Jason Robert Brown Responds To Principal Nixing High School Production of 13 Because Of Terminally Ill Character

With SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, THE LAST FIVE YEARS and PARADE, Jason Robert Brown has established a reputation as a greatly admired theatre composer/lyricist whose musicals don't run very long in New York, but achieve widespread popularity in regional and amateur productions.

13, which opened on Broadway in October of 2008 and closed briefly into the next year, only added to his rep by becoming a popular choice for school productions. With a book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn, 13 had a company solely comprised of young adolescents playing out the dramas of life in middle-America junior high. Its central character, a Jewish student from New York trying to fit in, has an acerbically witty sidekick pal named Archie, who has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD).

In a recent blog entry, Brown tells of recently receiving an email about a high school principal who had told one of his students that they could not put on a production of 13 because of the terminally ill character. He then shares his response, which he also emailed to the student. As of yet, no word has been received in regards to whether or not the principal has reconsidered.

Before Broadway, 13 premiered in Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum and Brown asked his students at USC if they knew anyone with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy so that he could ask about the way Archie was being written. He was introduced to Jonathan Murphy, who was then a 23-year-old creative writing major, who by that time could travel only in a wheelchair after a spinal fusion operation in his teens.

The composer/lyricist sent Murphy an email describing the plot and the character, adding, "Part of the point is that while everyone else on stage is wasting a lot of time dealing with teenager-specific problems that seem incredibly important at that moment but won't ten minutes later, Archie has very real problems and no time to waste. He is, in every sense, a reality check."

He then asked if Murphy would consider writing him an essay on what it's like to be a teenager living with DMD, so that the cast and creatives would have a better understanding of the realities involved.

"At 13, I saw myself as normal despite the fact that my steroid therapy made me fat," wrote Murphy. "I saw myself as normal despite the wheelchair. I was just a happy kid. Of course, it helped that I didn't have to face any trouble beyond muscle weakness. Respiratory complications were just a figment of the future. They were something for those good doctors to worry about."

The lengthy essay, describing first crushes, playing touch football and hanging out with friends in between descriptions of treatments, was published in the show's program. Murphy and his family attended opening night as Brown's guests and wrote back saying, "Archie was handled superbly."

In 2011, the composer learned that Murphy has passed on at age 27. His essay for the program of 13 was likely his only published work. Brown has posted it in its entirety.

In retrospect, Brown observes, "I can't say I really understand why a school would have a problem performing 13 simply because there's a terminally ill child in the story. What would the objection be? In a world of THE HUNGER GAMES and THE GIVER and THE MAZE RUNNER, portraying a boy with a real-world illness shouldn't be all that controversial. Maybe the objection is that Archie gets laughs? I don't think we make fun of Archie for being handicapped or sick; I think he as a character makes light of his own troubles as a coping mechanism. But 13 isn't a show about Muscular Dystrophy, any more than it's about Bar Mitzvahs or Indiana - it's a show about the travails of growing up and discovering who you are and who your 'tribe' really is. It's not that it's 'just a musical, don't take it seriously,' I'd be the last person to espouse that philosophy; it's more that Archie's just a teenager, and he's acting like teenagers do - we have to respect his humanity by allowing him to be whoever he is, even if occasionally whoever he is is an asshole."

Click here for the entire blog entry.