Today, my book is published. This is the realization of a dream that I had given up on long ago. But my most overwhelming emotion today, and every time I look at the finished book, is sadness.

It would be wrong to say that I wrote Another Day’s Begun for any one person. Presumably like any other author, I wrote it for many people to read. But the person who I most wanted to read it, who I most wanted to have place it on her bookshelf, cannot. 

Catherine “Kaki” Marshall was a mentor to me in my days as a student at the University of Pennsylvania, and I am hardly her only protegee. Many kids at Penn, from the late 70s to the early 90s, would find their way to Kaki’s office, on the mezzanine level of the Annenberg Center, when she was the Associate Managing Director there, for knowledge, for caring. There was, quite literally, always an open door, unless you wanted to talk privately; I can’t recall her ever shutting anyone out for her own needs.

Having gone to Penn already in love with theatre, but convinced by many that it was no way to make a living or a life, I took stabs at other fields of interest, but none really resonated. I was most engaged with my time in the Annenberg Center, in my work study job in the box office, 20 hours each week, during my freshman and sophomore years. I joined the Penn Players, the school’s longest established drama troupe, and in two semesters, I directed two shows, staged managed one, and appeared in one. Kaki was the faculty adviser

Having met Kaki and grown friendly with her – mind you, she was a contemporary of my parents, with children of her own around my age – I was able to be assigned to her office for my work-study gig in my junior and senior years. To this day, I don’t remember doing any work beyond answering the phone. What I remember is sitting in Kaki’s office talking about theatre and constantly borrowing books from her wide, multi-tiered shelves – every book about theatre and nothing else. Because Penn had no theatre program, Kaki was my undergraduate theatre curriculum. 

I also recall one particular totem on those bygone shelves: a small, square fading color photo of Kaki and Hal Prince, in swim clothes, lounging on chaises at what Kaki told me was Hal’s vacation place in Spain. Hal was one my first theatre idols and, thanks to Kaki, I met him for the first time when I was a junior – and we sat together in Kaki’s office and talked. Kaki had done theatre at Penn with Hal when they were both students, and he remained her friend until he passed away.

In those last two years of college, when I was ostensibly working for her, we grew quite close, bonded by my overwhelming stress about school and career as well as by a personal tragedy in her family. We discussed these subjects openly, and she was for me – and again, I know for others – my theatre mom. She understood my concerns and worries and interests and desires and she supported them with knowledge and perspective. Her office was less my job and more my refuge. Kaki understood my love of theatre in a way my parents, always supportive but not personally invested in theatregoing or theatremaking, could not.

On the last day I saw Kaki on campus before graduating, I vividly remember telling her that I would always keep in touch. “Oh, Howard,” she said, “so many students say that. But with time and distance, it doesn’t often happen, and you need to know that I understand and it’s OK.”

Having introduced this essay talking about my sadness, this is where you might think I’ll now tell you about drifting away from Kaki and regretting the loss of our bond. But that wasn’t the case – I did realize what I had found in her, every minute, and was determined not to lose it.

I was faithful and would call every couple of months to share my news and hear hers. I would look for any pretext to visit Philadelphia, and always include a visit with Kaki, and with her husband Joe too, who I knew to have had a similarly influential effect on his students at Temple Law School.

Most every summer, I would spend a long weekend with Kaki and Joe at their beach home on the southern Jersey shore. We never ran out of things to talk about and, aside from politics and current events, which we discussed with vigor (from the same perspective), our main topic was theatre. Since Joe passed away several years ago, I tried to call Kaki every few weeks.

Our ongoing friendship was such that she always received a call from me on her birthday, year in and year out. She never asked for it, but I know she enjoyed it, proven by a call perhaps 10 years ago. I was in England in late September, as I usually am at that time, when my phone rang as it rarely did when people knew I was traveling. Kaki’s name showed on the screen.

Given to bouts of pessimism, I feared something was wrong. I answered by saying, “Kaki, hi, is everything OK?” With a laugh she replied, “Everything’s fine. But I wanted to know if everything is OK with you?” “I’m fine,” I responded. “I’m in England, remember? Why are you concerned?” “Because it’s my birthday,” she said, “and all of my kids have called now but I haven’t heard from you and I got worried.”

She also spoke to me every year on my birthday, though she didn’t know it. I always made a point of calling on that day because I certainly never expected her to keep track of the date, not with six children and more than a dozen grandchildren, plus siblings and nieces and nephews and cousins. Every year on these calls, I never pointed out my birthday, but we would mark that it was the birthday of Hal Prince. That date is two days from now.

We continued to go to the theatre together when possible, as we had when I was a student. I can’t recall which was when, but I believe our final two shows seated side by side were Tectonic Theatre Project’s two-part The Laramie Project and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, which we saw on a single marathon day, and Bill Irwin’s The Happiness Lecture.

For 36 years, I would call, I would send her things I wrote and we’d discuss them, and when face to face, we would laugh together and have the kind of earnest talks about theatre that I always craved. Because of this, because of the bookshelves in her Annenberg office where I learned so much, my greatest desire has been to know that Kaki had read my book and had it on her much-reduced home bookshelf, the bulk of her theatre books having been given away years earlier.

Kaki died in August of 2020, not from the virus, but simply in the course that a life runs, and she was not ill very long. She was one month shy of her 95^th birthday. It was only weeks from the time she went to the hospital until she died. We had spoken perhaps two weeks before things had started heading in the direction I had feared for some time. I feared it because my parents had both passed years earlier, leaving Kaki as my only true surrogate parent. 

Earlier this past summer, I had thought that perhaps I should let Kaki read the manuscript of Another Day’s Begun, not because there seemed to be any imminent concern, but just in case anything happened. She was 94, after all. I decided against it, putting faith in the fact that all of the women in her family were long-lived, quite remarkably so. I wanted her to see a complete finished book, not simply as something on its way to being a book. It was a miscalculation I will always regret.

Countless people have influenced my life, more than I could ever thank in the book or face to face. But I most wanted Kaki to read Another Day’s Begun because she was the one person I could truly credit for fanning the flame of my theatre love and knowledge at the earliest stage. Also, while she had seen shows at theatres where I worked, this book is something that is truly mine, a testament to her support, her help, her faith in me, her love – and her understanding of me.

I cannot share this with Kaki in recognition of all she gave to me. But in her honor, her memory, and with the deep love I felt and feel for Kaki, I share it today with all of you, because she would have been very happy for us all to have a new theatre book for our shelves. And if a student spots a copy on your shelf and expresses interest, please loan it to them, because in that moment, you will do for that student what Kaki did for me, and that act honors our friendship.

“So friends, this is the way we were in our growing up and in our marrying and in our doctoring and in our living and in our dying.”

Pull out a copy of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and, depending upon the vintage of the edition, if it’s old enough, you can find that line. That’s how it read in the 1938 hardback edition, which was drawn from the original rehearsal manuscript. But at this moment, with theatres dark, with people fearing illness and falling ill, the ultimately excised “doctoring” as a key element in our lives holds unfortunate resonance.

While we cannot presently take refuge in theatres, people have done so for countless years, and in America, since 1938, Our Town has proven to be one of the most enduring of works. Contrary to many people’s misapprehension of it as a valentine to a bygone era, the play is a deep meditation on mortality. It starts dropping hints about its true concerns, beyond baseball games and ice cream soda-fueled romance, virtually from the start, when we’re introduced to one character by immediately learning about when he will die. 

That character happens to be Doc Gibbs, who so far as the play tells us, is the only medical professional in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, where the story is set. He practiced in an era before personal protective equipment was standard issue, before private health insurance and Obamacare – and he ministered to everyone equally. The play begins with him having just delivered twins in the less affluent part of Grover’s Corners that the audience never sees.

The mundane, commonplace events of the play’s first two acts give way in the third to a metatheatrical and metaphysical exploration of what comes after earthly life. However, it is explicitly non-denominational and non-religious, ultimately designed not to have us contemplate what comes next, but rather how much we must appreciate what we have in life, even if it seems inconsequential, and perhaps at this moment, frightening.

For those who have never encountered the play, Emily, the play’s female lead, is lost to a medical crisis. She realizes only when it is too late what she has been forced to leave behind. As we shelter in place, as we quarantine, as our medical professionals work tirelessly and selflessly without all of the resources they need, it’s hard not to think about Our Town, which speaks so directly to the futility of regret and the value and interconnectedness of every aspect of life.

