that extend the reign of God’s Kingdom on earth.

We are known as “Anabaptists” (not anti-Baptist) – meaning “rebaptizers.” The Anabaptist movement began in the 16th Century in Europe.

To defuse a commonly held misconception I also draw from their website the following

Mennonites are not Amish

We find that many people asking about Mennonites are actually thinking of the Amish or “Old Order Mennonites.” Mennonites and Amish come from the same Anabaptist tradition begun in the 16th century, but there are differences in how we live out our Christian values. The distinctiveness of the Amish is in their separation from the society around them. They generally shun modern technology, keep out of political and secular involvements and dress plainly.

It is important to know, however, that there is great debate within the Mennonite community about the acceptance and role of LGBTQ followers, which has historically been one of exclusion. However, as in so many faiths, there is a strong contingent of Mennonites who want to see the church change its ways, and there are groups working to bring that about. But there is no agreement.

*   *   *

Christian Parks first proposed doing Corpus Christi as his senior project two years ago, inspired by seeing a production of the play in San Francisco by 108 Productions as part of their “I Am Love” effort to bring the play and its message to communities around the country, including communities of faith.

“There is an application process,” Parks explained, describing the theatre department’s standard procedures, “where I give them the name of the script. I also give them the reasons why I’m doing the project. I also give them a budget that I had to pre-balance, so that they knew where I was going to spend my money. Then we began more discussions after the script had a read-through and that’s when the conversations about this being a student lab production entered in. That entails making sure there’s a talkback, a way for the audience to process the show after every performance and it also means the department will not collectively advertise this outside the campus.”

Parks explained that a lab production is a full production, with four performances, and that while it may not be advertised off campus, the local community may attend. He then said, “I got approval when the season was approved, in the spring of 2014. Surprisingly enough, the administration is mailed every season that gets approved and this show was on the list.”

Asked as to whether he was aware of the play’s controversial past, he said, “In the fall, I began my senior thesis, which is the theoretical part which goes along with the production. I wrote a conceptual, theorized piece using poor theatre and Grotowski and using some other things that had more to do with the ritual side of Corpus Christi. I actually had to dive into the script and look at past performances, where this had been and the controversy that has been around it. So yes, I was very aware of everything that was around Corpus Christi. But it was a lab production, so that was the clearance, or should I say the filter, in which I said that ‘Yes, this is a thing but we’re doing it as a lab production. That will be alright.”

Had Parks considered that the play might not be approved?

“It was a little iffy because I’m in a religious community and an especially close-knit one like the Mennonites. The university, according to the process we went through last year, was ahead of the church, so I knew that on the church denominational level will do whatever it does, and yes it’s going to make some conflict, but that’s OK because there’s enough people who can take care of that.”

“The process” Parks refers to was a “Listening Process” on the EMU campus in 2014, which sought to address issues relating to LGBTQ representation, particularly among the faculty. After six months, the school deferred formal action on hiring policy. Parks’s proposal was being considered by the theatre faculty during this time.

“I wasn’t aware,” he said, “that there was enough harm and enough pain and enough tension in the process that we went through, because in the spring of 2014 we approved it as a department in the middle of the listening process. It seemed, especially with the concept around the show, as if it would fit the culture that we were in and becoming.” Asked about his reference to “pain and hurt,” Parks explained that he was referring to situations that arose, “any time you have a lot of straight people talking about queer and gay bodies, and just constantly being under the microscope as they figure out what to do with us. So this show was a way of finally putting our voice at the table that they tried to do with us last year, but it didn’t really work because they still don’t understand and don’t want to understand.”

*   *   *

Parks said that conflict over the play began when he put out his audition notice at the beginning of January, which included a description of the play. Parks then described a series of meetings that he was called to by the administration beginning in late January. The first two were led by the Provost and Academic Dean; at the first, Parks said he was made aware of “concerns” and was asked to provide the script. He said that the provost subsequently stated that he never completed reading it, having stopped at the play’s nativity scene, at roughly page 20. Parks was also asked for his director’s notes and his advisor was asked for an explanation of the standard lab process.

At the second meeting, a week later, he said “We prepared a resource list and they took four or five of their resources and I took four or five of my resources and we were going to synthesize them together for people who might have more questions and might need places to go.” Parks also said that at that time, there was some concern as to whether he could field a full cast, and that the possibility of a reading instead of a full production, which would require less rehearsal, came up, but that he quickly thereafter secured a full cast and notified the theatre department that a production would be possible as originally planned. At a third meeting, this one called by the president, following a weekend meeting by the president’s cabinet, he was given a choice.

“The two decisions that they laid on the table for me was that either they would shut it down completely or, on the basis of academic integrity, they would confine the show to the classroom so that it would become a classroom endeavor which meant one performance at one time with a select group of people, a select group of classes and classes that were already dealing with subjects around sexuality conflict and faith. We compromised and went with one day instead of one performance and so there was a three o’clock and an eight o’clock performance. That is what we settled on and that each of these classes would get a ticket and only people who would be allowed to enter the theatre would be the people with a ticket, which meant that we would have to turn away anyone who came from the community and anyone who was a student but didn’t have a ticket.”

Following this decision, the restrictions on attendance were announced.

“It went on Facebook,” said Parks, “The theatre department had to tell people and that got out quicker than wildfire and what that means is that all of the justice connections that I have got whiff of it. People were angry and they went to social media to get out their anger. That is when I got called in for another meeting, Wednesday the 18^th.”

This is now just prior to the two remaining scheduled performances, set for February 21.

*   *   *

I reached out to several people, via e-mail, in the EMU administration about the Corpus Christi situation. I did not receive a reply from Heidi Winters Vogel, Parks’s advisor and an associate professor, and my inquiries to the university president Loren Swartzendruber and provost Fred Kniss were referred to Andrea Wenger, Director of Marketing and Communications for the school. I should note that Wenger attempted to schedule direct conversation between me and the provost, however his schedule and my own were in conflict, and Wenger accepted and responded to my questions via e-mail at my suggestion in the interest of expediency.

I asked Wenger when the administration first became concerned about Corpus Christi and whether it was their practice to alter academic efforts in response to complaints over previously approved content.

She wrote, “Administrative leadership became aware of the play – and its controversial history – in mid-January. It is not the school’s practice to ‘alter academic efforts in response to complaints about previously approved academic content.’ Production of the play hadn’t been reviewed or approved by department leadership or administration prior to mid-January.”

Wenger explained that, “Public performances were cancelled by the president’s cabinet when administration learned that what they had been assured in mid-January would be a staged reading with no publicity morphed into a full-blown production.” Responding to my question about limiting attendance, she said, “The student involved intended to sell tickets to this show. He anticipated off-campus interest and support even with limited publicity. The administration cut the performance schedule from four performances over three days to two performances on one day with an invitation-only audience

She further said, regarding the timing of the process, “The administration first became aware of the planned staging in recent weeks. Administration is evaluating the process of how the play was selected and vetted. EMU students are given freedom to choose productions that explore controversial topics as part of a rigorous academic program.

A report on the cancelation of the play in the school newspaper quoted Swartzendruber as citing threats of violence over the play, although he acknowledged that those had been over other productions, and none had been made at EMU. Asked about this, Wenger responded, “Given the history of this play’s controversial nature – which in some settings has generated threats of violence – EMU leadership took the action that they believed was in the overall best interests of students’ safety and well-being. Leadership had enough information to be concerned about the possibility of disruption.”

*   *   *

Which brings us to the cancelation.

The EMU student newspaper ran their story, on Thursday, February 19, with the headline, “Parks Cancels ‘Corpus Christi’ Over Controversy,” saying that the decision was his, not the administration’s. Regarding the accuracy of this account, Parks returned to the meeting of February 18.

“After hearing what was going on,” he said, “and after doing some strategic planning in my mind, that is when I went in and I knew that they were going to shut it down. I knew. And so instead of the story being written as they shut it down, I’d rather it be written as I took it down, because I refuse to be a victim. I refuse, I refuse. So that’s when I made the decision, Wednesday the 18^th, that Corpus Christi is coming down and we would not be having the performance and so I went back and told my cast.

I wondered whether Parks had jumped the gun, and asked Andrea Wenger whether the administration would have permitted the performances to go on had Parks said he was canceling them

“No,” Wenger replied. “The invitation-only performances were to be cancelled; administration believed this to be in the overall best interests of EMU students’ safety and well-being. Administration had enough information to be concerned about the possibility of disruption — especially when it became apparent that the students were proceeding with a full production versus a staged reading as originally planned.”

That statement stands in relief against a university wide communication by Wenger on behalf of Swartzendruber on February 18 which read, in part, “Despite the nature of the play, which varies from the university’s theological and biblical understandings, the cabinet sought to protect academic freedom and honor the student project as an academically engaging activity intended primarily for an internal audience,” then citing Parks’s decision as coming in the wake of the “intense reaction to the planned staging.” It doesn’t point out that the intense reaction was coming, at least in part, from the administration itself.

So no matter what had took place, and who spoke first, Corpus Christi wasn’t going to be seen at Eastern Mennonite University. The administration has responsibility for the denouement.

*   *   *

Seeking more perspective on the situation, I reached out to Barbra Graber, the co-chair of the EMU theatre department when she retired in 2005, having first started on the faculty in 1981. She had made several public postings on social media, which led me to her.

I asked her about the process that had taken place, which, when we spoke (preceding my communications with Parks and Wenger), she only had learned about the situation through friends and former colleagues on campus and what she had seen on social media. She also made clear that while she was familiar with McNally’s work, she did not know Corpus Christi.

Graber said, “It was troubling to hear that EMU pulled this play at all after it being passed through the theatre department. For the president’s office to feel that they just have the right to pull something the theatre department has already approved and that students have put their heart and soul into, you need to let the show go on. You can’t just step in and make that decision. It is a blatant misuse of freedoms, of rights, all kinds of rights violations going on there.”

“Religious people love to make decisions for other people and think they have a right to do that and they think they have the corner on what should or shouldn’t be spoken into the public arena.”

Graber, who now works with Our Stories Untold, a Mennonite advocacy group focused on addressing sexualized violence within the church and its members, that also seeks to address the church’s heterosexism and suppression of LGBTQ members, also took exception with Swartzendruber’s citing of potential threats as a reason for opposing the show, saying that Mennonites had historically always faced up to violence without flinching.

“In the name of justice we will walk into anything violent,” she declared. “We don’t shirk from violence. Because we serve a higher calling than this world, we will walk into violence. We will be these voices, we will be these peace and justice people – until it’s our own little prejudices and bigotry. When it affects our own bigotry and prejudice then we say, ‘Oh, there might be violence, we’d better stop this.’ It would be like Martin Luther King saying there’s a threat of bombing here so we’re going to cancel church.”

