Stephen Schwartz, Dramatists Guild 'Vehemently Oppose' Cancellation of South Williamsport's SPAMALOT

As BroadwayWorld reported earlier this summer, via blogger and industry professional Howard Sherman, South Williamsport, a high school in Lycoming County, PA, had been forced to cancel their spring production of Monty Python's Spamalot due to "controversial content," which includes a homosexual marriage.

Following the decision, Principal Jesse Smith made a statement to the local paper, saying: "When we have extracurricular activities, we do not ask the students to make a choice as to what they might deem controversial material," and "I don't want kids to feel like they had to choose between performing and what they felt was controversial material. They should be able to sign up for a play and know that it's school-sponsored and they won't have to make a moral or ethical decision."

Today, the Dramatists Guild of America, via President Stephen Schwartz, sent the following statement to Smith:

"Dear Mr. Smith:

We at the Dramatists Guild of America -- the national organization of playwrights, composers, and lyricists -- have been following the developments surrounding the cancellation of Spamalot in the South Williamsport Area School District. We now join together, on behalf of playwrights everywhere, in strong and unequivocal protest of your discriminatory motivations for cancelling this show.

In the past, when a school principal has considered censoring high school theater out of concern that the community needed some sort of preparation for a particular work's subject matter, the Dramatists Guild has offered to help for such preparation. For instance, in a recent case in Trumbull, Connecticut, the show Rent was re-instated under these circumstances. But while we would gladly serve your community by helping place Spamalot and its various themes into context so that the production can go forward, your well-publicized emails from June imply that any preparation would be futile.

In fact, it appears that you wish to squander an opportunity for education by not only excluding so-called "homosexual themes" from community discussion, but also by distinguishing between homophobia and discrimination against a particular gender, race, ethnicity or nationality. That is, of course, a completely specious distinction.

Would you cancel a school production of The Diary of Anne Frank because of concern over the sensitivities of Holocaust deniers and those with anti-Semitic views in your community? That seems unlikely. Why then are you so solicitous of homophobia? Of course everyone is entitled to his own views, but yours is a public educational institution and thus has an obligation to educate, not merely to placate bigotry so as to avoid "controversy". And if avoiding controversy was your sole purpose, you have clearly failed on that count in rather dramatic fashion.

The reason we dramatists feel so strongly about this is that your actions strike at the very heart of the function of art and culture, as well as the purpose of education. While the arts may sometimes inspire us and support our social institutions, they may also unsettle and challenge us and make us questions our values and assumptions. It must never be considered dangerous to encourage people to think. A culture evolves, in part, based on the provocation of its artists. The best theater, from Oedipus Rex to South Pacific, has always been provocative, challenging, and unsettling. That is part of what theater, art, and education are for.

You have cancelled the production of a popular, established, award-winning and widely-produced theatrical work because of your expressed belief that homosexual themes are somehow at odds with your community's values and put students in a "tough spot." In this way, you are using your authority to impost your own personal worldview on the choice of plays presented to the community. As the representative of writers of all political persuasions and sexual orientations, the writers of the Dramatist Guild vehemently oppose your actions and agenda.

If your students are either unable to present the show this year or are forced to produce it elsewhere instead, this would constitute a lost opportunity for your institution. But we're certain that if you allow the students to move forward with the show at your high school, you will find a great deal of support inside and outside of your community, both for the production and for your willingness to revisit the decision.

In the meantime, if there is anything we can do to help facilitate the reinstatement of the production, please let us know.

Sincerely,

Stephen Schwartz, President
Dramatists Guild of America"

In addition, the South Williamsport Area School Board met for its bi-monthly meeting this Monday, where the high school's SPAMALOT cancellation was left unaddressed until the open segment of the evening, when student Lexi Holtzman said: "Please don't make us choose between what we love to do and having a pretty rough start to our school year."

John Engel, school board president, told the Sun-Gazette following the meeting that no further action would be taken that night, adding, "I want you to understand that we know our community and we know where you're coming from. We want to address this issue but we need time."

The next board meeting has been moved up to September 22 to address whether the show will go on.