NPR explores the growing culture wars over high school theatre

gafftapegreenia

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I’d heard some mention about a production of Spelling Bee being cancelled at a high school in Ohio. Well, the show went on after the librettist made some changes.

The whole affair made its way to NPR this morning. The piece detailed the entire affair in Northern Ohio, as well as offering some commentary on the current era of censorship in educational theatre.


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Spelling Bee is a popular show in HS because it is chock full of themes that relate to the experiences that high schoolers go through. By expressing and sharing these things, we build understanding of the "other" and realize we are all a lot closer than the world would have us think. We did it a few years ago when I worked in a HS and it was easily one of the most popular shows that department had done. I was actually kinda shocked how much our admin enjoyed it. They were usually pretty open to what we did, but would definitely hesitate if we tried to steer towards the severely controversial. Nothing in it is that inappropriate, this is puritanical BS driven by a political party that has nothing left to offer except controversy.
 
Spelling Bee is a popular show in HS because it is chock full of themes that relate to the experiences that high schoolers go through. By expressing and sharing these things, we build understanding of the "other" and realize we are all a lot closer than the world would have us think. We did it a few years ago when I worked in a HS and it was easily one of the most popular shows that department had done. I was actually kinda shocked how much our admin enjoyed it. They were usually pretty open to what we did, but would definitely hesitate if we tried to steer towards the severely controversial. Nothing in it is that inappropriate, this is puritanical BS driven by a political party that has nothing left to offer except controversy.
While I certainly don’t disagree with your sentiment, and I think that is typically the circumstances at play, the piece did suggest something of a milquetoast school board that was adverse to minimally complex characters and just wanted everyone to be “nice”.

So great is the fear of offending that organizations, particular education ones, preemptively silence themselves. And I get it, I wouldn’t want the full weight of a conservative national news outlet bearing down on my school because a character in my musical happens to have two gay dads.
 
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I find it beyond hilarious that so often we see objections raised to performing plays containing any amount of "controversial content" while at the same time the same people insisting that minors be prosecuted as adults and bemoaning the fact that kids are so immature or don't understand things. It seems to me that certain demographics really feel that the school system should be kindergarten right up until Senior graduation and the next day those kinders should suddenly transform into adults with jobs, credit and a career. The same crowd that screamed "Herd immunity" are the same crowd seemingly protecting their children from exposure to real life lessons. Ponderous, simply ponderous.
 
This school district is right in our back yard and we know these folks. This is all the result of a VERY few extremist snowflakes.

Whatever you think about the politics (and boy do I think plenty) these are real people who's lives are a living hell because of this. They signed up to help kids, not to be culture warriors.
 
This is all really concerning, but on the other hand I just did a no-holds-barred high school production of Spring Awakening, so all's not lost. The cast did a lot of research and thinking about why the show was important to them, and with the director wrote a letter to the superintendent explaining that the show isn't about vulgar language, sex, masturbation, abuse and suicide; it's about what happens when you don't give children the information they need to live healthy, happy lives. The superintendent and principal then wrote home to all guardians to explain the choice, using some excerpts from the student letter, and including a permission slip required for students to participate. We had a student take themselves out of the cast for fear of parent's reaction if they asked for permission. I haven't heard of any other issues.
 
I listened to the NPR piece.... sounds like we need to beat up the conservatives AND the liberals on this one. School board objected to one character being a bully, also to the kid who sings Im not that smart..... wanted that taken out.... wanted a decrease in the depiction of competitiveness etc. Along with of course "good Lord" and as NPR put it paraphrasing here .... a number about the problems of puberty.
 
... By expressing and sharing these things, we build understanding of the "other" and realize we are all a lot closer than the world would have us think.
[ WARNING: Explicit politics ahead ]

This, Strad, is *precisely* the thing which terrifies the American Political Right (sorry Dave, but it's on the table; the only thing to do is eat it...) The American Political Right *doesn't want that to happen*; they call it "normalizing" just like we do, but it's a cussword when they say it.

There's a running joke in American politics:

D to go Forward
R to go Backward

And, to quote Sheldon, it's funny because it's true. I got no particular problems with conservative *people* -- got a number of friends who are, and I've even managed to locate a few comedians who are conservative and still funny (to me, though that's all that matters, also to me).

But the one thing they all have in common is that none of them are remotely interested in the US Republican *Party* any more, cause they believe that it's gone mad. Conservative people are, well, *conservative* about things around them in the world, and it takes them a lot longer to come to grips with those things (like, in this particular instance, the widespread incidence of people dressing in gendered clothing *they* don't believe is appropriate, or confuses them), and liberal/progressive people actively seek out such things -- or at the very least, if something like that strikes them as unusual, they think the problem lies within, not without.

There's some interesting, and pretty believable science about the size of the amygdala, and its effect on people's political-ish worldviews, that I won't go into here, so as to avoid dragging this thread even further down the rabbit hole, but that's enough hint for the interested to Google it.

But the American Political Right -- a phrase I use to describe the Party, and the pundits that cluster around it and egg it on -- has been doing a slow-motion Thelma and Louise for at least 10 years now, and I sure hope it ends soon.
 
I have a parakeet in my front office named Ellwood Blue .. biological male... what do I to if he decides he wants to be "Elle Wood" that's a whole different musical.. you see the problems?
 

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