*   *   *

Parks had cited his inspiration for producing and directing Corpus Christi at EMU as being a production of the play by 108 Productions, best known through their “I Am Love” efforts which subsequently became a documentary film, Corpus Christi: Playing With Redemption. I reached out to both Nic Arnzen and James Brandon, who are partners in 108, I Am Love and the film, which they directed, and reached Arnzen first.

When he described that close to half of their ongoing touring performances, now a decade old, are in church-related venues, I asked about how the play reached those communities. “We basically answer the call where people are eager to see it,” he said. “Invitations often come from some spiritual leaders who are eager to broaden the minds of their congregation.”

Arnzen said that while certain Christian denominations resist the play, that once the group is in a community, they always issue an invitation to the leaders of all area churches, noting that, “We’ve had 10 years of running the play with little or no protest.” He observed that they rarely hear back after sending invitations, but that, “We’re not bitter that they’re not reaching back. We respect people’s boundaries. If I don’t respect their boundaries, how can I ask them to respect mine?”

Arnzen spoke about the many misconceptions about the play among those who haven’t seen or read it, dating back to the original Manhattan Theatre Club production. While acknowledging that they play does have “some words in it, very real language” and estimated “the f-word” appears “22 times, I think,” he was quite clear in his feeling about the overall message of the play.

“I attest to the fact that this is a very respectful retelling of the Jesus story.”

As a side note, 108’s production of the play uses a mixed gender cast, as Parks planned to do at EMU.

*   *   *

From four performances to one to two to none, Corpus Christi was not seen on the EMU campus this past weekend. There was, on February 18, after Parks’s decision – before the university administration was going to make it for him, one last rehearsal of Corpus Christi. While there was no official invitation, but apparently the theatre was packed. It became, in Parks’s word, a sit-in.

Parks has been assured that the show’s suspension will not affect his academic record, that he will receive full credits for his work and will graduate on time. I wondered whether he wanted to try to present the show off-campus, out from under the school’s authority.

He said, “I have considered it and I have considered it. The thing that is stopping me is that I have 13 actors who have lived through the I have a cast that wasn’t included in the decision making. No one sat at the table with me, no one gave their voice to what did happen, should happen, what might happen and at the bottom of the totem pole was the Corpus Christi cast. Now we have some harm and trauma that has been done and I don’t want to lead made cast members back into the hurt and trauma because now this story has it. I’ve been trying to think about how you do that and still give care to actors and not exacerbate the entire problem?”

I asked Parks whether he has any regrets and he said no. “I got to do what I love and there was some controversy about it,” he declared. “That’s OK, because I’m a queer body and that’s OK because I’m used to controversy.”

The conversation on the campus has not ended, and indeed I am told that the school community is consumed by it. There will be a student assembly for further conversation tomorrow, February 26. What will Parks’s role be at that event?

“I was invited,” he said. “I want to be the gatekeeper of the story. I want the facts to be straight.” And then his voice trailed off, in the equivalent of a verbal shrug as to what else might happen.

I will add my voice to that conversation, to the extent this is read on the campus, to say that 1) contrary to an assertion in the school newspaper, Corpus Christi has been produced on college campuses, dating back to at least 2001, however I was not able to determine whether it had been done at any faith-based university; 2) Andrea Wenger’s statement that not even the theatre department had approved the play, when Parks’s project had been approved in the spring and he was working on a thesis that was ready when the university asked for it and had announced auditions through university channels, seems highly contradictory; 3) that while there have been protests and threats against productions of Corpus Christi, my research did not reveal any overt acts against productions, only threats, and canceling it on the grounds of threats, or imagined threats, is the equivalent of giving in to terrorists, and 4) if the Mennonite Church’s practice of discernment in regards to this play is to be complete and thorough, then the play should be seen, so all discussions are fully informed by production, not merely by reading the script, or worse, hearsay, because that is how plays are truly meant to be seen.

The Mennonite Church may be wrestling with whether to welcome LGBTQ members of their church, and Eastern Mennonite University, in their handling of Corpus Christi, has proven how urgent the need to address this actually is. As someone who believes in complete equality for all people, I’d just like to suggest they have a leader in their midst who can open eyes and change minds and do so with love, respect and care. His name is Christian Parks.

I will update, correct and amend this post if circumstances warrant.

Last night, I was extremely flattered and honored to receive the second annual Dramatists Legal Defense Fund’s “Defender” Award, for my work on behalf of artists’ rights and against censorship. My remarks were fairly brief (I know a little something about brevity and awards presentations, even when there isn’t an orchestra to “play you off”), so for those who have expressed interest, or may be interested, here’s what I had to say, following a terrific and humbling introduction by playwright J.T. Rogers, my newest friend.

I feel as if this evening is a classic Sesame Street segment, because as I see my name alongside those of such great talents as Annie Baker, Jeanine Tesori, Chisa Hutchinson, Charles Fuller and my longtime friend Pete Gurney, I can’t help feeling that one of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn’t belong, namely me.

That said: I am honored more than you can possibly know to receive this recognition from the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund and the Dramatists Guild, because I have spent the better part of my life in the dark with your stories, your characters, your words and your music, and my life is so much better for it.

My efforts on behalf of artists rights and against censorship began, four years ago, in what I merely thought was one blog post among many. My awareness and understanding has evolved significantly over that time. I am asked sometimes why I think there is so much more censorship of theatre now, and I’m quick to say that I know this has been happening for years, for decades; all I have done is, perhaps, to make some people more aware of some of the incidents, and to try to address them in greater depth than they might have otherwise received.

I think the same is true of unauthorized alteration of your work, sad to say. All I’ve been able to do is call more attention to it, in the hope of warning people off from trying it ever again. It is an uphill battle.

I want to thank John Weidman, Ralph Sevush and everyone who is part of creating the DLDF for giving me this honor, and to thank the Guild for being my partner and for welcoming me as your partner in these efforts. I want to thank Sharon Jensen and the staff and board of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts for allowing me the latitude to address these situations as they have arisen in the 18 months I have been part of that essential organization. I want to thank David van Zandt, Richard Kessler and especially Pippin Parker for making it possible for me to professionalize this work as the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama; I look forward to working with all of you through that new platform. And I especially want to thank my wife, Lauren Doll, for so many things, not least of which has been tolerating the late night and early morning calls with strangers around the country, often high school students, and the furious typing at all hours, whenever someone reaches out to me about censorship or the abrogation of authors rights.

I accept this award less for myself than for the students, teachers and parents who stand up for creative rights, in places like Maiden, North Carolina; South Williamsport, Pennsylvania; Plaistow, New Hampshire; Wichita, Kansas; and Trumbull, Connecticut, among others. If they didn’t sound the alarm, we might otherwise never know.

I should tell you that when I’ve visited some of these communities, I have had people come up to me repeatedly and tell me that I am brave for doing this work. ‘But I’m not brave,’ I tell them, ‘You’re the brave ones. I have nothing at stake here. You do.’

Indeed, I am not brave. What I am is loud. I will shout on behalf of theatre, on behalf of arts education, on behalf of creative challenge, on behalf of all of you here and all of those artists who aren’t here for as long I have a voice. And those of you who know me are fully aware that it’s very hard to shut me up.

My congratulations to tonight’s other honorees and thank you again for this award.

No, I’m sorry, it’s not a blog post; it’s a press release. But if you’ll read on, I hope you’ll understand why I’ve placed it here, and indulge me this once. – Howard

NEW YORK (February 12, 2014) – The New School for Drama (Pippin Parker, Director) announces the launch of the Arts Integrity Initiative, a new project aimed at supporting and protecting the work of artists at every level of society and production. Under the leadership of arts administrator, writer and advocate Howard Sherman, Arts Integrity will not only examine and take an active role in instances of censorship and alteration of works, but also serve as a resource for the academic and professional arts communities.

The program is designed to ensure that audiences and practitioners alike have the opportunity to engage directly with challenging, vital work that reflects the very best the arts have to offer.

“As long as books are banned, creative works are rewritten, and plays and musicals are eliminated by schools because they deal with challenging issues, we need to be vigilant about protecting freedom of speech, quality education and the rights of artists,” said Richard Kessler, Executive Dean of The New School’s Performing Arts School and Dean of Mannes School of Music. “With this new program, The New School addresses the subject from multiple vantage points, developing students who understand the necessity of free artistic expression as a means by which to explore, reflect, and critique society.”

The program features new curricular opportunities for students that explore the value of free artistic expression, as well as enhanced community outreach and projects to confront the issue. These commitments will be amplified through a range of public programs to promote discourse on the silencing or manipulation of artistic works, copyright protection, and broader use of the arts as a vehicle for social engagement and justice.

Projects associated with the Office for Arts Integrity include integrated coursework in conjunction with a forthcoming Master’s degree in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship; a collective space for affected professional and community artists to raise concerns and seek guidance; an online publication chronicling challenges to artistic expression and offering original work speaking directly to those issues from within the New School community and expert outside voices; and public programs to raise awareness of the silencing of artistic works and devise strategies for mobilization of the creative and educational communities.

“Since he first picked up the anti-censorship banner, no one has been a more vocal, tireless, and effective advocate for the playwright’s right to be heard than Howard Sherman,” said John Weidman, President of the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund.

“I began doing work in this area on an ad hoc basis four years ago,” said Sherman, “and since that time I’ve increasingly found the need for a proactive resource to study and address arts censorship, supporting both academic and professional arts companies in their efforts to do work that has the greatest rewards for their constituencies. At the same time, I find more and more examples of works being altered unilaterally to appease often arbitrary assessments of what is appropriate or acceptable – or even simply appealing.”

Sherman continued, “Too often when challenges arise, those who are targeted don’t know where to turn, and I hope we’ll be able to provide those facing such restriction or tampering with guidance and on the ground resources, as well as collaborate with other organizations which share those goals, while bringing specific arts expertise to the table. In addition, our plan is to explore the roots of these issues in the arts and work collaboratively within schools and both the amateur and professional communities to develop best practices to reduce these high profile incidents over time, even as we look to explore cases that never reach the general public.”

Recent examples of obstruction of artists’ rights include the ongoing lawsuit preventing production of David Adjmi’s dark parody 3C and the unauthorized alteration of the musical Hands on a Hardbody in its Texas premiere in Houston. Recent arts censorship efforts have included the cancelations of Almost, Maine in North Carolina and Spamalot in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania; and the cancelations and subsequent restorations of Rent in Trumbull, Connecticut and Sweeney Todd in Plaistow, New Hampshire.