It also speaks to community, with the lives of the people of a small town inextricably interwoven, through education, through prayer, through dining, through sports, through singing. There’s not, we’re told, much culture in the town, but there’s great appreciation for the natural world, for the weather, for that which we often take for granted. Wilder constantly has his characters looking to the skies. Even children contemplate their place in the universe.

For those already chafing at the strictures of an invisible scourge, we long to return to our daily lives as they have been, consumed with getting back to work, to school, to income, to not fearing the proximity of others. When we do, and we will, but not without pain and loss, perhaps we will have a newfound pleasure in clocks ticking, food, coffee, sunflowers, and new ironed dresses, to recount Emily’s memories, as well as in live performance and greeting friends and strangers alike. Wilder had to imagine passings and an afterlife to get us to contemplate these things.

Now, more than ever, we are all Emily Webb. Biology is writing the story from which we must learn. As a character says in Our Town, “My, wasn’t life awful – and wonderful.”

My book, “Another Day’s Begun: Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21^st Century,” will be published in February 2021 by Methuen Drama.

Despite its origin in a 1988 film from John Waters, the underground master of camp, shock and transgression, the story of Tracy Turnblad, as told in multiple iterations, has become wholly mainstream. Thanks in large part to the 2002 stage musical version, Tracy’s story of leading an effort to integrate a local TV music program in Baltimore has had America singing and dancing along for years now. Beyond its more conventional musical numbers, it offers up a craven TV producer who laments her salad days as “Miss Baltimore Crabs” and teens miming the crushing bugs as part of a dance craze. Indeed, the mildly subversive tone of the musical, while significantly less spiky than the original film, is set by Tracy’s buoyant paean to her home city, which includes shout outs to the rats on the street and the local flasher.

In spite of its popularity and its pro-integration narrative (the show is set in 1962), the musical has been been criticized by some as advancing a white savior narrative, since it portrays a white girl, albeit one who is ostracized for her weight, taking the initiative and risk to make “every day Negro Day” on The Corny Collins Show, the musical’s American Bandstand analogue.  Given that it’s explicitly about the crossing of the racial line between blacks and whites, a certain amount of disbelief met the news in 2012 that one Texas high school did the show with an all-white cast, seemingly deracinating a story about race and posing a particular challenge to truthfully representing the narrative.

Consequently, the casting of a March production of Hairspray at Princeton University, in which Tracy was played by a biracial student and her mother, Edna, was played by a black student, was both surprising and informative. It demonstrated how this musical about integration can be explored anew, 15 years after its debut and 30 years after the original film. The production, which played for five performances in a studio theatre on the campus, was the senior thesis project of two students, Alex Daniels, who played Tracy, and AJ Jones, who directed (only her second time directing). Princeton does not have a theatre major, but does offer theatre certificates for a concentrated course of study. The production was entirely student driven, except for its musical director and its sound designer.

In an interview with Arts Integrity subsequent to the run, Daniels, who describes herself as ethnically biracial and racially black, and Jones, who identifies herself as white, explained the thinking behind their production.

Daniels began by saying, “When I was a freshman, way back when, I was having a conversation with someone about dream roles of mine and I mentioned that I really loved Tracy and that she would definitely be a dream role. That person was like, ‘That’s not possible. You’re not white. You could never play Tracy.’ And so that comment really hit me in a not so great way. Why should the color of my skin limit me from any possibilities? I brought it up with AJ and from there we thought, why not? This script and this show seem to be catered to having a person of color in this position struggling with these issues.”

Expanding upon the inception story of their Hairspray, Daniels said, “When Alex told me about this comment, I started thinking more about Tracy possibly being biracial and it made a lot of sense, especially given her role in the show, bringing these two groups together. It changes the relationships with all of the characters in the show and gives them all a little more depth as well.”

In the production, Daniels appears in facial makeup that is noticeably lighter than her own skin tone. The rationale for this was described by Daniels as addressing, “How is Tracy going to fit into this world when she very clearly is not white? I personally cannot pass as white. Then we had the conversation about what if she’s trying to pass. What if she’s using makeup to lighten her skin, using whiteface in order to make it through every day in this community. So that’s where this conversation came in. We also just felt that the story of passing was something we wanted to talk about, the extent to which African-American, biracial females, and definitely men as well, went to belong in this community to reap the benefits of being white.”

Jones noted, “We spent quite a bit of time testing a lot of different types of makeup. We decided to have it only on her face because we wanted to make it clear to the audience that she’s not white, that she’s passing as white. We discussed whether other characters in the show know that Tracy’s trying to pass, and we came to the conclusion that yes, they have to be suspicious, but they can’t really know for sure, they can’t really say anything about it, because of the power of this white face that she has on.”

*   *   *

At this point, it would be fair to question whether this color conscious casting of the roles of Tracy and Edna was contrary to the authors’ intent for the show. Arts Integrity asked that very question of Music Theatre International, which licenses the show, specifying what the production had done in regards to those roles. In reply, MTI president Drew Cohen said that the company does not place casting restrictions according to race on its customers, and pointed out specific material answering questions about racial casting for Hairspray, in the form of a letter from the four authors of the show, as well as John Waters. It reads, along with instructions for using it, in its entirety, as follows:

The use of make-up to portray black characters in your production (e.g., blackface) is not permitted under this Production Contract. By signing below, you agree to inform the director of your production that such use of make-up is strictly prohibited.

If your production of Hairspray features actors who are portraying characters whose race may be other than their own, you may elect to include the below letter from the creators of Hairspray in your program. You are not permitted to edit the letter in any way. 

Dear Audience Members,

When we, the creators of HAIRSPRAY, first started licensing the show to high-schools and community theatres, we were asked by some about using make-up in order for non-African Americans to portray the black characters in the show.

Although we comprehend that not every community around the globe has the perfectly balanced make-up (pardon the pun) of ethnicity to cast HAIRSPRAY as written, we had to, of course, forbid any use of the coloring of anyone’s face (even if done respectfully and subtly) for it is still, at the end of the day, a form of blackface, which is a chapter in the story of race in America that our show is obviously against.

Yet, we also realized, to deny an actor the chance to play a role due to the color of his or her skin would be its own form of racism, albeit a “politically correct” one.

And so, if the production of HAIRSPRAY you are about to see tonight features folks whose skin color doesn’t match the characters (not unlike how Edna has been traditionally played by a man), we ask that you use the timeless theatrical concept of “suspension of disbelief” and allow yourself to witness the story and not the racial background (or gender) of the actors. Our show is, after all, about not judging books by their covers! If the direction and the actors are good (and they had better be!) you will still get the message loud and clear. And hopefully have a great time receiving it!

Thank You,
Marc, Scott, Mark, Tom & John

While Cohen did not respond directly to the query regarding the specific color conscious casting at Princeton, where certainly white students were available, his pointing out of the letter, and his comment about not imposing racial restrictions, strongly indicate that such casting is permissible. In a separate piece of correspondence, Cohen stated, “The key is that the show must be performed as written and the characters should be portrayed as written.” He also clarified that while the authors’ letter singles out high school and community theatre productions, it is applicable to university productions as well.

*   *   *

So what was the effect of this concept of Hairspray? It seemed, as the thesis students intended, to deepen the story, and staging decisions only enhanced that. “Good Morning, Baltimore” was played slowly, more like a sad ballad, suggesting that Tracy’s everyday routine was not a joyous leap from bed, but rather the start of a new day of struggle. When the perpetually panicky Prudy Pingleton commented to Edna, her laundress, about “colored music,” it read as more pointed than ever before, and Edna’s dismissal of the characterization read as self-negating. When Velma von Tussle humiliates Tracy at her dance audition, it ceased to be solely an attack of her weight but also decidedly racial. When first encountering Edna and Tracy together, Velma’s already ugly sizeist comment “I guess you two are living proof that the watermelon doesn’t fall too far from the vine,” became doubly ugly. That all of the female characters are released from jail after the altercation at Motormouth Maybelle’s save for Tracy, a particular focus is placed on the continued imprisonment of a young woman who is biracial, while the black characters and white characters are all freed.

