Stevie Ray Dallimore, an actor and teacher, had been running the theater program for a private boys’ school in Chattanooga for a decade, but he had never faced a school year like this.
A proposed production of “She Kills Monsters” at a neighboring girls’ school that would have included her students was rejected because of gay content, she said. A “Shakespeare in love” at the girls’ school that would have counted with its boys was rejected for cross-dressing. His school’s production of “Three Sisters,” the Chekhov classic, was rejected because it dealt with adultery and there were concerns that some boys might play the women, as they had done in the past, he said .
School plays, long an important element of arts education and a formative experience for creative teenagers, have become the latest battleground at a time when the political and cultural divisions of the States United have led to an increase in book bans, conflicts over how race and sexuality are taught in schools. schools and the efforts of some politicians to restrict drag performances and transgender health care for children and adolescents.
For decades, student productions have faced scrutiny for being age-appropriate and, more recently, left-wing. students i parents have rejected many shows for how they portray women and people of color. The latest wave of objections comes largely from right-leaning parents and school officials.
The final act of Dallimore’s year-long drama in Chattanooga? She learned that her position at McCallie School, along with her counterpart at the nearby girls’ prep school, was being eliminated. They were invited to apply for a single new position to oversee theater at both schools; both educators are now out of work.
“This is obviously a national problem that we’re a small part of,” Dallimore said. “It’s definitely part of a larger movement: a highly concerted effort of politics and religion going hand in hand, banning books and trying to erase history and embezzle otherness.”
A McCallie spokeswoman, Jamie Baker, acknowledged that the school’s two theater positions had been eliminated so that the programs could be combined, but said it would “imply or state in any way that the theater director’s contract at McCallie was not renewed due to concerns the content would be inaccurate.” He noted that the school has a “Judeo-Christian heritage and a commitment to Christian principles” and added: “It should come as no surprise to anyone that we made and continue to make decisions aligned with those commitments.”
Drama teachers across the country say they are facing increasing scrutiny of their show selections, and that titles that were acceptable just a few years ago are no longer presentable in some districts. The Educational Theater Association released a survey of teachers last month that found 67 percent say censorship concerns influence their selections for the upcoming school year.
In emails and phone calls over the past few weeks, teachers and parents cited a litany of examples. From the right there have been objections to homosexuality in the musical “The Prom” and the play “Almost, Maine” and other shows with great frequency; from the left there have been concerns about representations of race in “South Pacific” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and gender in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Grease” . And at individual schools, there have been a number of unexpected complaints, about the presence of bullying in “Mean Girls” and the absence of white characters in “Fences,” about the words “damn” (in “Oklahoma ) and “bastards”. (in “Newsies”) and “God” (in “The Little Mermaid”).
The challenges for school productions, teachers say, are more pressing than ever because of the polarized political climate and the amplifying power of social media.
“We’re seeing a lot of teachers self-censor,” said Jennifer Katona, executive director of the Educational Theater Association, an organization of theater teachers. “Even if it was just a bunch of girls dressed up as ‘Newsies’ boys, which wouldn’t have been a big deal a few years ago, that’s a big deal now.”
Teachers are now in a desperate search for titles that are somehow relevant to today’s teenagers and unlikely to get them into trouble.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t want any kind of controversy,” said Chris Hamilton, the high school theater director in Kennewick, Washington. Hamilton said last year was the first time in 10 years of teaching that a play The proposal was banned by school administrators: “She Kills Monsters,” a comedy about a teenage girl who finds solace to Dungeons & Dragons which is the seventh most popular school play in the country and features gay characters. “The level of scrutiny has grown,” Hamilton said.
Across the country, in both blue and red states, drama teachers say it’s getting harder to find plays and musicals that escape the kind of criticism they fear could cost them their jobs or lead to a funding cut. “People are losing their jobs for booking the wrong musical,” said Ralph Sevush, executive director of business affairs for the Playwrights Guild of America.
“A polarized society is fighting the culture wars in high schools,” he added.
Stephen Gregg, a playwright who has been writing successfully for high school students for three decades, said he was surprised this year when his publisher forwarded an email asking for “major edits” to his sci-fi comedy “Crush,” seeking to replace an anecdote about a gay couple with a straight one and explaining, “Because we’re a public school in Florida, we can’t have gay characters.”
Gregg declined the request, thinking, he said, that “you probably have gay kids in your theater program, and that sends them a terrible message.”
Several school productions made headlines this year when they were canceled due to content issues. In Florida’s Duval County, a production of “Indecent” he was killed for their lesbian love story. In Pennsylvania, the North Lebanon School District banned “The Addams Family,” the nation’s most popular school musical, citing its dark themes.
“There was a very clear streak of teacher cancellations throughout the school year, and it’s happening in parallel and related to the efforts to ban the books,” said Jonathan Friedman, director of educational programs and free expression by PEN America. “Sometimes it affects the plays in production, and sometimes it affects the approval of the plays in the future. The whole climate is affected.”
Some productions have overcome objections. In New Jersey, Cedar Grove High School canceled a production of “The Prom,” a musical starring a lesbian, but then he relented and staged it after public pressure. In Indiana, after Fort Wayne’s Carroll High School canceled a production of “Marian, or The True Tale of Robin Hood,” which is marketed as “a hilarious new take on the classic story, shattering patriarchy and gender,” say the students he staged it anyway at a local outdoor theater.
Autumn Gonzales, a teacher at Scappoose High School in Oregon, faced objections to a production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” a musical that has a character with two gay parents. He stuck with it (the show had been chosen by his students) and allowed the production to continue. But he is being very cautious for next year. When her students expressed interest in “Heathers,” which has suicidal themes, she told them, “That’s not going to happen.”
“I’ve always tried to find a middle ground,” he said.
“We’re not going to do ‘Spring Awakening,'” he said, referring to the 2006 musical about youth and sexuality. “This is not the community for that. But I’m also not going to deny the existence of gay people, that’s not good for my student actors. I’m not going to be inflammatory for the sake of art, but I’m not going to shy away either of the deepest messages”.
The limitations, advocates say, are having an effect on the education of future artists and audience members.
“Students deserve the opportunity to be exposed to a wide variety of work, not just the safest, most benign, familiar material,” said Howard Sherman, CEO of New York’s Baruch Performing Arts Center, which has been following the problem for years.
In some areas, the challenged plays can’t even be read: In Kansas, the Lansing school board, responding to parental objectionsbanned high school students from reading “The Laramie Project,” a widely performed and taught play about the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student in Wyoming.
“Every year there have been some schools that have banned a production, but this is the first time that a reading of the play has been banned,” said the play’s lead author, Moisés Kaufman, the theater company of who offered to send his script to any Lansing student who asked: “I don’t want to be alarmist, but it’s alarming.”