Howard Sherman is senior strategy consultant at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, a position he’ll continue in parallel to his new role at The New School for Drama. Sherman has been executive director of the American Theatre Wing and the O’Neill Theatre Center, managing director of Geva Theater, general manager of Goodspeed Musicals and public relations director of Hartford Stage. He has recently been recognized as one of the National Coalition Against Censorship’s “Top 40 Free Speech Defenders of 2014” and will be honored later this month with The Dramatists Legal Defense Fund’s second “Defender” Award. His writing about the arts has been seen in such publications as American Theatre magazine, Slate and The Guardian, and he is the U.S. correspondent for London’s The Stage newspaper. He blogs at www.hesherman.com.

Hannah Cabell and Anna Chlumsky in David Adjmi’s 3C at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Seen any good productions of David Adjmi’s play 3C lately?

Sorry, that’s a trick question with a self-evident answer: of course you haven’t. That’s because in the two and a half years since it premiered at New York’s Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, no one has seen a production of 3C because no one is allowed to produce it, or publish it. Why, you ask? Because a company called DLT Entertainment doesn’t want you to.

3C is an alternate universe look at the 1970s sitcom Three’s Company, one of the prime examples of “jiggle television” from that era, which ran for years based off of the premise that in order to share an apartment with two unmarried women, an unmarried man had to pretend he was gay, to meet with the approval of the landlord. It was a huge hit in its day, and while it was the focus of criticism for its sexual liberality (and constant double entendres), it was viewed as lightweight entertainment with little on its mind but farce and sex (within network constraints), sex that never seemed to actually happen.

Looking at it with today’s eyes, it is a retrograde embarrassment, saved only, perhaps, by the charm and comedy chops of the late John Ritter. The constant jokes about Ritter’s sexual façade, the sexless marriage of the leering landlord and his wife, the macho posturings of the swinging single men, the airheadedness of the women – all have little place in our (hopefully) more enlightened society and the series has pretty much faded from view, save for the occasional resurrection in the wee hours of Nick at Night.

In 3C, Adjmi used the hopelessly out of date sitcom as the template for a despairing look at what life in Apartment 3C might have been had Ritter’s character actually been gay, had the landlord been genuinely predatory and so on. It did what many good parodies do: take a known work and turn it on its ear, making comment not simply on the work itself, but the period and attitudes in which it was first seen.

Enter DLT, which holds the rights to Three’s Company. They sent a cease and desist letter to Adjmi back in 2012 claiming that the show violated their copyright; Adjmi said he couldn’t afford to fight it. Numerous well-known playwrights wrote a letter in support of Adjmi and the controversy generated its first wave of press, including pieces in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Over time, there have been assorted legal filings by both parties, with another wave of press appearing last year just about this time, when Adjmi sued for the right to reclaim his play for production, with commensurate press coverage once again from the Times and Studio 360, among others.

Why do I dredge this all up now? Because the bottom line is that DLT is doing its level best to prevent a playwright from earning a living, and throwing everything they can into a specious argument to do so. They say, both in public comments and in their filings, that 3C might confuse audiences and reduce or eliminate the market for their own stage version (citing one they commissioned and one for which they granted permission to James Franco). They cite negative reviews of 3C as damaging to their property. And so on.

But while I’m no lawyer (though I’ve read all of the pertinent briefs on the subject), I can make perfect sense out of the following language from the U.S. Copyright Office, regarding Fair Use exception to copyright (boldface added for emphasis):

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”

As someone who has gone out on a limb at times defending copyright and author’s rights, I’d be the first person to cry foul if I thought DLT had the slightest case here. But 3C (which I’ve read, as it’s part of the legal filings on the case) is so obviously a parody that DLT’s actions seem to be preposterously obstructionist, designed not to protect their property from confusion, but to shield it from the inevitable criticisms that any straightforward presentation of the material would now surely generate.

Rather than just blather on about the motivations of DLT in preventing Adjmi from having his play produced and published, let me demonstrate that their argument is specious. To do so, I offer the following exhibit from Mad Magazine:

What’s fascinating here is that Mad, a formative influence for countless youths in the 60s and 70s especially, parodied Three’s Company while it was still on the air, seemed to already be aware of the show’s obviously puerile humor, was read in those days by millions of kids – and wasn’t sued for doing so. That was and is a major feature of Mad, deflating everything that comes around in pop culture through parody. The fact is, Adjmi’s script is far more pointed and insightful than any episode of Three’s Company and may well work without deep knowledge of the original show, just like the Mad version.

The most recent filing in the Adjmi-DLT situation comes from the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund, an offshoot of The Dramatists Guild. Like all of the filings in this case, it’s very informative about copyright in general and parody in particular, and it spells out the numerous precedents where the use of a prior work was permitted under fair use, with particular attention to the idea that when the new work is transformative – which 3C surely is – it is permitted (read the complete amicus curiae brief here). In addition to their many examples, I would add from my own misspent youth such works as Bored of the Rings, a 1969 book-length parody of Tolkien by some of the people who would go on to create the National Lampoon, where incidentally, DLDF president John Weidman exercised his own comic skills) and Airplane!, which took its plotline (and punctuation mark) of a poisoned airline crew directly, uncredited, from the 1957 film Zero Hour! More recently, the endlessly touring Potted Potter has successfully run without authorization, though clearly derived from the works of J.K. Rowling and prior to any authorized stage interpretation.

It’s been months since there have been filings for summary judgment in the case (August 2014, to be precise), and according to Bruce Johnson, the attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle who is leading the fight on Adjmi’s behalf, there is no precise date by which there will be a ruling. Some might say that I’m essentially rehashing old news here, but I think it’s important that the case remains prominent in people’s minds, because it demonstrates the means by which a corporation is twisting a provision of copyright law to prevent an artist from having his work seen – and that’s censorship with a veneer of respectability conferred by legal filings under the umbrella of commerce. There may be others out there facing this situation, or contemplating work along the same lines, and this case may be suppressing their work or, depending upon the ultimate decision, putting them at risk as well.

We don’t all get to vote on this, unfortunately. But even armchair lawyers like me can see through DLT’s strategy. I just hope that the judge considering this case used to read humor magazines in his youth, which should provide plenty of precedent above and beyond what’s in the filings. 3C may take a comedy and make it bleak, but there’s humor to be found in DLT’s protestations, which are (IMHO) a joke.

P.S. I don’t hold the copyright to any of the images on this page. I’m reproducing them under Fair Use. Just FYI.

There were, in my estimation, many interesting people at the first performance of Almost, Maine in Hickory NC this past Thursday night.

Almost, Maine program cover for Hickory NC

To begin with, there was the author, John Cariani, who had come out to support the production, something he can’t do very often given how frequently his show is produced around the country. There was Jack Thomas, who produced the New York City premiere of Almost, Maine a decade ago. There was the doctor who had helped to found OutRight Youth of Catawba Valley, a support center for LGBTQ young people in this rural North Carolina region, which the performances, in part, benefited. There were the two women who were part of the local “Friends of the Library,” who knew little of the show but just wanted to support the effort. There was a high school drama teacher from the Raleigh-Durham area who had driven two and a half hours to see the show – and had to drive home that very night.

Oh, and there was the guy out on the street as I entered the building who was carrying a cross and shouting about how we were all going to hell for supporting homosexuality, and that God had very specific intentions for how humans should use their genitalia in relation to one another – though he was somewhat less circumspect than I just was in his phrasing.

Blake Richardson and Jonathan Bates in the scene “They Fell” from Almost, Maine

This production of Almost, Maine in Hickory was originally to have been produced at Maiden High School in nearby Maiden NC, but the show was canceled, after rehearsals had begun, when the school’s principal buckled to complaints about gay content and sex outside of marriage, reportedly from local churches (one made itself known publicly shortly before performances began). Due to the determination of Conner Baker, the student who was to have directed the show at the high school and ended up performing and co-directing, and with the tireless support of Carmen Eckard, a former teacher who had known many of the students since she taught them in elementary school, the show was shifted to Hickory, where it was performed in the community arts center’s auditorium.

Ci-Ci Pinson and Nathaniel Shoun in “Where It Went” from Almost, Maine

There were shifts in casting due to schedule changes, due to the show no longer being school-sanctioned, due to the need to travel 15 miles or so to and from Maiden to Hickory. But nine young people, a mix of current and former Maiden High students and a few students from local colleges, made sure that Catawba County got to see Almost, Maine, the sweet, rueful comedy that is hardly anyone’s idea of dangerous theatre.

Save for Cariani and Thomas, I hadn’t anticipated knowing anyone at the show that evening, though I had been in communication with Eckard and Baker since the objections first arose at Maiden High. But I was very pleased to spot Keith Martin, the former managing director of Charlotte Repertory Theatre, now The John M. Blackburn Distinguished Professor of Theatre at Appalachian State University, who I knew from my days as a manager in LORT theatre, but hadn’t seen or spoken with in more than a decade. Keith’s presence had a special resonance for me, because nearly 20 years ago, before the cast of Almost, Maine was born, he had been at the center of one of the most significant and ugly efforts to censor professional theatre in that era, namely community and political campaigns to shut down Charlotte Rep’s production of Angels in America, a national news story at the time which saw lawsuits, injunctions, restraining orders and even the de-funding of the entire Charlotte Arts Council, all in an effort to silence Tony Kushner’s “Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” The efforts failed, but left scars.

Keith Martin

I spoke with Keith a few nights after we saw Almost, Maine, and even as he recounted – and I recalled – the fight over Angels, he told me of two other censorship cases in North Carolina in the 1990s. The first, with which I was familiar and which played out over much of the decade, began in 1991, when a teacher named Peggy Boring was removed from her school and reassigned due to her choice of Lee Blessing’s play Independence for students, which was deemed inappropriate by administrators. Boring didn’t accept the disciplinary action and brought suit against the school system, which went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately let stand a lower court decision which said that Boring’s right to free expression did not extend to what she chose for her students, an key precedent for all high school theatre and education.

The second occurrence which Keith told me about took place in 1999, when five young playwrights won a playwriting contest at the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte – but only four of the pieces were produced. The fifth, Samantha Gellar’s Life Versus the Paperback Romance, was omitted to due its inclusion of lesbian characters. The play was ultimately produced locally under private auspices and also got a reading at The Public Theater in New York with Mary-Louise Parker and Lisa Kron in the cast, but in the wake of the Boring case and Angels in America, it couldn’t be seen in North Carolina in a public facility or produced using public funds.