At the same time, the friendship between Tracy and Penny came across as particularly special, since clearly Penny – in and out of the Turnblad house like any teenager – surely had no questions about Tracy’s mixed parentage, but ignored the racial faultlines of the day. When Seaweed declares that, “Detention’s a rainbow experience,” he negates any concerns about racial divisions or conflicts as well for Tracy, who has been trying to pass as white. Detention becomes, in effect, a racial safe space.

By consciously altering the racial dynamic of Hairspray through only two characters, albeit leading roles, it is fair to suggest that the story of racial acceptance, integration and diversity became possibly even more resonant than the original portrayal as defined by the Broadway production. While the authors’ letter permitting cross-racial casting may have been intended primarily to address situations where there aren’t sufficient performers of color available, it laid the groundwork for Daniels and Jones’s interpretation, even though they asked the audience to engage directly with their color conscious casting, rather than suspending disbelief over it.

*   *   *

It is unfortunate to report that Cohen’s statement, common to all licensed productions, that “the show must be performed as written” was not fully adhered to when it came to the text. Daniels and Jones acknowledged that they had made small changes and excisions, such as changing the song “Big, Blonde and Beautiful” to “Big, Black and Beautiful,” as their Motormouth Maybelle wore her hair more naturally. Perhaps most significantly, in “You Can’t Stop The Beat,” a late segment involving the Von Tussles, both mother and daughter, in which they are encouraged to join the full on party, initially resisting and then ultimately joining in, was gone. They were denied their redemption as the authors intended.

Because Daniels and Jones did not request permission to make these changes, and perhaps other smaller ones that went unnoticed, they were violating the authors’ copyright and the licensing agreement. While their production may have been a student thesis and part of their academic work, it was publicly presented, and for multiple performances, so the legally standard practices should have applied. That they felt the need and the freedom to reauthor any of the show is a shame, since the casting, direction and performance had already been transformative, while still working within the existing text and the leave granted by the authors regarding race.

*   *   *

It is the right of Tom Meehan, Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, John Waters and the estate of Mark O’Donnell to determine what may be done in productions of Hairspray that go beyond the existing casting template, and they’ve offered up their thoughts for producers and directors to consider. This mirrors Lin-Manuel Miranda’s statements regarding the racial casting of In The Heights, where he has made clear that in high school productions, the cast need not be Latinx, in whole or part, so long as the performances are respectful of the Latinx identity. But it’s important to remember that this guidance is specific to these shows by these authors about their own work, not a policy applicable across the literary spectrum. Texts should remain inviolate without express permission, which may be hard to secure, but is nonetheless legally and ethically required.

While the criteria for evaluating the Princeton students’ thesis academically is unknown, they did achieve two silent but memorable moments that have not typically been part of productions of Hairspray, but are both worth remembering. The first came midway through Act II when Tracy, inspired by “I Know Where I’ve Been,” wiped away the makeup which had been used to indicate that as a biracial teen, she was trying to pass as white, and would no longer. She becomes secure with her racial identity, even if it means more struggle in that community in that era.

The second memorable invention came in the very final moments of the show when, after the joyous and victorious refrain of “You Can’t Stop The Beat” hit its final peak, there was not the customary blackout. Instead, the cast (sans the Von Tussles, as noted previously) were arrayed in a straight line across towards the rear of the stage. Maintaining the rhythm of the now ended song, they stepped forward in unision, in unity, to the beat, beat, beat, and the dance party was transformed into the front lines of a civil rights march, of the fight for racial equality that would extend far beyond the integration of a single teen TV show.

This is a revised and updated version of a prior post from earlier today, which has been withdrawn, because it suggested, based upon news accounts, that the UW theatre department had been singularly targeted. This incorporates additional information provided by Todd London, executive director of the UW Department of Drama.

At a time in the life of America when The New York Times has been compelled to create a column called “This Week in Hate,” some localized instances of actions that are overtly oppositional to a culture that embraces all people, regardless of race, religion, sexuality, gender identity or disability, can still run the risk of being seen as too small bore for widespread attention and revulsion. But if they are not called out, if the public is not made aware, then there is the ever-present risk of such actions becoming normalized, simply a part of modern life with which we must live.

Given that neo-Nazi signage was plastered on theatre doors at the University of Washington on Wednesday night, while a performance of Shakespeare’s As You Like It was underway inside, it cannot be permitted to be treated as merely some ill-judged prank, but as a threat – made under the cover of anonymity. That it is not the first such incident on the campus makes it no less ugly or upsetting. In fact, as executive director of the UW Department of Drama Todd London made clear in a conversation with Arts Integrity, the postings on the doors that gave access to the Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre, were seemingly “entirely random and happening all over campus that night.”

The surreptitious postering came to light through a Facebook posting by student Tamsen Glaser, who plays Jaques in As You Like it. As a public message, it began to be widely shared on social media by Thursday morning.  Glaser’s message read, in part:

In the middle of the first act of “As You Like It”, we smell spray adhesive from outside. Our stage manager looks outside, and these posters are being attached to the doors. Of our theatre. With spray adhesive. 8 of these posters, all on the doors. Residue is still there, though the posters are not thanks to our team.

The local accounts make clear that university police officers responded quickly upon report of the incident, and The Stranger reported that Todd London has asked for additional campus police presence for the rest of the run of the show. London told Arts Integrity that support is being provided. The Stranger quotes London as follows:

“We want them to feel safe so they’re not spending their deepest energies worrying when they should be focusing that on performing,” he said. “It’s pretty simple: We want them to be protected and for them to feel free.”

Speaking with Arts Integrity, London countered earlier reports which indicated that the theatre had been specifically targeted, saying, “Everything about it, everything we have learned, everything the police have learned, while terrible, hateful, was apparently random, from everything we can tell.”

All of these responses appear admirable, appropriate and necessary. However, the account from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, specifically in regard to comments by the campus police, suggests a diminishment of the incident.

“It was the latest in a string of incidents in which pro-Nazi fliers have been posted throughout the campus, UW police say,” wrote reporter Lynsi Burton. She concluded her account as follows:

UW Police Cmdr. Steve Rittereiser told seattlepi.com that posters of that kind have been displayed throughout campus, but that their appearances seem to have increased since Inauguration Day.

They’re “not all that unusual” to see, he said.

They’ve been spotted in Red Square and other areas of campus, as well as on numerous campuses across the country.

On-campus posters are supposed to be approved by a school body, but there’s no real enforcement of the rule, Rittereiser said.

He said police pay attention to posters people find objectionable and that people are welcome to report them to police, but that people are also welcome to simply remove them as they see them.

Is it merely “objectionable” that anonymous posters seek to direct those who see them to a website that proclaims, among other viciousness, “Gas the kikes”? Isn’t “not all that unusual” another way of saying typical, average or standard?

To remove posters like those that appeared on the theatre doors, and elsewhere on campus, on Wednesday night in Seattle is not censorship, it is not a denial of freedom of speech. Rather it is an appropriate response to an act of targeted vandalism, an act of intimidation, part of a seemingly ongoing campaign focused on the University of Washington, by a group that claims a national bootprint.

How do the arts respond in these situations, how can they? When the adhesive is not fixed, while the paint is still wet, the people who are part of the production can react in the moment to eradicate the hate (and god bless inventive stage crew and technicians, who can surely do so even when messages have had the time to set). But each and every incident must be called out, loudly, as a form of warning and opposition.

Even if the weapons of the arts are rubber knives, as Kate Fodor has suggested in her new monologue, they can still be wielded with purpose and effect, and need to be, on stage and off. The show, all shows, must and will, go on. The arts (which are by no means alone in this targeting) cannot allow themselves be intimidated or silenced, or actions against them normalized, on stage and off.

To start at the end, or at least where we are today: Michele Roberge, executive director of the Carpenter Performing Arts Center on the campus of California State University, has resigned, effective yesterday. Why? Because the school’s president, Jane Close Conoley, insisted upon the cancelation of Roberge’s booking of the comedy N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk, a show that has toured extensively for more than a decade to performing arts centers on and off college campuses. In fact, it played to a sold out house of more than 1,000 seats last year at the Carpenter Center. When Conoley raised a red flag earlier this year, Roberge made it known that if Conoley forced the cancelation, she would resign on principle. And so when the axe fell, she did.

