They Won't Cancel This One

Some Sugary Medicine Before We Begin. This week, we're going to get heavy into the world of controversial high school productions. To be honest, researching this topic and seeing all the times that really interesting plays and musicals that might have resonated with kids were cancelled because parents, teachers and administrators were ignorant and scared has made me exasperated this morning. So, here are three articles I have no other use for than as brain cleaner. Please come back and read them if you find yourself getting similarly exasperated while reading what is below. (1) A quiet meditation on how doing theatre is like farming. (2) The winner for biggest jump in characters: Matt Smith leaving Dr. Who and playing Patrick Bateman in the musical adaptation of American Psycho. You Know? For Kids The musical Rent had its first reading almost two decades ago. It eventually premiered on Broadway in 1996 to rave reviews and went on to win the Tony for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show's original run became the ninth longest-running show in Broadway history, and every bar of the score has been sung incessantly by the drama kids at your local high school ever since. Rent has been consistently popular with high school students since its inception. Since the original show contains coarse language and talks about sex, death and gay people, it didn't stand much of a chance of being added to the pantheon of commonly-produced high school musicals. In 2007 a "cleaned up" version of the musical (called Rent: School Edition) was released, and Shorewood High School in Wisconsin was the first school to try it out. Even the clean version of Rent still deals directly with sex, death, homosexuality and AIDS, but Shorewood's production went up not only without controversy, but with support of the community. Since then, this version has been performed at numerous schools without the play's 20-year-old edge destroying the moral fabric of the kids involved. In fact, beginning with a production at Hollywood High School in 2010, high schools have even opted to perform the full "dirty" version of Rent. So, score one for openness and modernity, right? Well... Rumble in Trumball The Thespian Society at Trumball High School in Connecticut was all set to perform the school edition of Rent for their Spring musical in March 2014, but the school's principal decided to cancel it, claiming that even the cleaned-up version was too risque for his school. Of course, a school canceling a play because the parents or teachers get uncomfortable is nothing new. Last year at this time, a high school in Loveland, Ohio was a school district in Utah forced changes on All Shook Up with threats of cancellation. A school in Ottumwa, Iowa cancelled its production of The Laramie Project (a play that has already been cancelled in high schools on other occasions). Rent has been attempted and canceled at multiple schools after outcry from parents, most famously in 2008 in Rowlett, Texas, when a coalition of conservative parents pressured the director into dropping the play. This incident itself was turned into fodder for a musical, Speargrove Presents; and I hope that someday this show is also banned from a high school so that the recursion can continue. Normally, a high school canceling a show over questionable content is a local issue that fades pretty quickly. In Trumball's case, though, the students and their supporters did not simply acquiesce to the fearful choices of their authority figures. Instead, the controversy was taken to the interwebs, where it gained champions across the country. Facing nationwide media scrutiny, the principal attempted to walk back his previous extreme objection, and allowed the show to go on after all, but a month later than originally planned. Because the new dates conflicted heavily with other school activities, this compromise had the same basic effect as canceling the show. If you're confused as to how a supposedly liberal place like Trumball, Connecticut can stumble into a controversy like this while the red state of Tennessee can host a high school production of the same script without a hitch, welcome to the club. Little Victories In Trumball, the cries of the internet have won the day. On Monday, the school's principal announced that Rent would go on as originally scheduled (albeit, with an additional "educational component" tagged on to it, as if the experience thus far hasn't been education enough). Protests against high school productions have not been winning the day all the time. Earlier this year, a school in Massachusetts faced opposition to its production of The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, and went on ahead. Shorewood High School (who did that first production of Rent: School Edition) faced down controversy this year with its production of Spring Awakening and soldiered on bravely. Is Our Children Learning? NPR's Scott Simon took some time to comment thoughtfully on the situation in Trumball. As he put it, "There are few better ways to make a play that's daring and edgy seem tedious than consultation, community outreach and educational programs. It is hard to believe that teenagers today haven't already learned plenty about sexuality, AIDS and drugs." Before you Minnesotans start congratulating yourselves on being open and fair and avoiding controversy like this, you should know that while Texans were ridding their town of Rent in 2008, so were Minnesotans. Red Wing High School had the plug pulled on its version at about the same time, and there was no popular outcry agains it then. All parents want to protect their children; but there comes a point when "protection" goes too far. If anything, the empathy and sincerity contained in the script (and its now-dated "edginess", which pales in comparison to even the most mediocre TV dramas today), open up a path for kids to learn about all the crappy things that happen in life. Shielding them from this sort of interaction with the world can come back to bite them in the butt later on. Rent isn't a perfect musical, and it is firmly stuck in the early-90s era that it sprung from. It has been so copied and aped and surpassed in its challenge to authority that it now feels almost naive and passe. But it can be liberating and thrilling and thoughtful when its allowed to live in the way that it should.