As we talked, as he told me firsthand accounts of situations both known and unknown to me, Keith was very concerned that I might focus too much on him when I sat down to write. It’s hard not to want to tell his story – or, perhaps, his stories – in greater detail. But since we both went to Hickory to celebrate Almost, Maine and the people who made it happen, here’s just a handful of the very smart and pertinent thoughts he shared.

Why had he made the hour-long trip to Hickory? Because, he replied, “When one of us is threatened, we as a theatre community are all at risk.”

Why is this important even in high school? “Teenagers aged 13 to 17 are, I believe, among the most marginalized voices in America today,” said Martin. “It’s ironic, because they’ve developed a sense of place, they have a spirit of activism, but they’re not yet of a legal age to give voice to their passion.”

Regarding efforts to minimize controversy in theatre production, Keith said, “Theatre has always been the appropriate venue for the discussion of difficult subjects and it provides a respectful place where people of goodwill who happened to disagree about different sides of an issue can see that issue portrayed on stage and then have a healthy, informed debate.

Is there something special about North Carolina that led to these high profile cases emerging from the state? “Angels in America was portrayed as having happened in a southern, bible belt town. But what happened after that?” Keith asked me, going on to cite the controversies and attempts to silence Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi at Manhattan Theatre Club and My Name is Rachel Corrie at New York Theatre Workshop.

The team behind Almost, Maine in Hickory NC, including playwright John Cariani

As I said at the beginning, there were many interesting people at the opening of Almost, Maine. I suspect the students in the show didn’t know, or even know of, Keith Martin, and this post is one small way of putting their work in a broader context that he embodies in their state. I have no doubt that there were other people with personal experiences and connections relating to what the students had achieved, and it’s pretty much certain that neither they nor I will ever know them fully. But just as Keith said to me in our conversation that, “these kids need some recognition that their efforts have not gone unheard,” it’s important that they know that their theatrical act of civil disobedience does not stand alone, be it in North Carolina or nationally. The same is true for everyone who had a hand in making certain that Almost, Maine was heard over the cries of those who wanted it silenced.

In one of my early conversations with Conner Baker, as we discussed her options, her mantra was that, “We just want to do the play.” She and her classmates and supporters did just that, in the least confrontational way possible, but in doing so their names belong alongside those of Peggy Boring, Samantha Gellar, Keith Martin and many others in the annals of North Carolina theatre, at the very least.

I’ll leave you with one last connection between Keith Martin and Almost, Maine. The SALT Block Auditorium where the show was produced is located in an arts center which is the former Hickory High School. Keith Martin attended that very school decades ago and performed on the stage where Almost, Maine was produced last week. The role he recalled for me when asked? The title character in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I suspect that even James Thurber’s famous daydreamer couldn’t have imagined the controversy surrounding Almost, Maine…or its happy ending. Maiden’s reactionary, cowardly loss was Hickory’s heroic gain.

“What’s the deal with all this high school theatre?”

That’s the kind of comment—spoken, written or tweeted—I’ve been getting regularly over the past four years since I began writing about instances of censorship of theatre in American high schools (and, on occasion, colleges). To be fair to those who may be skeptical about the extent of the problem, I myself have been surprised by the volume and variety of issues raised over the content of shows being done—and, in some cases, ultimately not being done—in school-sponsored theatre.

But between writing about these incidents, and directly involving myself as an advocate in some of them, I’ve come to believe that what’s taking place in our high schools and on our campuses has a very direct connection to what is happening (and will be happening) on professional stages.

So here are nine common questions that have arisen as my advocacy has increased, and some answers—although, as every attempt at censorship is different, there aren’t any absolute answers.

1. Why is there so much more censorship of high school theatre these days?

There’s no quantitative study that indicates the policing of what’s performed is any greater than it was 10, 25 or 50 years ago. Everything is anecdotal. But the Internet has made it easier for reports to spread beyond individual communities and for news-aggregation sites uncover and accelerate the dissemination of such stories. It only takes one report in a small-town paper these days to bring an incident to national attention; that was a rarity in the print-only era.

2. Isn’t this just a reflection of our polarized national politics?

School theatre censorship doesn’t necessarily follow the red state/blue state binary division, because the impulse can arise from any constituency. While efforts to quash depictions of LGBTQ life—as with Almost, Maine in Maiden, N.C., or Spamalot in South Williamsport, Pa.—may be coming from political constituencies galvanized against the spread of marriage equality, or from certain faith communities which share that opposition, that’s hardly the only source. Opposition to Sweeney Todd, both muted (in Orange, Conn.) and explicit (in Plaistow, N.H.) was driven by concern about the portrayal of violence in an era of school shootings and rising suicide rates, while Joe Turner’s Come and Gone was challenged by a black superintendent over August Wilson’s use of the “n-word.”

3. What’s the real impact of school theatre on the professional community?

The Broadway League pegs attendance at Broadway’s 40 theatres in the neighborhood of 13 million admissions a year and touring shows at 14 million a year. TCG’s Theatre Facts reports resident and touring attendance of 11 million. That totals a professional universe of 38 million admissions.

Based on figures provided to me by half a dozen licensing houses, there are at minimum 37,500 shows done in high school theatres annually, and conservatively guesstimating three performances of each in 600 seat theatres at 75-percent capacity, that’s more than 50 million attendees. In both samples, the numbers don’t represent the total activity, but high school theatre’s audience impact is undeniable, both as a revenue stream for authors and as a means of reaching audiences who might not see any other theatre at all.

4. Does it really matter what shows kids get to do in high school?

While there are valuable aspects to making theatre that apply no matter what the play choice may be, many schools view their productions as community relations, frequently citing that they want to appeal to audiences “from 8 to 80.” While the vast majority of students in the shows, and their friends who come to see them, will never become arts professionals, they are the potential next generation of audiences and donors for professional companies. If they are raised on a diet of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz (both currently very popular in the high school repertoire), how can we expect more challenging work , new work, or socially conscious work to sustain itself 20 years on?

5. Are school administrators fostering an environment in which censorship flourishes?

I’m unwilling to accept the idea that our schools are run by people who fundamentally want to limit what students can learn—or perform. But they are operating within a political structure topped by an elected board of education, and can be subject to political pressure that often makes the path of least resistance—altering text or changing a selected show, in most cases—the expedient way to go. Unless an administrator (or a teacher, for that matter) is independently wealthy, they can’t necessarily afford to risk their job fighting for the school play that may have challenging content. That said, students at Newman University rebelled against administration-dictated text changes, reverting to the script as written for the latter two of their four performances of Legally Blonde in November.

6. Isn’t this a free speech issue?

In a word, no. Schools have the right and responsibility to determine what is appropriate activity and speech under their control, and just because students are exposed to all manner of content in the media and even in their day-to-day lives doesn’t mean that schools can or must permit it, either in classrooms or performance. That The Crucible is in countless high school curriculums does not necessarily prevent it from being censored as a performance piece, despite the seeming double standard.

The same stringent oversight that affects school theatre is also often directed at school newspapers and media. However, while some school systems attempt to control all student speech, it is a First Amendment violation to infringe on student speech to the media about their dissatisfaction with the actions of a school, including censorship. Drama teachers, who are best equipped to make the cases for the shows they choose, are usually prevented from doing so by employment agreements which prohibit them from discussing school matters without the express approval of the administration, typically the superintendent.

7. Don’t shows get edited all the time in schools for content?

In all likelihood, shows are constantly being nipped and tucked by teachers and administrators to conform to their perception of “community standards,” whether it’s the occasional profanity or entire songs. But that doesn’t make it right, and it is censorship. Aside from violating copyright laws and the licensing contracts signed for the right to the show, it sets a terrible example for students by suggesting that authors’ work can be altered at will, undermining the rights of the artists who created the work.

Some writers and composers have authorized school editions or junior versions of their shows for the school market to recognize frequent concerns and to keep from denying students the opportunity to explore their shows. But the rights must lie with the authors, not each and every school. If that isn’t made clear early on, how can we expect to fight censorship anywhere?

8. When a show is canceled and then successfully restored through a public campaign, is that winning the battle and then losing the war?

That’s a genuine concern of mine—that once there’s a public battle over theatrical content, the school will thereafter clamp down even harder and apply greater scrutiny forever after to drama programs, academic or extracurricular. At the Educational Theatre Association’s national conference this past summer, one attendee asked the others if there were shows that they believed would be great for their students but which they couldn’t even raise as possibilities. Every single teacher in the room raised his or her hand. So the incidents that become public—ones in which a show is announced, then has approval rescinded—are the tip of the iceberg. Drama teachers and directors are already having their choices limited, often by self-censorship. There’s much more work to be done, but if blatant examples don’t come to light, it may never be possible to galvanize support for school theatre that challenges students to do great work and great works.

9. Can professional artists and companies make any difference when incidents of censorship arise?

Local theatres—professional, community and academic—make superb allies in fighting against censorship. Institutions and individuals within communities that are respected for their art occupy a position from which to speak out forcefully and effectively for school theatre programs. Whether it’s a nearby artistic director or a one-time resident who has gone on to a professional career, they bring a history and authority that will speak to both the local populace and the media. The vocal support of the Yale School of Drama and Yale Rep with the aforementioned Joe Turner, and of Goodspeed Musicals and Hartford Stage in the case of Rent in Trumbull, Conn., were key factors in the ultimately successful efforts toward restoring those shows to production.

In closing: The first time I inserted myself into a school theatre censorship debate in 2011, I assumed it was a one-off. I did not realize at the time that I had found a cause. Each time an incident comes to a conclusion, regardless of whether the outcome was, from my point of view, positive or negative, I think that surely the message is getting out there and this will be the last time. But then comes the phone call, the e-mail, the tweet, from someone I’ve never met and possibly never will, saying that a show is threatened or has just been shut down. And I begin my introductory speech, which is unfortunately well-honed at this point.

“This is no longer about education,” I say, “this is no longer about art. This is now a political campaign.” And off we go.

This post first appeared at AmericanTheatre.org

Ari Roth

I have never attended Theater J in Washington DC. I have become increasingly aware of its work as controversy over that work has risen in recent years, while at the same time I have become aware of the high regard in which the company and its longtime artistic director, Ari Roth, are held by many theatre professionals I admire and call my friends. That Roth was fired this week after nearly two decades is simultaneously shocking and wholly unsurprising, as the theatre seems to have been on a collision course with the Washington DC Jewish Community Center, of which Theater J is a resident program (as opposed to a tenant), for some time over work that some in the Jewish community perceived as anti-Israel and therefore not deserving of a place in a JCC.