Like any show that has been touring for more than a decade, N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk, which was written by Steven T. Seagle and Liesel Reinhart with the men who originally performed it, Rafael Agustin, Allan Axibal, and Miles Gregley (who are respectively black, Latinx and Asian) has a raft of reviews and feature stories available on their website attesting to the work’s broad appreciation. Despite its seemingly inflammatory title, Charles McNulty, reviewing it in 2007 for The Los Angeles Times, called it “wholesome entertainment,”  going on to write, “Yes, racial slurs and profanity can sometimes be good for you – especially when they’re deployed to make a point about the pervasiveness of prejudice and its denigrating unabridged dictionary.” Other coverage has included a feature in The New York Times and an extended interview with National Public Radio’s Michele Norris.

When N*W*C was planned for last year at the Carpenter Center, Conoley, responding to concerns expressed by Naomi Rainey, president of the local branch of the NAACP, defending the piece, writing:

It is my hope that this performance will elicit conversation about issues of race, prejudice and inequality that the NAACP works so hard to confront. As president, it is my goal to push the envelope on matters of race and prejudice to ensure The Beach remains a safe haven for freedom of expression on this vitally important topic.

So why can’t the production be seen again? In lieu of an interview request or the opportunity to respond to questions via e-mail, Conoley writes:

Last year I welcomed the same performance to the Carpenter Center. My thoughts then were that it would generate thought-provoking conversations about race relations. The university and ASI subsidized students so that many were able to attend for free.  I personally visited with many of our student cultural organizations to prepare them to use the performance as a prompt for meaningful discussions. Faculty members and student services staff members supported special activities before and after the performance.

Following the performance I evaluated whether or not it achieved that goal. Involved faculty and staff members and students shared feedback that the performance did not lead to the desired conversations.  They further expressed a desire to find another performance vehicle to generate deep and much needed discussions about race and ethnicity.

When approached again to support NWC as a centerpiece of campus conversations, I indicated that while the performance could certainly go on as planned, I would not replicate the campus support I’d made available last year and did not have faculty or staff interested in doing curriculum planning around the performance.

I did not intend my decision as a form of censorship. As an academic, my decision was based on my evaluation of the academic value of the performance for our students.  The Carpenter Center could have hosted the show without additional involvement from the University, but chose not to.

Conoley’s characterization of the Carpenter Center directly conflicts with Roberge’s telling. In a letter sent to donors and patrons of the Center, she wrote, “President Conoley required us to cancel our upcoming performance of N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk. I could not accept this egregious form of censorship.” According to Roberge, the instruction to cancel the show was delivered to her by the dean of the College of the Arts, Roberge’s direct supervisor, at Conoley’s direction.

In her resignation letter, dated late August, Roberge wrote to the dean of the College of the Arts, Cyrus Parker-Jeannette, saying:

The decision by President Conoley to cancel our upcoming performance of N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk runs counter to my steadfast belief in the protection of freedom for artists and my personal integrity as a performing arts presenter. This is an egregious act of censorship, especially ironic as it targets the home of The B-Word Project.

The B-Word Project: Banned ,Blacklisted and Boycotted, was a specially funded initiative held at the Carpenter Center in 2011-2012 focusing on censored works. It featured seminars and performances on the topic, and included the so-called “NEA Four” – Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller – whose 1990 grant applications for support from the National Endowment for the Arts were personally vetoed by NEA chairman John Frohnmeyer, contravening the NEA’s practice of peer review. It also included work from Bill T. Jones’s dance company. Roberge describes all of the work as “very sexual.”

Conoley was not president, or part of the CSULB community, during The B-Word Project. 

*   *   *

Regarding last year’s concerns about N*W*C from the NAACP, Roberge noted in an interview on Thursday that, “Nobody picketed. Nobody protested. In fact there was nary a peep from the NAACP when we announced this year’s show.”

Speaking about her original decision to present N*W*C said she conferred with the dean of the College of the Arts. “We wanted to spark conversations about race,” she says, “and it did that, beautifully.”

In the wake of the first presentation, Roberge says that there were some who didn’t believe the n-word should be heard on campus and didn’t feel it was the Carpenter Center’s place to open up a conversation about race. She notes “other racially charged incidents on campus which absolutely had nothing to do with the show,” and her belief that this heightened concerns regarding racial issues on campus. Referring to President Conoley, Roberge say, “I think those incidents frightened her.”

Roberge notes, “In conversation with the artists, we offered to postpone the show until after the election, and offer a lot of contextualizing educational activities – panel discussions with the ethnic chairs, films, lectures – so that interested students could attend those and have more of a context for how this show came about. But the president was not interested in that and said, ‘No, I don’t want the show.’”

Roberge says that over the summer, the dean of the College of the Arts was instructed by the president to speak with nine people, both on and off campus about N*W*C. “I was instructed not to speak with anyone about it,” she says. “The dean spoke with me about it and told me that all nine advised the president not to do the show. Nobody advocated for the show and they would not allow me to tell my side of the story and only one of them is nominally involved in the arts.”

Has Roberge ever been required to submit her programming for approval to anyone in the university administration? “The answer is no,” she says. “I was hired to curate the presented season at the Carpenter Center and oversee all of the rental activity as well. That being said, while I don’t have to get approval from anybody, every year when I have the season ready to go to our marketing director I schedule a meeting with the dean of the College of the Arts, who’s my boss, and I tell her about every show that I want to bring, so that she’s not surprised by anything. When we did N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk for the first time last year, I was very clear early in the process that this is what I wanted to do and she was 100% behind it.”

Asked whether there’s any policies regarding freedom of expression on campus, Roberge professed to know of none, adding, “There are no campus policies that limit freedom of expression.” She also references the presence of The Center for First Amendment Studies on the CSULB campus.

In a statement provided to the OC Weekly, Rafael Augustin of N*W*C, after expressing appreciation for Roberge’s efforts, wrote in part:

Please let it be known that we believe in the need for change as advocated by the Black Lives Matter movement and stand in solidarity with their commitment to achieving freedom and justice for all black lives.

We cannot ignore, however, that this occurrence also stands as critical juncture in the path of free speech on the campus of a public educational institution in perhaps our most liberal state. The same act of censorship that today may seem to protect a community may be used next time as justification to silence a community in desperate need of a voice.

*    *    *

Returning to President Conoley’s statement that she did not intend her decision as a form of censorship, but rather as a result of the academic value of the performance for students, it’s important to note that Roberge was not faculty, but staff. Her role was not primarily to program for academic purposes, but to find work that would appeal to the campus community and the Long Beach community at large. If academic import is the criteria, one wonders what the pedagogical rationale is for such presentations as Four by Four: A Tribute to The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons and The Bee Gees or illusionist Jason Bishop, both on the Carpenter Center schedule this year. Or what about This is Americana! Live Comedy Slide Show Performance Celebrating Classic and Kitschy American Life & Style! Rather, it seems that the academic reasoning is being deployed specifically to silence N*W*C.

It seems clear that N*W*C did provoke conversations about race, but those that affected its now-canceled return engagement were held behind closed doors, and while students were off-campus. Will the nine people consulted about N*W*C hold sway over other bookings at the Carpenter Center in the future? Will Conoley now decide to personally sign off on programming? Will a search for Roberge’s successor be hindered by what has taken place over this show, or will the choice be made in such a way to drive all programming to the middle of the road, rather than engaging in the kind of envelope-pushing Conoley professed to support in her letter to the NAACP last July?

Having refused interviews from every media outlet that has requested them, up to and including the Los Angeles Times, Conoley is walling herself off behind statements rather than engaging and explaining her rationale. We don’t even know whether she saw the show. She made a decision and while citing conversations but not sharing them in any detail, imposed it with little transparency, and sees little need to defend it further. As the final authority on that campus, she directed conversations about the work of the Carpenter Center to take place without the participation of the center’s director, and so far as anyone knows, she did not consult with cultural experts directly familiar with the production from off-campus or the many other universities where the show has played. Yes, campus conversations about race have evolved since the show was first produced, but was that the root of the problem?

As it stands, Conoley has lost a 14-year veteran of the university who stood up for her principles, while silencing perhaps the most provocative performance of the season, which happens to be a theatrical work by artists of color around issues of color. She has done so without a full explanation of her concerns and reasoning. She may not want to be seen as a censor, but it’s hard not to arrive at that conclusion.

