Gay Star News: A school district in the Midwestern US state of Iowa has canceled a performance of The Laramie Project, a play about the impact of the murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard.
Ottumwa High School drama students were prepared to stage Moisés Kaufman's work in the upcoming school year, but district officials denied permission.
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/iowa-high-school-cancels-performance-laramie-project130713#sthash.32ZB3Ifw.dpuf
3 comments:
The Laramie Project is such a powerful piece, and while it may be about a gay college student, the over-arching message of the play is about bullying and how it can affect one's life. I have to agree with the students on this one, because it really makes an impact and shows how truly awful some people can be. While this may not be as a whole a "family-friendly" show, it informs the community that bullying needs to stop. Since the kids said that their principal was heavy involved in the anti-bullying, was it the fact that the Matthew Shepard was gay that he didn't want to do it? The issues of today need to be faced now, so that an act like the one that happened to Matthew Shepard, doesn't happen to any other kid out there.
This makes me just plain mad. Not at the school, not really. I'm more angry with the circumstances that force schools to censure their shows. Community backlash at shows deemed "inappropriate" has a great deal of power over school boards, even in situations where it isn't necessarily going to happen. Drama programs live and die at the hands of the ones who buy tickets, so offending them just doesn't work.
Schools, especially this one, seem to be very hypocritical in their anti-bullying and discrimination acts. They'll have multiple meetings and announcements but when it comes to real life situations, they'll shy away and won't make a big deal about it. There are some teachers who take these problems very seriously and will try and fix them. Those people need a teacher of the year award for not being ignorantly blind. This school needs to recognize the problems their students are trying to address. If they aren't going to take action themselves, they should at least let their students face it for them.
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