I cannot judge the work itself, because I have neither seen nor read it. I cannot be seen as impartial, at least by some, because I am a theatre professional who regularly speaks out against censorship, and because I am a Jew who does not believe that my religion requires unquestioning support of the State of Israel and its political, social and military policies. I do believe in the importance of Israel for the Jewish people and its right to exist, but I also believe in the rights of Palestinians to their own homeland as well, and the right and necessity of both populations to live in peace.

So rather than opine at length, I choose to share with you excerpts from many stories about Theater J, with links to the full reports, which in turn link to yet more. I decry the pressure that Theater J has been subjected to and the manner of Ari Roth’s firing. I believe that Roth’s artistic vision will ultimately be best served at his planned new company Mosaic Theater Company – a name I love for its ability to invoke both the Moses of biblical times, as well as the ancient art form of arranging multi-colored tiles to create art, suggesting the coming together of many fragments to make a larger and more cohesive whole. As for what happens to Theater J now, I hope it doesn’t become a home for only feel-good Jewish stories, but manages to sustain itself as a place that challenges those who attend and fosters debate among them, characteristics that I was taught from a very early age were a central part of Judaism.

From “Theater J incident illustrates larger dialogue on Israel at Jewish institutions” by Peter Marks in The Washington Post, August 6, 2011:

Andy Shallal, an Iraqi-born Muslim, was deeply proud of the open conversation channel he had maintained with Ari Roth, longtime artistic director of Theater J, a highly regarded branch of the D.C. Jewish Community Center. Together with another local theater lover, Mimi Conway, they’d created the Peace Cafe, an after-play forum, complete with plates of hummus and pita bread supplied by Shallal’s popular Busboys and Poets dining spots, that had become a mainstay of Theater J’s programming.

The makeshift cafe — established 10 years ago, during the run of a politically charged solo play about the Mideast by David Hare — has been important as an outlet for debate over issues raised in Theater J’s sometimes provocative repertory, especially for an outsider such as Shallal. “It was an emotional experience for me, to walk into a Jewish community center, to grow up as a Muslim, thinking of Israelis as really scary people,” he says. “I walked through that door, and it was a very beautiful experience.”

Then, suddenly, a few months ago, a curtain was drawn. The community center’s then-chief executive officer, Arna Meyer Mickelson, told Shallal that the Peace Cafe could no longer use the facilities of the center, at 16th and Q streets NW. “She said, ‘We appreciate what you’ve done, but we can’t have Peace Cafes at Theater J anymore,’ ” Shallal recalls. “I think she was waiting for the right moment to cut the strings.”

From “Heated Dialogue, Onstage and Off, at Theater J” by Lonnie Firestone in American Theatre magazine, February 2012

Maybe it’s the temperature, maybe it’s the politics—but there’s something about plays from the Middle East. Ask Ari Roth, artistic director of Theater J in Washington, D.C., who has produced more plays from that region than any other theatre artist in America. Roth can attest that the dialogue in plays from this part of the world is “more scalding than subtle. But that’s good, arresting theatre.”

Heated dialogue has become a Theater J trademark, both during the plays and at post-show talkbacks. A focus on Israel and the Middle East is one surefire way to attract passionate audiences (and occasional detractors). Since taking the helm of Theater J in 1998, Roth has been as avid about producing work that engages with Israeli life, culture and politics as he has about producing plays about American Jewish life.

From “Where do Jewish federations draw the ‘red line’ on opinions about Israel?” by Jason Kamaras on JNS.org, September 23, 2013:

Ari Roth, artistic director of Theater J, told JNS.org that “The Admission” is all based on “actual research done by three historians,” rather than implying the “fictitious 1948 massacre” that Young Israel’s Levi described in his letter. “The Admission” was also featured in an April 2013 workshop that was underwritten by the Israeli Consulate of New York, which Roth called an Israeli “hechsher” on the play.

COPMA does not acknowledge Theater J’s slate of more than 35 plays and workshops relating to Israel over the last 16 years, said Roth, who among other plays the group has performed cited “Dai” (“Enough”), which details the experiences of 14 different Israelis in the moments before a suicide bombing.

Theater J also never actually produced “Seven Jewish Children,” explained Roth. Instead, the group held a “critical dissection” of the play, featuring readings of “Seven Jewish Children” and response plays, as well as a talk to start the event that included “what troubled me about the play,” Roth said.

The DC federation, in an April 2011 statement, said it would not fund “any organization that encourages boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel in pursuit of goals to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish State.” Theater J “stands squarely” against the BDS movement, Roth told JNS.org.

“We are all about bringing Israeli art over here, engaging with Israel,” he said. “We are a leading importer of Israeli cultural talent to Washington.”

Hanna Eady, Elizabeth Anne Jernigan, Leila Buck, Danny Gavigan, Pomme Koch, Kimberly Schraf, and Michael Tolaydo in The Admission (Photo by C. Stanley Photography)

From “Theater J Scales Back Show as Pro-Israel Critics Pressure Washington D.C. Troupe” by Nathan Guttman in the Jewish Daily Forward, October 9, 2013:

In an apparent bow to the right in the Jewish culture wars, Theater J, a celebrated theatrical group housed at Washington’s DC Jewish Community Center, will not produce a play set to open this spring that has been denounced by critics as anti-Israel.

The troupe will instead run a workshop on the play and a moderated discussion. . .

The compromise reached between Theater J and the DCJCC will likely not put an end to the heated political debate about the play. Activists from a group called Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art, which organized the pressure campaign, have made clear they will not discuss anything short of removing the play altogether. The group’s chairman, Robert Samet, told the Forward earlier that he would accept only the play’s cancellation.

Carole Zawatsky, CEO of the DCJCC, told the Forward that the decision to cancel the full production was not a result of the outside pressure. “This had nothing to do with COPMA,” she said. “COPMA is trying to shut down the conversation and we are trying to broaden it.”

The DCJCC explained the decision as stemming from their “guiding principle” that plays from Israel should be done in partnership with Israeli theater companies. And since a planned partnership did not materialize, Theater J will not present a full production in Washington. The workshop, Zawatsky said, will include the play’s author, Motti Lerner, alongside other historians, artists and political figures.

The controversy surrounding production of The Admission is only the latest in a series of attacks against the capital city’s Jewish theater company involving plays related to Israel. Theater J rejected the earlier rounds of criticism, insisting on its right to stage the plays in question as a matter of artistic freedom.

This time, however, the debate was deepened by a call from the theater’s detractors to withhold donations from the city’s Jewish federation because of its support for the artistic group.

From a letter by The Dramatists Guild and the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund to the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and the DC JCC, January 27, 2014:

We understand that a group that calls itself Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art has been formed to discourage Theatre J’s production of The Admission by advocating a boycott of your organizations and other intimidating tactics. Yes, private citizens have a right to object to the plays you produce by not funding you, and no, their actions do not constitute “censorship” in the strictest sense, but the bullying tactics of this group in order to impose their political worldview on the choice of plays you present must not succeed. As the representative of writers of all political persuasions, religious beliefs, etc., the Dramatists Guild strongly opposes their actions and agenda.

We find it ironic that COPMA’s wish to stifle the play is purportedly in defense of Israel, yet the Israeli minister of Home Security himself has said: “In the past, some plays by Motti Lerner have created stormed discourse … This discourse is taking place in the public sphere and that is where it should be. The State of Israel is proud of the freedom of expression in the arts in it and especially the freedom of expression in the theater.”

Should the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and the DCJCC have a lower standard for the freedom of expression than Israel? Surely if a state under siege since its founding can withstand criticism in the form of drama, so can your audiences.

From “For Jewish groups, a stand-off between open debate and support of Israel” by Marc Fisher in The Washington Post,” May 28, 2014:

The D.C. Jewish Community Center runs a popular music festival featuring klezmer, a cappella, Broadway, liturgical and classical sounds. This year, they invited a Brooklyn feminist punk rock band called The Shondes — Yiddish for “disgrace” — to join the lineup.

Weeks later, the center uninvited The Shondes because the band’s leader had made public statements questioning whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state.

The JCC has staged an “Embracing Democracy” series over the past year, tackling tough issues with speakers on American Jews’ relationship with Israel and the birth of the Jewish state. David Harris-Gershon was asked to speak on his memoir about how he changed after a Palestinian terrorist’s bomb in Jerusalem seriously injured his wife.

But the JCC withdrew Harris-Gershon’s invitation after discovering that he had written a blog post sympathetic to the boycott and divestment movement against Israel. . .

“A wonderful aspect of Jewish tradition is healthy debate,” says Stuart Weinblatt, rabbi at Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Potomac, Md. “But ultimately, a big tent does have parameters. It’s not inappropriate for the JCC or any institution to ask, ‘Does this play or speaker convey a narrative that helps people understand Israel’s ongoing struggle?’ There are plenty of venues willing to host productions critical of Israel. The Jewish community doesn’t need to be that place.”

“You have to push the envelope, you have to challenge,” says Gil Steinlauf, senior rabbi at Adas Israel Congregation in the District. “This is the essence of what it means to be Jewish: We welcome dissent. And I do see a move away from that welcome in the Jewish community.”

From “DCJCC Cancels Theater J’s Middle East Festival, Prompting Censorship Debate” by Nathan Guttman in the Jewish Daily Forward, November 25, 2014:

Theater J, a nationally acclaimed group under the auspices of the Washington DC Jewish Community Center, is battling a decision by the JCC to cancel its annual Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival. The theatrical festival, which in the past has included works critical of Israeli policy, was asked to accept a rigorous vetting process of artists this year to limit that criticism.

“Increasingly, Theater J is being kept from programming as freely, as fiercely, and expressing itself as fully as it needs,” the artistic director, Ari Roth, wrote to the company’s executive committee in September, in an internal document obtained by the Forward. “We find the culture of open discourse and dissent within our Jewish Community Center to be evaporating.”

Theater J and the DCJCC are not the only institutions caught between donors concerned about negative depictions of Israel and creators arguing for artistic freedom; New York City’s Metropolitan Opera is still reeling from the protests against its decision to produce “The Death of Klinghoffer”; the JCC in Manhattan came under fire in 2011 for partnering with progressive organizations, and in San Francisco, the Jewish film festival was the first, in 2009, to face pressure from donors to change its programming.

“It’s pervasive,” said Elise Bernhardt, former president and CEO of the now-defunct Foundation for Jewish Culture. “At the end of the day, they are shooting themselves in the foot.” Bernhardt said that attempts to censor Jewish art will only deter young members from being involved in the community.