To start at the end, or at least where we are today: Michele Roberge, executive director of the Carpenter Performing Arts Center on the campus of California State University, has resigned, effective yesterday. Why? Because the school’s president, Jane Close Conoley, insisted upon the cancelation of Roberge’s booking of the comedy N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk, a show that has toured extensively for more than a decade to performing arts centers on and off college campuses. In fact, it played to a sold out house of more than 1,000 seats last year at the Carpenter Center. When Conoley raised a red flag earlier this year, Roberge made it known that if Conoley forced the cancelation, she would resign on principle. And so when the axe fell, she did.

Like any show that has been touring for more than a decade, N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk, which was written by Steven T. Seagle and Liesel Reinhart with the men who originally performed it, Rafael Agustin, Allan Axibal, and Miles Gregley (who are respectively black, Latinx and Asian) has a raft of reviews and feature stories available on their website attesting to the work’s broad appreciation. Despite its seemingly inflammatory title, Charles McNulty, reviewing it in 2007 for The Los Angeles Times, called it “wholesome entertainment,”  going on to write, “Yes, racial slurs and profanity can sometimes be good for you – especially when they’re deployed to make a point about the pervasiveness of prejudice and its denigrating unabridged dictionary.” Other coverage has included a feature in The New York Times and an extended interview with National Public Radio’s Michele Norris.

When N*W*C was planned for last year at the Carpenter Center, Conoley, responding to concerns expressed by Naomi Rainey, president of the local branch of the NAACP, defending the piece, writing:

It is my hope that this performance will elicit conversation about issues of race, prejudice and inequality that the NAACP works so hard to confront. As president, it is my goal to push the envelope on matters of race and prejudice to ensure The Beach remains a safe haven for freedom of expression on this vitally important topic.

So why can’t the production be seen again? In lieu of an interview request or the opportunity to respond to questions via e-mail, Conoley writes:

Last year I welcomed the same performance to the Carpenter Center. My thoughts then were that it would generate thought-provoking conversations about race relations. The university and ASI subsidized students so that many were able to attend for free.  I personally visited with many of our student cultural organizations to prepare them to use the performance as a prompt for meaningful discussions. Faculty members and student services staff members supported special activities before and after the performance.

Following the performance I evaluated whether or not it achieved that goal. Involved faculty and staff members and students shared feedback that the performance did not lead to the desired conversations.  They further expressed a desire to find another performance vehicle to generate deep and much needed discussions about race and ethnicity.

When approached again to support NWC as a centerpiece of campus conversations, I indicated that while the performance could certainly go on as planned, I would not replicate the campus support I’d made available last year and did not have faculty or staff interested in doing curriculum planning around the performance.

I did not intend my decision as a form of censorship. As an academic, my decision was based on my evaluation of the academic value of the performance for our students.  The Carpenter Center could have hosted the show without additional involvement from the University, but chose not to.

Conoley’s characterization of the Carpenter Center directly conflicts with Roberge’s telling. In a letter sent to donors and patrons of the Center, she wrote, “President Conoley required us to cancel our upcoming performance of N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk. I could not accept this egregious form of censorship.” According to Roberge, the instruction to cancel the show was delivered to her by the dean of the College of the Arts, Roberge’s direct supervisor, at Conoley’s direction.

In her resignation letter, dated late August, Roberge wrote to the dean of the College of the Arts, Cyrus Parker-Jeannette, saying:

The decision by President Conoley to cancel our upcoming performance of N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk runs counter to my steadfast belief in the protection of freedom for artists and my personal integrity as a performing arts presenter. This is an egregious act of censorship, especially ironic as it targets the home of The B-Word Project.

The B-Word Project: Banned ,Blacklisted and Boycotted, was a specially funded initiative held at the Carpenter Center in 2011-2012 focusing on censored works. It featured seminars and performances on the topic, and included the so-called “NEA Four” – Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller – whose 1990 grant applications for support from the National Endowment for the Arts were personally vetoed by NEA chairman John Frohnmeyer, contravening the NEA’s practice of peer review. It also included work from Bill T. Jones’s dance company. Roberge describes all of the work as “very sexual.”

Conoley was not president, or part of the CSULB community, during The B-Word Project. 

*   *   *

Regarding last year’s concerns about N*W*C from the NAACP, Roberge noted in an interview on Thursday that, “Nobody picketed. Nobody protested. In fact there was nary a peep from the NAACP when we announced this year’s show.”

Speaking about her original decision to present N*W*C said she conferred with the dean of the College of the Arts. “We wanted to spark conversations about race,” she says, “and it did that, beautifully.”

In the wake of the first presentation, Roberge says that there were some who didn’t believe the n-word should be heard on campus and didn’t feel it was the Carpenter Center’s place to open up a conversation about race. She notes “other racially charged incidents on campus which absolutely had nothing to do with the show,” and her belief that this heightened concerns regarding racial issues on campus. Referring to President Conoley, Roberge say, “I think those incidents frightened her.”

Roberge notes, “In conversation with the artists, we offered to postpone the show until after the election, and offer a lot of contextualizing educational activities – panel discussions with the ethnic chairs, films, lectures – so that interested students could attend those and have more of a context for how this show came about. But the president was not interested in that and said, ‘No, I don’t want the show.’”

Roberge says that over the summer, the dean of the College of the Arts was instructed by the president to speak with nine people, both on and off campus about N*W*C. “I was instructed not to speak with anyone about it,” she says. “The dean spoke with me about it and told me that all nine advised the president not to do the show. Nobody advocated for the show and they would not allow me to tell my side of the story and only one of them is nominally involved in the arts.”

Has Roberge ever been required to submit her programming for approval to anyone in the university administration? “The answer is no,” she says. “I was hired to curate the presented season at the Carpenter Center and oversee all of the rental activity as well. That being said, while I don’t have to get approval from anybody, every year when I have the season ready to go to our marketing director I schedule a meeting with the dean of the College of the Arts, who’s my boss, and I tell her about every show that I want to bring, so that she’s not surprised by anything. When we did N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk for the first time last year, I was very clear early in the process that this is what I wanted to do and she was 100% behind it.”

Asked whether there’s any policies regarding freedom of expression on campus, Roberge professed to know of none, adding, “There are no campus policies that limit freedom of expression.” She also references the presence of The Center for First Amendment Studies on the CSULB campus.

In a statement provided to the OC Weekly, Rafael Augustin of N*W*C, after expressing appreciation for Roberge’s efforts, wrote in part:

Please let it be known that we believe in the need for change as advocated by the Black Lives Matter movement and stand in solidarity with their commitment to achieving freedom and justice for all black lives.

We cannot ignore, however, that this occurrence also stands as critical juncture in the path of free speech on the campus of a public educational institution in perhaps our most liberal state. The same act of censorship that today may seem to protect a community may be used next time as justification to silence a community in desperate need of a voice.

*    *    *

Returning to President Conoley’s statement that she did not intend her decision as a form of censorship, but rather as a result of the academic value of the performance for students, it’s important to note that Roberge was not faculty, but staff. Her role was not primarily to program for academic purposes, but to find work that would appeal to the campus community and the Long Beach community at large. If academic import is the criteria, one wonders what the pedagogical rationale is for such presentations as Four by Four: A Tribute to The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons and The Bee Gees or illusionist Jason Bishop, both on the Carpenter Center schedule this year. Or what about This is Americana! Live Comedy Slide Show Performance Celebrating Classic and Kitschy American Life & Style! Rather, it seems that the academic reasoning is being deployed specifically to silence N*W*C.

It seems clear that N*W*C did provoke conversations about race, but those that affected its now-canceled return engagement were held behind closed doors, and while students were off-campus. Will the nine people consulted about N*W*C hold sway over other bookings at the Carpenter Center in the future? Will Conoley now decide to personally sign off on programming? Will a search for Roberge’s successor be hindered by what has taken place over this show, or will the choice be made in such a way to drive all programming to the middle of the road, rather than engaging in the kind of envelope-pushing Conoley professed to support in her letter to the NAACP last July?

Having refused interviews from every media outlet that has requested them, up to and including the Los Angeles Times, Conoley is walling herself off behind statements rather than engaging and explaining her rationale. We don’t even know whether she saw the show. She made a decision and while citing conversations but not sharing them in any detail, imposed it with little transparency, and sees little need to defend it further. As the final authority on that campus, she directed conversations about the work of the Carpenter Center to take place without the participation of the center’s director, and so far as anyone knows, she did not consult with cultural experts directly familiar with the production from off-campus or the many other universities where the show has played. Yes, campus conversations about race have evolved since the show was first produced, but was that the root of the problem?

