Photo: Mr. Dallimore | By Michael Paulson, New York Times / Yahoo | Stevie Ray Dallimore, an actor and teacher, had been running the theater program for a private boys’ school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a decade, but he never faced a school year like this one.
A proposed production of “She Kills Monsters” at a neighboring girls’ school that would have included his students was rejected for gay content, he said. A “Shakespeare in Love” at the girls’ school that would have featured his boys was rejected because of cross-dressing. His school’s production of “Three Sisters,” the Anton Chekhov classic, was rejected because it deals with adultery and there were concerns that some boys might play women, as they had in the past, he said.
School plays — long an important element of arts education and a formative experience for creative adolescents — have become the latest battleground at a moment when America’s political and cultural divisions have led to a spike in book bans, conflicts over how race and sexuality are taught in schools, and efforts by some politicians to restrict drag performances and transgender health care for children and teenagers.
For decades, student productions have faced scrutiny over whether they are age-appropriate, and more recently left-leaning students and parents have pushed back against many shows over how they portray women and people of color. The latest wave of objections is coming largely from right-leaning parents and school officials.
The final act in Dallimore’s yearlong drama in Chattanooga? He learned that his position at McCallie School, along with that of his counterpart at the nearby Girls Preparatory School, was being eliminated. They were invited to apply for a single new position overseeing theater at both schools; both educators are now out of the jobs.
“This is obviously a countrywide issue that we are a small part of,” Dallimore said. “It’s definitely part of a bigger movement — a strongly concerted effort of politics and religion going hand in hand, banning books and trying to erase history and villainizing otherness.”
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/getting-hard-stage-school-play-120157935.html
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[Editor’s note: Many musicals are being targeted as well. Grease, a musical about high school seniors, is being targeted as “not appropriate for high school students!” Believe me, high school students know everything that Grease brings up and more!]
Photo: Stevie Ray Dallimore (https://www.facebook.com/stevierayd/)
It’s Getting Hard to Stage a School Play Without Political Drama