From an e-mail sent by DCJCC Executive Director Carole Zawatsky to the DC JCC board on December 18, 2014:

I am writing to let you know that Ari Roth will be stepping down as the Artistic Director of Theater J. Ari has been a great leader of our theater program for the last 18 years and has grown Theater J into an award-winning and groundbreaking destination for our community. Under his guidance, Theater J has become the premier Jewish theater in the country and has gained national critical acclaim. We are so proud of the heights we have reached with Ari at the helm. While Ari will no longer be the Artistic Director of Theater J, we have offered Ari the opportunity to continue to curate the Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival and use its branding wherever his next endeavor shall be.

To all the people who have worked most closely with Ari to make Theater J the incredible success it is today, I want to assure you of our continued commitment to Theater J’s mission of presenting thought-provoking, engaging theater. While a search is underway for a new Artistic Director, Theater J will continue operating under the leadership of two people you already know well: Managing Director Rebecca Ende and now Associate Artistic Director Shirley Serotsky.

From “Artistic director Ari Roth is fired from Theater J” by Peter Marks in The Washington Post on December 18, 2014:

Ari Roth, longtime artistic director of Theater J, an organization he has built over the past 18 years into one of the city’s most artistically probing and ambitious theater companies, said he was fired Thursday. Roth said notice of his dismissal was delivered by Carole R. Zawatsky, chief executive officer of the DC Jewish Community Center, of which Theater J is an arm. The cause given, he said, was insubordination, violating what he called the JCC’s “communications protocol.”.  .  .

On Thursday night, the DCJCC released a statement quoting Zawatsky as saying: “Ari Roth has had an incredible 18-year tenure leading Theater J, and we know there will be great opportunities ahead for him. Ari leaves us with a vibrant theater that will continue to thrive.”

Roth and Zawatsky, who was hired by the JCC in 2011, clashed repeatedly over some of Roth’s programming choices, particularly as they concerned the Middle East. Earlier this year, Theater J’s world premiere of “The Admission,” a play by Israeli dramatist Motti Lerner about a purported massacre of Palestinian villagers in 1948 by Israeli soldiers, was downgraded by the center from a full production to a workshop. That occurred after a small local activist group’s campaign to stop the play asked donors to withhold funds from the JCC’s parent body.

The group, calling itself Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art, launched a similar effort in protest of a Theater J offering in 2011, “Return to Haifa,” a play that featured Arab and Israeli actors. From the highly regarded Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, Boaz Gaon’s drama — adapted from a novella by a spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, later assassinated — portrayed a Palestinian family returning to the home it had fled in 1948 that was occupied by Israeli Jews.

The latest and apparently final dispute was over the fate of Theater J’s Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival, an ongoing series of which “Return to Haifa” and “The Admission” were a part. Last month, the Jewish Daily Forward reported that the DCJCC was eliminating iterations of the festival. Roth said his commenting to the media after the article appeared was the reason given to support the charge of insubordination.

From “Ari Roth’s Firing From Theater J Is Part of a Larger Conflict About Jewish Criticism of Israel” by Benjamin Freed in the Washingtonian on December 19, 2014:

But the aggressive pushback that Israel’s critics like Roth and Judis from their fellow Jews isn’t a recent phenomeon, says Alan Elsner, the vice president of communications for J Street, a left-wing Middle East policy organization that calls itself pro-Israel and pro-peace. The group was founded in 2008 because the subject of Israel “had become so toxic that institutions, people, synagogues felt they couldn’t discuss it intelligently anymore,” he says.

Elsner believes the loud, hawkish voices that attack people like Roth are a slim portion of the the American Jewish community, but they do include some wealthy donors flexing their political clout. But those reactions, Elsner says, come at the expense of the Jewish population’s future.

“It’s a formula for driving away young people, driving away people who love Israel, but are not supportive of the settlements, and see the current government destroying the country,” he says. “The right has been in power in Israel with short breaks since 1977, and they’ve pursued building settlements and had three or four wars. The problem is, how do American Jews who support Israel and love Israel engage in a meaningful dialogue with Israel without being cast out of the tent?”

From “Ari Roth’s swift departure from Theater J follows a tumultuous tenure” by Peter Marks in The Washington Post, December 19, 2014:

As Ari Roth, Theater J’s longtime artistic director, recalled it, he sat down over a couple of lunches with Rabbi Bruce Lustig of the Washington Hebrew Congregation and the JCC’s chief executive, Carole R. Zawatsky, in an effort to undo the ire and mistrust that had soured his dealings with his boss.

“We went to marriage counseling,” is how Roth wryly describes those attempts. “We worked on our relationship.”

The meetings apparently came to naught, for on Thursday, Roth was fired by Zawatsky from the job he had held for 18 years, a tenure during which he built Theater J into one of the leading Jewish theaters in the country and one of the most important outposts for plays about Israel and its neighbors. His termination came after he refused to sign a severance agreement that would have given him six months’ salary and required that he keep quiet about the nature of his exit.

The firing, which was greeted with expressions of disbelief and widespread condemnation by everyone from Washington actors, directors and artistic directors to playwright Tony Kushner, was in point of fact the culminating event of a difficult, years-long struggle between Roth’s company and those in charge of the august Jewish institution on 16th and Q streets NW that housed it. Furious over some of his programming decisions — including producing a play based on a novel by a onetime spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and a staged reading of another playlet, Caryl Churchill’s “Seven Jewish Children,” labeled by some as anti-Semitic — activist groups and others had exerted pressure on the JCC to try to stop them.

The dismissal, though, was not merely the wrenching end to a long-simmering personnel matter involving a headstrong staffer. It was also an illustration of a growing rift in the Jewish community, over what kinds of dialogue concerning Israel can be tolerated at a multipurpose Jewish organization — and whether, in fact, programming perceived as critical of Israeli policies has any place at a center for Jewish culture.

“The work that Ari’s been doing isn’t more or less controversial than it was 10 years ago, but the atmosphere for airing different voices has changed,” said Joshua Ford, who was the DCJCC’s associate executive director until leaving in March. “That’s in part because there’s a perception that Israel is more besieged than ever, and that’s a perception with some reality to it. And part of it is that it’s very, very hard for artists and institutions just to get along in general.

“Artists need to be artists,” Ford added, “and institutions need to answer to more than just their artistic impulses.”

From “Ari Roth, Director of Jewish Theater, Is Fired” by Michael Paulson in The New York Times, December 19, 2014:

Under Mr. Roth’s leadership, Theater J has periodically produced work that has tested the Jewish Community Center. This year, the agency scaled back a production of “The Admission,” which depicted a disputed incident of Israeli soldiers killing Palestinians in 1948, and canceled a Middle East festival; in 2010 the theater scuttled a production of a play about Bernie Madoff after objections from Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and writer; in 2009 there was controversy over a play by Caryl Churchill that some saw as anti-Semitic.

Mr. Roth said he was fired after unsuccessful efforts to negotiate an agreement to allow him to do some of his most contested work as a freelancer, or to make Theater J, which is producing six shows this season and has a $1.6 million budget, financially independent from the Jewish Community Center. He said he had recently been reprimanded for speaking to the news media without permission, and that he believed the J.C.C. wanted him gone to eliminate a possible source of concern for donors during a coming capital campaign.

“This was a long time coming, but it was becoming clear that for the theater to fully express itself, not just on the Middle East but on a whole range of issues, there was a growing artistic impasse,” he said.

Tony Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide… at Theater J

At the conclusion of Friday’s evening’s performance at Theater J, the following statement from playwright Tony Kushner was shared with the audience, read by members of the company of Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, Theater J’s current production:

We know it’s been a long evening of theater, but we’d like to take one more moment of your time. We wouldn’t be standing here tonight without the hard work and fierce dedication of our friend and colleague, the artistic director of Theater J, Ari Roth. Yesterday, Ari was fired by the CEO of the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center in consultation with the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of this center. This decision is of grave concern to theater artists and audiences alike. Ari wasn’t fired, as the executive committee has claimed, because of ‘insubordination.’ That is a preposterous and cowardly whitewashing of the truth. Ari was fired because he believes that a theater company with a mission to explore Jewish themes and issues cannot acquiesce to demands for an uncritical acceptance of the positions of the Israeli government regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or to an insistence on silence. Ari was fired because he refused to surrender to censorship; he was fired because he believes that freedom of speech and freedom of expression are both American values and Jewish values. “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide” has 3 more performances. We can’t continue without expressing our shock and dismay at this violation of principles we cherish. Theater artists and administrators across the country are already speaking out in protest. We join them, and we hope you’ll join us. We call on the full Board of the DCJCC to renounce the action its executive committee has taken, and by renouncing it, demonstrate its support for theater that engages with contemporary reality in all its complexity, free of the fear of censors. Thanks for listening, thanks for being a great audience, and Ari, thanks for everything–shabat shalom, Godspeed, and good night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqTCWWaH7r0

In a New York Times Magazine article, “Can Liberal Zionists Count On Hillary Clinton?” published on Sunday, December 21, 2014 and wholly unrelated to the firing of Ari Roth at Theater J, one paragraph struck me as particularly apt to the themes and reality surrounding the theater and its place in discourse about Israel and the Middle East, echoing the observations of others:

“In many segments of American Jewry,” Zemel said, “one is free to disagree with the president of the United States, but the prime minister of Israel is sacrosanct. How patently absurd!” Zemel’s criticism of the current Israeli government pivoted to a discussion of how the Holocaust and that summer’s flare-ups of anti-Semitism in Europe reminded them all that Israel was existentially necessary. “We must love Israel even harder,” he concluded, quoting from the Israeli national anthem. “Od lo avda tikvateinu. We have not yet lost our hope.”

From “An Interview With Former Theater J Artistic Director Ari Roth” on HowlRound.com, December 21, 2014:

If you look around the country, how many plays are there on an annual basis that touch on the Middle East conflict? And then you think it’s such a rich source of drama and there are so many talented people writing about it, why aren’t they touching this subject? I don’t think they should use my example as a cautionary tale, they should use my example as a reason to do more of it. I shouldn’t be one of the only TCG theater artists engaged in this issue. It’s inexplicable to me that we don’t have a dozen other theater companies engaging in this theater subject. It isn’t the third rail, it isn’t that volatile or lethal. There’s not that much paranoid Jewish money that is so concerned about this issue being voiced. I think artists ask themselves how much do they know, how much more could they learn about the conflict and what’s my responsibility to reflect that on our stage? A lot of people could be doing this work and should be.

Via Twitter, a final observation from The Washington Post’s Peter Marks:

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Update, December 22, 2014, 1 pm: The artistic directors of a broad cross-section of U.S. theatres have sent a letter regarding Ari Roth’s firing to the Board of Directors of the Washington Jewish Community Center. It reads:

We, the undersigned Artistic Directors, are outraged by the action of the JCC in Washington DC in summarily dismissing the long-serving Artistic Director of Theater J, Ari Roth, on the morning of December 18.