As it stands, Conoley has lost a 14-year veteran of the university who stood up for her principles, while silencing perhaps the most provocative performance of the season, which happens to be a theatrical work by artists of color around issues of color. She has done so without a full explanation of her concerns and reasoning. She may not want to be seen as a censor, but it’s hard not to arrive at that conclusion.

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

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

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

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

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

*   *   *

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

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

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

Minnesota

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

November 13: Erasing Race On Stage At Clarion University

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*   *   *

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

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

June 9: If The Arts Were Reported Like Sports

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

*   *   *

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

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

Jonathan Larson’s Rent at Eastern Tennessee State University (Photo by Larry Smith)

I assume most people, either as a child heard, or as a parent deployed, the timeworn phrase, “If someone told you to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do it?” My parents had a variant along the same lines: “Just because other people do it doesn’t make it right.”

I am reminded of this phrase as it seems every week lately I hear about another instance of a theatre director altering a script or overriding an author’s clear intent; the recent run of examples has been with college-affiliated productions. I wonder whether the people responsible have had others set the wrong example, and they felt they could just join in, or if they just started doing it and, since they were never challenged or caught, kept it up.

The most prominent incidents have been with Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, at a community theatre affiliated with Kent State University’s Department of Pan-African Studies, and with Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India at Clarion University. In both of those cases, the issue was the casting of roles written as characters of color.

In a markedly less fraught situation which didn’t generate any major headlines, a production of Rent at Eastern Tennessee State University, just before Thanksgiving, had to cancel one day of a five-day run because the show’s licensing house learned of a scene that had been cut without approval. The lost day was used to restore the scene in question, as reported by the campus newspaper, The East Tennessean.

In its coverage, the paper quoted Patrick Cronin, the production’s director and the Program Director of Communication and Performance at the school, as to what had taken place.

“I have directed hundreds of shows, and made many cuts before,” Cronin said. “So, I did the same with the street scenes [in ‘Rent’] because we did not have enough actors to make those scenes interesting.”

At the end of the article, Cronin was again quoted:

“I have a young cast who were able to add six pages of material in two days,” Cronin said. “I am just grateful that we got the show on and that we caught the mistake I had made.”

While the school paper didn’t draw attention to the inconsistency, it’s worth noting that Cronin said that what he did was a mistake, but earlier on he had said it was consistent with what he’d done numerous times before. Secondly, it’s not Cronin who caught the mistake, but someone at the school familiar enough with what had been taking place in the rehearsal room – and with copyright and licensing law – to contact Music Theatre International and give them a heads up about the unauthorized alteration. Finally, isn’t it interesting to note that a solution was found to the supposedly problematic scene, in almost no time at all.

Some might accuse me of conflating the first two examples, which turn on the issue of race in casting, with the third, which was the excision of a scene. But I’d argue that they’re all of a piece, because they involve directors either misinterpreting works or placing their own sensibility above that of the author, be it for practical, aesthetic or intellectual reasons. While I don’t have press reports I can bring forward, I can say that since I began writing on this topic, I have been told numerous anecdotes about shows in academic settings that have been altered for any number of reasons, all without approval.

So I have to wonder: are some theatre programs and theatrical groups at the college level advancing the belief that scripts can be altered at will, or elements ignored? Are schools teaching both the legal and ethical implications of artists’ rights and copyright law, not just to playwrights but to all of those who study theatre? Have bad practices begotten yet further bad practices? Are there professors and program directors who believe that anything produced on a campus falls under the fair use exemption for educational purposes under the copyright laws?

Lest anyone think I’m advocating for slavish recreations of original productions or less than fruitful collaborations on new works, I should state that I most assuredly am not. I want to see directors, whether students or faculty (and, for that matter, professionals as well), have the opportunity to undertake creative productions that will challenge the artists involved and the audiences they attract. I want to see works reinvented, but in ways which reveal something new that is supported by the text, rather than overriding it. That said, I am troubled by a sense that in some cases (I’m not saying that this applies to every production at every school) something approaching film’s auteur theory, in which the director of a movie is seen as its primary author, is filtering into theatre at the pre-professional level in a way which diminishes or disregards the importance and rights of authors.

I have a genuine desire to know the answers to some of the questions I’ve asked above. I’d be interested in those answers not only from faculty but from students both past and present. What is being taught about the relationship between playwright and director, regardless of whether the latter is present in rehearsals, available via computer or phone, otherwise engaged, or even dead but still protected by copyright? I ask because I think we all have a lot to learn. I’d like to hear from you, either on the record or confidentially; you can write to me here.

Oh, since I started with timeworn phrases, let me finish with one as well, which believe it or not I’ve heard more than a few times over my career: “Better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” These are not, I hope you’ll agree, words to live by.  Even if some seem to.

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

People are dumbfounded. People are incredulous. People are angry.

Robert Branch and Camila Christian in The Mountaintop at Kent State University

In the past few hours, a month-old story began circulating on social media about a production of Katori Hall’s widely produced The Mountaintop, specifically a story from the Akron Beacon-Journal about a production of the play at Kent State University in late September and early October. What has everyone so riled up? The two photos from the production of Hall’s two-character play about Dr. Martin Luther King’s imagined encounter with a motel housekeeper on the night before his assassination show a white male in both photos. And it’s not an error by the paper.

For his production, under the auspices of the African Community Theatre at Kent State, Michael Oatman who is the company creative director this year, said that he had double cast the role of Dr. King, with a black actor performing for three shows and a white actor performing for three shows. In an interview on the university website, Oatman explained his concept:

While Oatman understands that the piece may stir some controversy he also hopes that it stirs discussion about America’s original sin: race. “I truly wanted to explore the issue of racial ownership and authenticity.  I didn’t want this to be a stunt, but a true exploration of King’s wish that we all be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin,” said Oatman about his non-traditional cast.  “I wanted the contrast . . . I wanted to see how the words rang differently or indeed the same, coming from two different actors, with two different racial backgrounds.”

How was this allowed to happen? First off, no one apparently raised the issue during the two-weekend run. Despite appearing in a general circulation paper and online on both the paper’s site and the school’s site, it seems that there was not an immediate rush on anyone’s part to question this creative decision. Was this because Oatman is African-American and the African Community Theatre operates under the auspices of the school’s Department of Pan-African Studies, and so it was assumed that this approach was sanctioned?

Wasn’t the school in violation of the licensing agreement, in this case with Dramatists Play Service? Well, that depends upon how you interpret the contract and the play text. While the usual language about not making any changes was in place, it happens that the script doesn’t explicitly state that Dr. Martin Luther King is to be played by a black actor. Needless to say, most people would assume that to be implicit when hiring someone to play a civil rights leader who has been gone less than fifty years. But it was not absolutely specified. DPS informed me that as a result of the Kent State production, Mountaintop contracts going forward will carry language stating that both characters are to be played by black actors – unless permission to do otherwise is requested and granted.

Robert Branch as Dr. Martin Luther King in the Kent State University production of The Mountaintop

So with this production already in the rearview mirror, what are some of the takeaways from this? The first is that even when it seems obvious, if playwrights wish for certain roles to be played by actors of certain, ages, genders, race, ethnicity or disability, they need to make it very clear in their script and give clear instructions to their agents and their licensing house as well. Apparently you can’t be too careful.

While it is quite surprising to imagine Dr. King, or Malala Yousafzai, or Cesar Chavez played by white actors, let’s remember that we are now in the post-Hamilton era, which suggests to the narrowminded that roles meant for people of color can now be played by white actors if traditionally (or historically) white characters can be played by actors of color. I would, and frequently do, argue that this is a false equivalency.

Could such specificity lead to playwrights declaring that their characters can only be played by white actors? Yes, and whether we like it or not, that’s their right. For as long as work is under copyright, it is the decision of the author (or their estate) to decide what may be done with or to their work. Yes, that may seem to stifle creativity on the part of directors and limit opportunities for actors in some works, but in the theatre in the U.S. – as opposed to film or television – the authors own their plays and have the final word.

Michael Oatman

So it’s interesting to note that Michael Oatman, who directed the Kent State Mountaintop, is a playwright, and that his bio on the Kent State site doesn’t list directing credits, only writing credits. One has to wonder if in the wake of this production, Oatman had a playwright to playwright conversation with Hall, who now has explicit protection to prevent this situation from recurring – although not completely extinguishing the possibility of racial revision of the characters at some point in the future with her consent. Not knowing Oatman’s work, I wonder whether he either has asserted his authorial protections on productions, or desires to protect his own plays, or whether he welcomes the reworking of racial representation in the stories he seeks to tell.

