Another teacher loses her job over her choice of school plays

I remember reading on here a while back about a drama teacher in Indiana who was reprimanded for his choice of allegedly unwholesome productions such as Bat Boy, and therefore had to clear future musical choices with his boss. He gave the principal a loaded choice of either Urinetown or Cabaret, and because of the predictable knee-jerk fear of titles that refer to excretory functions, the principal chose Cabaret.

Whatever happened with that? Did the show go on?

This morning I read an AP update on something similar happening now in central Missouri. Wendy DeVore, the Fulton High School drama teacher, has decided to resign after fundamentalists criticized Grease for showing "teens smoking, drinking and kissing," and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream for depicting "suicide, rape and losing one's virginity." Because of those past criticisms, the superintendant cancelled the spring show, which was ironically supposed to be Arthur Miller's The Crucible, a show that on the surface is about witches but deep down is about censorship.

Speaking of devil worship, wasn't another teacher in Colorado recently fired for showing her class a video of Gounod's opera Faust? Like Winston Smith in 1984, I vaguely remember reading about these incidents but can't seem to track them down in an archive. I wish there were some central Web repository for stories about suppressions of performing arts, like there is at http://www.chillingeffects.org/ for online censorship or http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/ is for newspapers.

Maybe we should start one here?

Missouri drama teacher resigns in play flap

It's sad

Ha, I wish my school had "enforced" drinking.

This is ridiculous. Well i really hope that this town has also forbid minors to watch MTV because the things they show on there are far worse then a piece of culture.

Fired for showing Faust? Haha, my school is doing Dr. Faustus as our Spring show.

I rather see GREASE in a High School than CABARET, CHICAGO, SWEENEY etc.

Some High School directors make me sick, because they think they can get away with anything.

In 1999 at my former high school - Amherst Regional High School - a production of West Side Story was cancelled when several Puerto Rican students and parents complained about what they perceived as stereotypical representations and racial slurs in the musical. It ignited a passionate controversy in the Pioneer Valley area that made international news. The cancellation provoked angry protests on the town common and charges of censorship by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Ironically, shortly after the cancellation of the Amherst production, a high school staging of West Side Story was successfully produced in Holyoke, a neighboring town, primarily performed by Puerto Rican students. And this year Amherst High School has just performed Urinetown as their annual musical choice, without a single eyebrow raised.

ugh. Why do people pick a fight about something they know nothing about?

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Well, caitie, with all due respect, cutting out the issue of homosexuality is far worse than censoring something related to drinking or swearing, in my opinion.

I meant to put it another way. The adminstration did not cut that one out the drama teacher did not because she thought it was wrong, but because it is a very....conservative area and she knew the students would not be able to control their comments to it. Did I hate that it was an issue? Yes but i understood why she did it. I meant it as an oh well kkind of thing because the show DID still address pre marital sex, drug use, drinking, abortion, and many other issues that were forbidden in most schools.

They still did something that addressed homosexuality but in the script two guys would have made out on stage and since the entire school was going to see the show as an assembly, she did not want the actors getting heckled during the show or later that day. If she did the show again this year, I am sure it would stay in, but even just 5-6 years ago that being on stage in where I went to school was unheard of.

This is the same place where we would have dropped the f-bomb before saying God d*mn it onstage. We were just glad we could keep all of the other issues in the show

Updated On: 3/18/06 at 03:50 PM

When we did Anything Goes in high school people complained it was about prostitutes. People need to get a freaking grip already!

I've read and seen some pretty controversial stuff, and I've never felt the need to blow up a building or kill someone. If someone is going to shoot and kill his parents, they probably would have done it without reading some book. You can't ban things just because 1 person happened to go crazy.

I mean, risks in my mind is more along the lines of Children of Eden, or A Little Night Music, difficult shows that aren't really the typical high school productions. West Side Story is a challenge as well, and if the children are mature and talented enough...

I think shows like CHICAGo, CABARET etc are not meant for high schools to do