The stated cause was ‘insubordination’, and it is absolutely clear that Roth was fired because of the content of the work he has so thoughtfully and ably championed for the last two decades.

Ari Roth is a capable, brilliant and inspiring leader of the American non-profit theater. The actions of the JCC, in terminating him for blatantly political reasons, violate the principles of artistic freedom and free expression that have been at the heart of the non-profit theater movement for over half a century. Such actions undermine the freedom of us all.

A free people need a free art; debate, dissent, and conflict are at the heart of what makes theater work, and what makes democracy possible. We deplore the actions of the JCC, offer our complete support for Ari Roth, urge the American theater community to protest these events in all possible ways, and call upon the full Board of the JCC to renounce this action of the Executive Committee of the JCC.

Update, December 28, 2014 11 am:

From “D.C. Jewish Community Center head details ‘insubordination’ of Ari Roth” by Peter Marks in The Washington Post, December 26, 2014:

The battle over the firing of Theater J artistic director Ari Roth took another bitter turn this week, with the circulation of remarks by his boss at the D.C. Jewish Community Center, Carole R. Zawatsky, accusing him of “a pattern of insubordination, unprofessionalism and actions that no employer would ever sanction.”

That pattern, Zawatsky charged in a letter sent by e-mail Wednesday to “Members of the Israel arts community,” included an attempt “to force the DCJCC to give up Theater J to his sole control.” She added that after that failed to occur, “he had begun to work on a new venture, while still employed by DCJCC,” and that “despite clear and written warnings” he “continued to disregard direction” from his superiors.

“Ari Roth,” she contended, “was not fired because of his politics or because of outside pressure.”

From “The Facts on the Ground at Theater J” by Isaac Butler in American Theatre magazine, December 28, 2014:

In their own ways, both Zawatsky and Roth’s versions of the story identify the same problems: an untenable relationship between the theatre and the center, mirrored or manifested by their own untenable relationship; a document outlining possible ways those relationships could change; and Roth’s future plans for a new company and decision to leave. But both use these points of evidence for radically different, somewhat incompatible interpretations of the last few years.

And if you assume the politics of Israel-related programming was the cause of Roth’s firing, a few additional ironies seep into the story. For one, Roth is hardly a radical leftist on Israeli politics: He is instead a mainstream, left-of-center, two-state-solution-supporting moderate. He has said, both in his interview with HowlRound and with me, that he willingly embraced the DCJCC’s “red line” about work that promotes BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, a movement that tries to use economic and cultural pressure to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian land).

What’s more, the work that actually landed him in hot water in the first place was a staged examination of whether or not a play by the greatest living English-language playwright was anti-Semitic—and then two plays by Israeli Jews attempting to reconcile with the events surrounding their nation’s founding.

But the past is prologue. Leaving aside the trail of events that brought Roth, Zawatsky, Theater J and the DCJCC to this impasse, the question is: What now?

*   *   *

I will continue to add to and amend this post if I discover thoughtful and pertinent information I believe to be constructive to the narrative and the issues.

Many of you already know the story of the Maiden High School production of John Cariani’s Almost, Maine, shuttered by school officials this fall due to the content of a single scene in which two men discover that they love one another. The cancellation rightly got a great deal of attention, not least because Almost, Maine is the most popular new play done in high schools nationally, a widely accepted work that hit a wall in one North Carolina town due to the school administration caving in to their own worst instincts and to outside pressure, even though the source of the pressure managed to remain under the radar.

So in the season of love and good cheer, it seems the optimal time to affirm that Almost, Maine will go on next month, with students taking the show off campus, producing it independently in a nearby town with the help of Carmen Eckard, a former teacher who taught a number of the students when they were in elementary school.

Hosted by the United Arts Council of Catawba County, Almost, Maine will be presented at the SALT Block Auditorium in Hickory NC on January 15, 16 and 17 at 8 pm. While there have been some shifts in the cast, the production will feature seven current Maiden High students, two recent graduates and a Maiden High student as stage manager. Conner Baker, the student who was directing the show at the school has joined the cast, so she’ll be co-directing the show with a local attorney, William Morgan, who previously directed the show at an area community theatre.

Many familiar with this story will also recall that in order to produce the show independently, Eckard and Baker launched a Kickstarter campaign that sought to raise $1,000 to cover expenses. That effort yielded over $6,500 in funds, and with program ad sales, the production is sure to bring in yet more revenue by mid-January. In a bright silver lining to the cloud cast by the school’s censorship, the bulk of the donations to the production will be shared by the Arts Council and OutRight Youth Catawba, which seeks, in their words, “to reduce the isolation felt by LGBTQ youth by providing a sense of community and developing programs and services to counteract the prejudice and oppression that LGBTQ youth often face.”

Both tickets and program ads are available from the production’s website: http://almostmaiden.com

As for a fall show at the high school, I’m told there was no replacement once Almost, Maine was nixed. That’s a loss for every student at the school and a black eye for every administrator, school board member and community member who worked to shut down Almost, Maine. I can only hope they’ll all make the short trip from Maiden to Hickory to support the show and the students who kept it going – and to, in part, counteract a narrow-minded decision that gave in to suppression of young people’s ambitions and lives, rather than standing for love.

As the Sony hacking case has played out over the past several weeks, it’s a story that has been relegated mostly to the business pages and, simultaneously, the gossip industry. With no one explicitly claiming responsibility for the breach of the entertainment giant’s computer system, the focus has been more on the corporate ramifications, placing it in business reports, and the stream of buzzworthy stories including the e-mails between Amy Pascal and Scott Rudin and the pontifications of Aaron Sorkin have been fodder for everyone from The New York Times to Entertainment Tonight. That the personal records of Sony employees past and present, including medical files, had been taken and released publicly didn’t seem to figure into the narrative in a significant way; it was just one more data hack (e.g. Target) that only hit home if it had happened to you now or in the past.

Of course, things escalated this week when a direct threat was made against theatres showing the Seth Rogen- James Franco film The Interview. The air of genuine concern rose yet higher when the U.S. government asserted that the hack had been engineered by North Korea in retaliation for The Interview’s depiction of an ultimately successful plot on the life of their dictatorial leader Kim Jong-un.

“Kim Jong-il” in Team America: World Police

Yet if my social media feeds are any indication, the vast majority of people, even this morning, find the whole situation slightly ridiculous and still worthy of snark. In the wake of theatre chains, and finally Sony, pulling The Interview from exhibition, the prevailing response seems to be inordinate attention to the Alamo Drafthouse’s (in Dallas/Fort Worth) decision to screen Team America: World Police, which a decade ago rendered Kim Jong-il as a literal puppet dictator, as well as jokes about Rogen’s affinity for smoking marijuana leading to an international crisis and this really being the fault of NBC for canceling Freaks and Geeks.

Kevin Smith in Live Free or Die Hard

I’ll admit to having paid minimal attention to the hack story until the combination of the threat against theatres and theatre patrons, the yanking of the film and the U.S. pointing its finger towards North Korea reached a critical mass for me. Like many, I’ve probably been lulled by too many years of watching action and espionage films in which there is always some megalomaniac trying to get rich or conquer the world, be it Dr. No or Dr. Evil. As for hacking, it’s always been made to seem a bit romantic and alluring (Sandra Bullock in The Net, Angelina Jolie in Hackers) or all-powerful yet benign (Kevin Smith in his mother’s basement in one of the later Die Hard films).

But now we’ve moved from the world of fictional espionage into a real life amalgamation of terrorism and blackmail. Yes, as many have pointed out, it’s questionable whether North Korea or any malefactor could carry out coordinated attacks in movie theatres across the country. But it would take only one such incident to genuinely terrorize the country, with social and economic ripples far greater than those felt after the movie theatre shooting in Aurora, Colorado. Frankly, even if the perpetrator of the Sony hack was just bluffing, who’s to say that some copycat might not take the opportunity into their own hands in just one community? The very threat of terrorism is what has lifted the scenario into a much more troubling realm, and even if the ransom to be paid was the suppression of one film instead of one billion dollars, the result is that it worked, and set an awful precedent.

Any number of commentators, professional and amateur, have been quick to say that Sony “caved,” that they allowed the perpetrator of the threat to win, but that’s a simplistic response. Already faced with a massive economic hit from the data release, which will most likely continue, could the company risk being seen as insensitive to the threat, could it have taken the risk that there was no real danger? They’ve been in a no-win situation for weeks now, and no matter what choice they had made, it would have been seen as wrong. I’m not an apologist for their decision, but I can at least see them as having been given the proverbial Sophie’s choice.

I deplore what has taken place, which is a form of censorship by blackmail. Instead of providing a ransom to get something back, Sony has had to withhold something to, hopefully, eliminate any possibility of a violent reprisal. Their data is out of their control, never to be reined back in. And our constitutional right to freedom of speech has been infringed upon by some outside entity, even if it was Sony who made the decision to shelve The Interview.

The Death of Klinghoffer at The Metropolitan Opera

Watching a big corporation being hamstrung may seem pretty distant from the world of live performance, but it’s really not. The rhetoric surrounding the Metropolitan Opera’s production of The Death of Klinghoffer this fall, due to its supposedly anti-Semitic content, was marked with significant vitriol which never quite reached the level of threat, but still prompted major security measures to be put into place. Those with short memories may have already forgotten the threats against Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi, which forced Manhattan Theatre Club to implement a range of protections from those who decried it as sacrilegious. No one found those scenarios funny, and even if protections were being taken against individuals and groups, rather than a government, even if each played in one theatre instead of 2,000, the parallels are there.

Kim Jong-un and Dennis Rodman

As of this morning, our government is reportedly weighing its choices on how to address the North Korean actions, even as some are suggesting that it isn’t North Korea at all, or if it is, it’s North Korea in alliance with other people or governments. There are hawks already taking verbal flight to cry out for retaliation, but its worth noting that while Sony is a Japanese corporation, Japan may be more cautious than we are, since North Korea regularly fires test missiles across their airspace, and who knows what their leader might do if provoked. We may find his flirtations with Dennis Rodman hilarious, but this is a country that has been ruled with a vicious iron hand for decades, a country where citizens have virtually no rights or freedom.

The era of digital warfare has sprung into full view with the Sony hack and The Interview’s suppression. No matter who’s behind it, it has proven that through the control of computers and information, not only with armaments, free will and basic rights can be bent all too quickly. While the hack is real, perhaps the threat is an elaborate hoax. Of the latter, we may never know with 100% certainty. But the question now is how does America guarantee its right to free speech against opponents both domestic and foreign, even when that speech is as inconsequential as I imagine The Interview to be.

