I just picked this item up from Pam’s site:
(Portland, Oregon) A local high school has canceled a play about a gay man, after the principal deemed the sexual content and the play’s use of profanity offensive.
“The Laramie Project” was in production at Southridge High School when Principal Amy Gordon decided to pull the plug. She could not be reached for comment.
The play chronicles the true story of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay college student, who was killed seven years ago in Laramie, Wyo. The production — which has been performed at schools across the country including at a Hillsboro (Oregon) high school — pieces together the events surrounding the killing through the reactions of numerous residents of Laramie.
So the play about a gay hate crime is OK eight miles down the road in Hillsboro, but not OK in Beaverton? And at last year’s Oregon Thespians Conference, the play was performed by Astoria High School as Saturday’s main closing performance, joining Lend Me a Tenor from Thursday and Hamlet from Friday. The only differences I can discern between the three school districts is that Beaverton is a bit more upper class and white compared to Hillsboro and Astoria.
Maureen Wheeler, a spokeswoman for the school district, said the play is considered controversial because it contains profanities and sexual content.
She also said Willis failed to have the selection reviewed by the school’s principal in keeping with the district’s controversial materials policies.
At Century High School in Hillsboro, theater instructor Bill Johnson said “The Laramie Project” met initial resistance from school officials. It eventually ran after profanities and one sensitive scene were removed.
“We looked at it from a discrimination standpoint,” Johnson said. “It’s a murder story and the victim happened to be gay, and that’s why he was killed. Why is this any different from Anne Frank, who was killed for her religion, or ‘Romeo and Juliet’?”
Well, silly, Anne Frank wasn’t a lesbian and Romeo wasn’t hot for Mercutio, for starters.
They should really concentrate on having the kids perform something less offensive, like last year’s Hamlet, with its murder, betrayal, poisonings, implied incest, and such. At least there’s no queers in that play (well, unless we ponder the relationship between Guildenstern and Rozencrantz…)
