Ragtime Performance Canceled

[Grog12]

Citing Sensitivity About 'Ragtime''s Racial Content, IL Park Officials Cancel Show - Yahoo! News

[gafftaper]

Wow. It's amazing how self righteous some people can get.

We just did "Ah, Wilderness" and had two people walk out because of it's inappropriate content. I think they say "****" twice in the script and there is a "lowbrow" woman in the show. But the show was written in 1933... it's far tamer than anything on TV these days.

If you don't like to have your mind expanded and to be challenged to think once in a while there is always Children's theater.

[bobgaggle]

It seems to me that as a predominately white society, we're trying to "make-up" for our mistakes made 200 years ago by simply ignoring these taboos and trying to move on.

Its like how we've completely covered up the massacre of the Native Americans when we first came here. No where in a school text book will it say that the settlers in America intentionally committed genocide. It will say, "the native Americans hadn't built up the immunities to the small pox virus that the Europeans had"

Props for not letting us forget the mistakes we've made in the past, we need to learn and grow from them, not cover them up. James Joyce said, "A man's errors are his portals of discovery."

As for people walking out of a show due to "inappropriate content" (however they define it), there's a wonderful thing called the internet. Look up a review, many of them will say if its a family friendly show or not.

[Marius]

I can certainly understand the reasons behind the decision. We did Ragtime at the high school at which I taught and if someone were just wandering by and heard some of the dialogue and didn't know what was going on they could be upset. But that decision should have been made before the project was greenlit, before rights were procured, before anything beyond the 'Hey, kids. Let's put on a show.' stage of preproduction. We did a production of Corpus Christie when I was at FAU. The Florida State Legislature tried to shut us down, and we even got picketed one night. I went out to talk to the protestors and asked them what they didn't like about the show. They couldn't tell me because none of them had read or seen it. They just heard it was bad. It sounds like the same mentality here. They probably heard the name Ragtime, assumed it was some Scott Joplin musical, and then forgot about it until someone complained. Suits really p*ss me off sometimes.

[bobgaggle]

Originally Posted by charcoaldabs

Interestingly, many of the people that were up in arms didn't see the show... now that sounds like a good way to judge it...

You all remember "Offsides" the student written play performed in Stone Bridge High School 4 years ago? The outcry was so bad that Dick Black, our delegate in Richmond, started spewing stuff about clamping down on content in public school plays. He gave the order to compile a set of content regs without even seeing the play. He just heard about it from letters and emails.

[mbenonis]

It's really sad today how many shows are unable to be performed at the high school or community theatre level because they might offend one or two people. My take: don't come to the show if you don't like it!

The good news is that when you get to college, you can put on almost anything and still sell lots of tickets, often to the community and not to students! We just put on City of Angels, and it has pretty much everything in it you're not supposed to do: language, sex (no nudity), obscene gestures, gunshots, smoking (real cigarettes), etc. But it was a d*** good show!

[MNicolai]

We've been really lucky at my high school. In the past ten years we've done a number of controversial shows including A Chorus Line, The Crucible, Cabaret, and we were one of the first high schools to do The Laramie Project 6-8 years ago. Our choral director was down in Texas (we're in Wisconsin) and he even heard on the radio all of the criticisms of our school, and subsequently called in and made a defense.

The ability to put on a controversial show, at least for high schools, depends largely on the director and the principal. Our principal applauded the shows we've put on, and would like to see more of them. Many schools aren't that lucky though.

We've had our share of irate community members though. We gave out a bunch of comp tickets in a senior-citizen golf tournament for Cabaret, and many turned around and said they wouldn't come because of the Nazi nature of the production. Oh well, we weren't making money off of your tickets anyways.

[gafftaper]

A local public high school drama teacher I know decided to do "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat" and "Laramie Project" in the same year. She said, "I figure I might as well offend everyone in the same season".

[MNicolai]

Originally Posted by gafftaper

A local public high school drama teacher I know decided to do "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat" and "Laramie Project" in the same year. She said, "I figure I might as well offend everyone in the same season".

Our middle school did Joseph this past year for that matter. The funny part is that if you look at the production, and maybe just because it's the Jr. production that they did, there's really no references to the Bible whatsoever, but there are always people that judge without warrant.

[Marius]

I used to teach at a Baptist college in Louisiana, and we got complaints about a production of Godspell, for goodness sake! There's always going to be someone who's only joy in life is raining on other people's parades. That is one of the greatest things about Theatre. We can usually rise above censorship and close-mindedness. Usually.