There’s another key takeaway here, regarding academic productions, and that is that universities are not immune from the protections afforded by copyright law, and licensing agreements. While a scene may be tackled in a classroom setting in ways that may not fully comport with the text, when work is presented before an audience, the rules apply to everyone. I have heard tales of college productions, directed by faculty and by students, that flout the stipulation of works under copyright, and while the Kent State Mountaintop managed to get its six performances in before anyone with authority over the work, or in the broader theatrical community, caught on, academic theatre is a huge market and playwrights don’t want to see their work distorted there anymore than they would in a professional production. That’s not to say that directors with new ideas shouldn’t pitch them. But they have to be prepared to stick with the letter and spirit of the original text if approval isn’t forthcoming, or move on to a work where they can gain that approval, or which has entered the public domain, in which case they can do anything they like.

A final observation, based solely on seeing the two pieces I’ve referred to online. I find it curious that the Akron newspaper’s two photos both include the white actor playing Dr. King, Robert Branch (one which includes Cristal Christian, the black actress playing Camae, the housekeeper), but that there’s no photo of the black actor. The same situation crops up in the interview on the Kent State site – Oatman is interviewed, as are Branch and Christian. Again, no mention of the alternate Dr. King. Indeed, he’s not even named. The same holds true for an article on the site KentWired.com.

Is it possible that whoever the black actor was happened to be unavailable to be interviewed or photographed? Did these media outlets choose to excise him from their coverage? Was this accident, or strategy? Or did the double casting concept get abandoned at some point in the process, since it is only described in an August feature?

As this story becomes more widely known, I imagine members of the creative community will be reaching out to Michael Oatman to better understand the rationale behind his approach, and perhaps to share their views on this concept for The Mountaintop. Hall has posted on Facebook in regards to posts about this production that “an article,” presumably by her, is forthcoming; I await it eagerly. For those upset that this approach was ever taken, the Kent State production can now be the source for worthwhile conversations about representations of race on stage and how much latitude a director has with any script, ethically and legally, when staging copyrighted works.

We’re not going to see a repeat of this particular case unless Katori Hall says it’s OK. And maybe we’ll see much more specific character descriptions in scripts in the wake of this incident – but hopefully we’ll also see playwrights making clear when they not only allow, but encourage, racially diverse casts, as a signal to directors that diversity and indeed variety is desirable.

Update, November 9, 3 pm: Earlier today, the website The Root published Katori Hall’s own account of learning about the Kent State production, her conversation with the director and her response to what took place. It is essential reading.

Update, November 16, 5 pm: In a report in the Akron Beacon Journal, it was revealed that no black actor appeared in Kent State production of The Mountaintop. Click here for more details, including Katori Hall’s reaction.

Thanks to David Dubov-Flinn who first brought the Kent State production to my attention.

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

Poster from It Stops Here at Greensboro College

Members of the Greensboro College community have the right to be free from gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual misconduct of any kind. 

– from the Greensboro College Sexual Misconduct Policy

To start the new school year, Greensboro College in North Carolina required all of its first-year students to attend a performance of It Stops Here, a play about sexual violence, as part of the college’s newly adopted Sexual Misconduct policy. If that were all there was to report to illuminate how, beyond online training and in-person seminars, the school was employing theatre – a student written and directed play, no less – to confront this topic, it would be a terrific example of the power of theatre. Instead, the first performance of It Stops Here resulted in the harassment of the students performing the play and the opening of a Title IX investigation on the campus within 24 hours of that first presentation. It showed that even the dramatic rendering of sexual violence and its aftermath could provoke vocally insensitive, deeply offensive responses among first year students, and that despite the new steps taken by the school, many more were needed.

*   *   *

In presenting It Stops Here, a project of the college theatre department, it appears that the school’s primary concern was the potential to provoke deeply felt emotional responses in the audience. The play combined the words of the playwright with monologues from survivors of sexual assault that were submitted for use and presented verbatim. There were “trigger warnings” on the show’s promotional materials and an announcement prior to the performance; students acting as ushers were stationed in the aisles with flashlights to immediately assist any student who was overcome and needed to leave quickly.

The production had its first performance, a preview really, at 11 am on Wednesday morning this week, with students required to attend as part of their first-year seminar classes, an ongoing orientation program on how to succeed in college, as the school president described it. Teachers and coaches were to attend with their students, so that the show might provide the basis for further conversation.

“There was a certain segment of the audience that was joking and making crude remarks,” said Luke Powell, a senior theatre major who appears in the play. “One of the first things I noticed was during one of the monologues. One of the girls was doing hers and I could hear that this portion of the audience was catcalling her during this story of a rape victim. That really set me off, because it’s really disrespectful.

“The worst thing that happened,” Powell later said, “was when we get to the end of the play, the stage goes dark and four of the girls do the internal thoughts of a victim during a sexual attack. Some of that group got up to leave, not because they were triggered. Some of the group was saying stuff like ‘oh, you want it,’ and one started making a noise with his hands that sounded like masturbation throughout the five or six minute scene.”

“I expected this to happen,” declared Makenzie Degenhardt, a sophomore theatre major who appears in the play. “It’s a topic people don’t like to talk about. As soon as someone says rape, people get uncomfortable. People make jokes about things they’re uncomfortable with, but in this case it was inappropriate.”

Dagenhardt described hearing, “laughing and reactions that were not appropriate. People were laughing, clapping and encouraging behavior that shouldn’t be happening.” As to how the behavior affected her own performance, Dagenhardt said, “It made me speak louder. When I’m walking down the street and a boy catcalls me, I just ignore it, so I spoke louder to make sure I was heard. I was appalled.”

Dagenhardt said that her initial reaction was, “Oh, boys react like this, this is normal.” But upon reflection she realized, “It shouldn’t be normal. That’s what the point of the show is. If it happens again, I will respond differently.”

Another actor in the play, Emily Parker, a junior theatre major concentrating in musical theatre performance, described being on stage with a male scene partner. “A particular group of boys was talking rudely,” she said. They were talking loudly about how they didn’t want to be there and how they thought he [the male actor] was gay. Typical teenage boy stuff. “He’s so gay’.”

Ana Radulescu, a freshman theatre major concentrating in directing, who was the assistant director for the show, watched from the back of the house. She described the behavior of one pocket of students during the same scene that Dagenhardt referred to. “They did call him a ‘fag’,” she said. “He had a line that said ‘No one in high school ever told me I would have a girlfriend,’ and a bunch of people around me just started laughing.” Radulescu also described hearing a student, as a female actor was speaking on stage, speaking only partially in a whisper to those around him, say, “Whore. Bitch.”

Radulescu also said that another student, seated near where she stood at the back, before the show the show had even started, declaimed things like, “It was consensual – I didn’t rape her” and “I did Haven, I promise.” Haven is the online sexual harassment training all students were required to complete.

*   *   *

Of the five students who spoke on the record for this article, all of them expressed disappointment at the fact that while there were faculty in the theatre during the performance, they were unaware of any efforts by those faculty members to curtail the behavior that continued throughout the show. Several students spoke specifically about the lack of action by the Dean of Students, who they say was seated close to the area that harbored the worst offenders, and couldn’t have possibly missed what was happening. Some students also said that there was less faculty than anticipated, saying that not all of the instructors who were supposed to attend with the students, in order to facilitate subsequent discussion, had been present.

The students who were in the show all expressed, in differing ways, their own indecision about what to do in the face of inappropriate behavior and language. Emily Parker said, “We were in a predicament over whether to confront it or go on with the show.”

Backstage, Rebecca Hougas, a freshman theatre major concentrating in theatre education, was working as assistant stage manager, and said that for much of the play, she wasn’t aware of what was taking place, until late in the show.

“I could hear laughter,” she said, “and I knew this was not a laughing matter.” Hougas said that she really came to understand what was going on by seeing how the actors, who were onstage for most of the performance, reacted when they came offstage. “We had one actor come off the stage in tears over what she was trying to say.”

