The day the music died.
 

*&#*$! High School.

Less than one week from opening day, Moonie Jr's high school administration decided to cancel the fall production of "Chicago". Apparently someone complained about the subject matter and so in order to not offend anyone....

Well I gotta say, I'm pretty damn offended. In fact I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

Wow. That's awful. I hope someone will organize a performance off-campus. What's the worst they could do, end up doing the Cell Block Tango?

It'd be awesome if you started counter-protests.

I read today some parents are SUING a certain high school to prevent them from staging the High-School-Toned-Down versions of Rent and The Laramie Project.


But, Chicago? WTF?!?

In high school. when Prop. 8 kept us from being able to use the school theatre to put on shows during the summer, we created Corona Youth Theatre Company. Did 3 shows that summer in two different local theatres.

Sadly, people are always going to be stupid.

Yeah, if all else fails, I can definitely see pulling a "Footloose" on them.

At this point we are rallying the troops and trying to determine exactly what the relevant facts are, and who to go after. I'll interrupt regular programming as events warrant.

There's your first mistake.

I hate to digress, but how did Prop 8 prevent you from putting on shows at the school in the summer? Were you doing Prop 8 The Musical??

The pendulum swings. Back in 1980 when we did Woody Allen's "God," we had to change lines like "What if the message is 'Does the queen have the clap?'" to 'Does the queen have a social disease?' And so on. Another kid wanted to do a scene from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" but was not allowed to. A decade later, our drama teacher was receiving awards for student-written productions dealing with AIDS and other teen issues.

Apparently the pendulum has swung back.

Okay, my younger son's Middle School did a ripping good "Cell Block Tango" in a review a few years ago. In a public school. So, yeah...WTF? With a WEEK to go? Sounds more like someone was looking for a reason to cancel the musical and used censoring the show as an excuse. But then, I've developed a suspicious nature in my old age...

Back in my parochial school days in the 60s the nuns wrote new lyrics to "Officer Krupke" because they didn't like the ones we were singing. But at least WE opted to dump it rather than sing "my brother's in distress."