Update, December 18, 3:30 p.m.: for those who saw Alamo Drafthouse’s plan to screen Team America in place of The Interview as a stand against censorship, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Paramount has withdrawn that film from release as well, despite the fact that it’s a decade old. This is how the slippery slope carries us all downhill.

To say that Newman University’s production of the musical Legally Blonde was performed with its book and lyrics intact this past Saturday and Sunday would seem to be a wholly unremarkable event. But because that wasn’t the case at Thursday and Friday’s shows, the fidelity of the latter two performances is rather more intriguing. How did a university production suddenly shift away from censorship halfway through a four performance run? How, to paraphrase a lyric from The Producers, did Legally Blonde go right?

*   *   *

Newman University in Wichita, Kansas is a Catholic school with an undergraduate enrollment of 2,795, according to data from the U.S. News and World Report online rankings. It was founded by a religious order, the Adorers of the Blood of Christ as a women’s college in 1933, becoming co-ed in 1965.

The theater program at Newman is in just its fourth year. It was only in 2013 that students could declare as theatre majors, and the program currently has 18 majors and 12 minors. The school boasts two theatres and the theatre program produces four shows each year. Past productions include Lend Me A Tenor, Iphigenia in Aulis and in Taurus, Measure For Measure, and this fall’s Buried Child. Director of Theatre Mark Manette notes that there have been some rumblings about the content of some of the department’s productions in the past, including sexual content in Tenor and Pippin, citing one 2012 letter to the school newspaper saying that the school was producing plays with “a heaping helping of sexual innuendo.”

In announcing Legally Blonde, Manette felt he was choosing a mainstream, modern show for his students, aware that it is one of the most popular musicals in high school theatre. Save for making some very minor script emendations – “god damn” is a problem at a faith-based university, for example – the show went into rehearsals using the script as written. In the words of senior C.L. Smet, a theatre major who was cast as Paulette, “There were very light hints of censorship early on, but only the type of things that we are used to. In most shows we are asked to take out all instances of using the lord’s name in vain because we go to a Catholic university.”

*   *   *

Manette’s purview over the theatre department does not require him to submit his play selection for approval to the university. But with rehearsals underway, he was called to the Provost’s office on November 6, in order to address rumors that had begun to swirl about the content of Legally Blonde.

“When I was called into the office I was told that our production featured live masturbation, drug use, and two guys kissing,” said Manette. “My response was that the show features none of these things. But the seed of the rumors could be traced to the two changed lines:  ‘Masturbatory emissions’ and ‘Get you high and laid’.”

Although Manette clarified the show’s content, he was still asked to make changes to the script. “I was told that I had to make the changes or else,” said Manette. “I did send a letter to the Provost stating that I had signed a contract not to make any changes to the script. He took that up the ladder, so to speak, and told me to go forward with making changes.”

C.L. Smet and Trevor Farney in Legally Blonde at Newman University (Photo courtesy of Newman University)

According to Smet, “Nothing seemed weird until a few days before tech week started, when individual cast members started being pulled aside and told that we had to change lines.  For instance, my line ‘What’s she got that you don’t got, three tits?’ had to be changed to ‘three boobs’ ­ this was a very minor change compared to many others but was still frustrating and unnecessary right before tech week.  We were told by our director, music director, and the head of our department that these changes were from the administration directly.  We were told that several higher-ups…were lodging complaints about the content.”

“We were also told repeatedly not to raise hell about the issue, because if we were to dig too deep we might cause more harm than good,” Smet related. “Obviously, however, we decided to pursue the matter. I was one of the loudest about my disappointment with the administration.  I attempted to have a meeting with the President of our college.  However, when I told them it was regarding Legally Blonde censorship, I was told she ‘didn’t speak to students,’ which I find very hard to believe.  Many other students were confused and bothered by the censorship.  A few of them were willing to just lay low and let it pass, but most of my fellow theatre majors saw the utter illegality of the changes and wanted to do something to help.  Apart from the legal issues, many students were just sad that at the college level we were expected to perform a watered-down play, as if the world would end if somebody say “masturbate” on stage.  It was a very frustrating and confusing time for everybody involved.”

*   *   *

On the evening of the first performance, the school newspaper, The Vantage, published its weekly print edition with a lead story on the censorship of the Legally Blonde text. The story was assigned by the paper’s editor-in-chief, senior Matt Riedl – who happened to be a member of the Legally Blonde ensemble.

“It was my decision as editor-in-chief to pursue the story,” said Riedl. “It wasn’t something that was being brought out by the administration. We thought it was our responsibility. Every viewpoint can be voiced. There had been a few voices that had been pro-censorship, but we thought it was important that every viewpoint be represented.”

The story by Delaney Hiegert, ran with the headline “Legally Blonde Censorship Rankles Cast Members,” as well as a subheadline, “Illegally Changed?” It cited Provost Michael Austin confirming that the show would be a censored version.

There were at least six lyric changes to the musical, as well as multiple dialogue changes, in order to make the play more appropriate for all audiences, he said. The changes involved taking out any sexually derogatory remarks, references to sex and drugs, any use of the word “Christ,” and most all cursing.

For instance, Elle Woods’ line “masturbatory emissions” has been changed to “accidental emissions,” and Professor Callahan’s line, “Get you high and laid,” has been changed to “Get you entertained.”

“When we do plays, we are inviting not just the campus, but the community to come watch,” said Austin. “We have to be very careful to represent the values of the institution.”

The Vantage article spoke not only to the changes to Blonde, but the greater potential impact of the censorship on the theatre program. Quoting freshman Trevor Farney:

“I loved being a part of Buried Child. I love the directors and the people I’ve gotten to work with,” Farney said. “But I don’t want to act in something that’s just going to be a watered-down version of what it should be. In Legally Blonde, the censorship is annoying but it doesn’t hurt the production that much. But if the censorship continues, I don’t even know if I’d want to stay in the program. And that’s a shame.”

The Vantage story made the alteration of the Blonde script a campus-wide issue. Riedl cited that the piece received 1500 page views on the paper’s website, in contrast to the prior month’s top story, which had only 700. He noticed that in some places, in particular the theatre’s lobby, someone had flipped the papers upside down in their racks, so that the headline wouldn’t show. He said that his girlfriend reported sitting in the theatre pre-show and watched as many people read the paper’s front page.

“The article in the Vantage was huge,” said Smet. “It had a massive impact around campus and the entire Wichita theatre community.  The outpouring of support was awesome, and it encouraged the cast to continue fighting.”

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Legally Blonde at Newman University (Photo courtesy of Newman University)

The first two performances of Legally Blonde at Newman contained the mandated cuts and substitutions imposed by the administration. But C.L. Smet says that change was already afoot.

“Once the Vantage article was published, cast members became even more open about not being okay with the censorship,” Smet said. “For our Saturday performance we returned 100% to the written word of the script – we did the play that was actually written.  We joked that it was the first Legally Blonde performance we’d done, and after the show we all had a group bonding moment celebrating the uncensored show.”

Riedl described the decision in similar terms. “We decided to perform the musical in its full uncensored form on Saturday and Sunday,” he said. “It was kind of a group decision. We had a little meeting before our performance on Friday and we talked about it. The coverage was getting so widespread and everyone was talking about it so we decided we weren’t going to put up with it any longer. We were going to subvert the order to change.”

The student motivated changes don’t precisely jibe with the account from Provost Michael Austin.

“We ended up not making the changes,” said Dr. Austin. “They went on according to script. We looked at what might be possible but decided that we’d do it the way it was in the script.”

Austin did say that the issue was a major one for the school, saying it was “hotly debated and discussed.” He said that he attended the show on Sunday and that the show was performed as written, but could not speak to whether the complete text was in use at all performances.

Riedl professed surprise when informed that the administration had withdrawn its requests for text changes. “Really? That’s interesting,” he said. “Because I was under the impression it was a cast decision. There’s definitely some confusion there. I had not heard that. That’s very interesting.”

Riedl went on to recount a moment during the Saturday night show, during the song, “Blood in the Water.” “‘Get you high and get you laid’ was supposed to ‘get you entertained,’ he recounted. “From the stage, I heard someone whisper, ‘I thought that was supposed to be censored.’ It took some power to not break character from that.”

With somewhat conflicting stories about how the show was restored to its original text, Manette seemed to walk a careful line about what had taken place. He ascribed the choice to the students, noting that, “The people who had called for the censorship were not the ones behind the decision to do the show as written.”

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The issue of censorship is not an off-limits topic on the Newman University campus. It’s worth noting that all freshman this year were assigned to read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the now classic novel in which censorship is taken to its ultimate extreme, with all books being sought out and burned by “fireman,” forcing lovers of knowledge into clandestine circles designed to preserve knowledge and texts.

“There is artwork all over the building regarding censorship related to that novel,” Manette said. “Most members of the faculty and audience were appalled at the idea of censoring a production.   Two pieces of art work across from the entrance of the theatre were mysteriously taken down on opening night – one was a nude – and they were miraculously replaced after the show closed.  Coincidental?”

Smet told a similar story. “There was a great deal of other censorship happening in our arts department — nude paintings and “controversial” art work were removed from the hallways against the art department’s will.  The entire fine arts sector of Newman was upset that they were being censored.  Many people told us they supported us ‘fighting the power’.”

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It’s unclear precisely where the complaints about Legally Blonde began and it’s also not certain exactly when or if approval was given to perform the show as written, as it was at the latter two performances. Precisely who in the administration really wanted the show edited remains somewhat vague, and no one with direct knowledge would speak to it on the record. But certainly the students took matters into their own hands, perhaps with the tacit approval of some members of the school administration.

Dr. Austin was quite clear about lessons learned from the imbroglio.

“Generally, I can say that the incident was not handled well,” he wrote to me, “for which I take full responsibility. We will not be suggesting changes to plays in the future, nor do we have any plans to exercise prior restraint on plays chosen by the Theatre Department.”

Austin’s statement is very encouraging, suggesting that Mark Manette will be able to continue to build Newman University’s theatre department and give his students the opportunity to work on a wide range of shows – as they were written. For the staff of The Vantage, they’ve gotten proof of the power of independent journalism to foster change. As for the cast of Legally Blonde? They’ve demonstrated that the words spoken on a stage matter, and that the words of authors come first.

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Note: interviews for this article were conducted through a combination of voice interviews and e-mail correspondence. The word “said” may apply to both voice and e-mail communications.