Several students spoke of actors being physically ill after the performance, and of the company coming together to support one another. Those I spoke with say they were upset upon leaving after the show, even as they had banded together to support one another, but not expecting any significant further fallout from the incident.

*   *   *

I first learned of what had happened at the performance of It Stops Here when, the next day, playwright and advocate Jacqueline Lawton sent me a Tumblr post recounting the event, written by Nicole Swofford, a recent graduate of Greensboro with a theatre degree who is still close with some of the students involved in the production. It described many of the same incidents that were ultimately described to me, but Swofford was also reporting what was said to her, as she hadn’t been at the show.

Swofford was very clear, and very honest, about her intent is posting, writing:

“Greensboro College is a small private college with less than 2,500 students and there hasn’t been a sexual assaulted recorded in the official report in years. Which is a blatant cover to protect the school from getting into to more hot water than it already is (having suffered from lots of financial problems in the past).

This is disgusting, and as a survivor of my own assault, and an alumni of this school I am appalled. All I can ask is that you share this story with everyone, and realize our fight is far from over.”

She had written on Wednesday evening, and her post, along with Facebook posts and comments about the incident, circulated quickly around the campus.

*   *   *

Where this story may differ from other accounts of sexual harassment on college campuses is that, less than 24 hours after the performance, the school opened a Title IX investigation. It did so on its own, not as a result of a specific complaint by a student, faculty or staff member. It is quite possible that this was because students reported Greensboro’s Title IX Coordinator, Emily Scott, as having been present at the performance. Her title at the school also includes “Assistant to the President.”

As information was being routed to me, but before I spoke directly with anyone on campus, a statement from the college president, Dr. Lawrence D. Czarda, addressed the issue in a school-wide communication:

“It has been reported that during a special performance Wednesday of the play “It Stops Here” for First Year Seminar classes, several audience members made comments that were offensive and sexual in nature. Under our new Sexual Misconduct policy, the comments that have been reported qualify as sexual harassment. The Title IX Coordinator has reviewed the reported comments and has asked the Title IX Investigator to gather additional information to determine who is responsible for making the comments. The college is pursuing a formal complaint of sexual misconduct against the students and is working to identify them. Upon results of the investigation, those found responsible will face disciplinary consequences.”

He also wrote:

“However, Wednesday’s incident makes clear that we as an academic and social community still have much to learn. That includes all of us, not just a few students. In addition to the Title IX investigation, the college will be reviewing and discussing the entirety of the context of the incident. Among many other questions, we will address such issues as what faculty and staff who were present might have done differently. Beyond meeting our legal obligations, the College’s goal is to make this incident a learning opportunity for the entire College community.”

When I spoke with Dr. Czarda, he volunteered that, “We do not have a history of sexual assaults on campus.” But he said that in response to the national dialogue about sexual violence, “the board adopted new policies which were put into place July 1. All students were required to take an online training course before the process of moving in. In addition, all students are required to do an on-site training program. All faculty and staff were required to do online and in-person training sessions. The fact that the student production is part of the required training means they’ve heard what these issues are about.”

When asked about what kind of preparation students had been given prior to seeing the play, he cited the online and in-person sexual misconduct training implemented by the school. “Did they know specifically what was going to happen on stage?” Dr. Czarda asked rhetorically, suggesting that they didn’t, that students attended the show without any direct contextual preparation prior to attending. But he said, “I think we did a tolerably good job in prepping the students.”

As to why no member of the faculty or staff intervened in light of the catcalling, insults and disruptions, Dr. Czarda said that was a “key question.” He said, “On the one hand, I have been told that there was some behavior that was not atypical of freshmen,” but he said, “I have not talked to any faculty or staff who heard the comments being made. I’m very troubled by that.” As to whether all faculty who we supposed to attend had done so, he said, “I hope that is not the case.”

Regarding steps being taken to insure that the incident would not recur, Dr. Czarda said that there would be campus security and faculty at every performance; he attended last night’s show. “We will have a very clear, immediate response,” he stated. “I would be totally disheartened and shocked if anything like this happened again.”

The students told me that they had agreed that if there were incidents at subsequent performances, they would simply pause in place until it ceased; some said they might direct their looks to where the believed the interruptions to have come from. Several, jokingly, invoked the name of Patti LuPone and her cellphone incident of earlier this summer.

Luke Powell subsequently reported that the Thursday evening performance had taken place without incident. “I’ve never seen an audience give a standing ovation so quickly,” he wrote.

*   *   *

As readers can tell from this account, some students who were a part of It Stops Here took me up on my offer to speak with them, others obviously did not, and I don’t think anyone should infer anything from the fact that I did not hear from some. That is their absolute right.

Because institutionally, it is so often the case that in the midst of a crisis organizations initially go silent, trying to decide the best course of action, I have to say that Dr. Czarda’s willingness to speak with me within three hours of my request was both surprising and appreciated.

But I now want to say to Dr. Czarda something I didn’t express when I spoke with him, in part because by the time we spoke, he was getting organized to attend last night’s performance and had limited time. I want to say that while he may be technically correct when he says there is no history of sexual assaults on his campus, that does not mean there haven’t been sexual assaults on his campus, only that they have gone unreported, that they are not part of the school’s records.

Statistically, both on campuses and in the population nationally, sexual assault is too widespread to imagine that Greensboro is a unique sanctuary. Students up until now may have been too afraid, may have been too intimidated, may not have seen genuine evidence of support and understanding in the school environment, prompting them to keep silent. If the prevailing attitude is “it doesn’t happen here” and if the new guidelines have been put in place only to comply with general practice and to insulate the school from future liability, not because of a deep understanding of the prevalence of sexual violence, then there is still a great deal more learning to be done, and not just by the students of Greensboro.

The students I spoke with were uniformly appreciative and indeed surprised by the speed with which the school began its investigation. However, several expressed concern that because the perpetrators sat in the dark and were not immediately discovered and taken out, no one will ever be held accountable. Greensboro College is now on the line both in terms of how it addresses this current situation and what it does now that it has learned that its newly implemented policies are clearly insufficient.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t say to Dr. Czarda and the Greensboro faculty that the students are not only concerned about getting through the performances this weekend. While one noted that they feel “more comfortable knowing that some of the faculty is stepping up and doing their job” and that “the regulations are going to make sure this doesn’t get swept under the rug,” there are now students on your campus who are concerned about recriminations and retaliation because they spoke up, because they spoke out. Beyond insuring the performances go forward smoothly, beyond investigating what took place on Wednesday, you now must do everything possible to make certain that all students connected with this production, and indeed all students (and faculty and staff) are safe and secure on your campus, in the days, weeks and months to come.

What happens at Greensboro in the wake of this incident is not simply a campus matter, but one with impact on every college campus, and for every survivor of sexual assault and their families and friends. If this is what happens when sexual assault is portrayed, what will happen if – and indeed, sadly, when – sexual violence occurs? The school has already been made an example. Now it must demonstrate whether it can set one.

*  *  *

When asked whether they thought that the rest of the audience at Wednesday’s performance had gotten the message of the show, several of the students professed somewhat ruefully that they didn’t know; one said she knew of one student who had expressly communicated how important it had been for her. If the remaining three performances go as well as last night’s did, then hopefully the message of the play will be reaching many more members of the Greensboro College community in the way it was intended to do.

At the conclusion of our conversation, Ana Radulescu summed up so much of what is essential now in regards to Greensboro and It Stops Here.

“We all now understand what those girls who sent us those monologues were talking about. In a way, we were all sexually harassed yesterday and this Title IX report says so. I never knew that through theatre someone could be harassed. Now in six hours, I understand a lot more of what comes out of those girls’ mouths.

“The idea of this piece is to start this conversation. I don’t think we planned on it starting this way. But if you want to look at it, it’s nothing different than what we meant it to do. The fact that it’s not getting ignored is sort of amazing. It has reaffirmed for us that the piece needs to happen, why it needs to happen and why it needs to happen here. If anyone questioned that, well – we have the answer.”

  

Update, September 5: A local television newscast covered the incident at Greensboro College last night. You can view their report here; the video piece is more complete than the accompanying text.

The title of the play discussed in this post is shown on the poster as “It Stops Here” with a period at the end of Here. The punctuation mark has been omitted from the text for clarity.

I attempted to reach the theatre department chair David Schram and Josephine Hull, assistant professor of acting and voice, but neither replied to my inquiries. 

This post will be amended and updated as the situation warrants.

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