Censorship of one-act playsparks debate over rights

By Lauren Heaton

Just as he has done the past four years of his career at Yellow Springs High School, senior Peter Keahey set out this year to write a one-act play that was funny, compelling and critical of today’s world. What he got instead was controversy in the village regarding the responsibility of school administrators to censor a school-sponsored function and students’ right to freedom of expression.

The one-act plays are an annual YSHS tradition of vignettes written, directed and performed by students as a fundraising event for the YSHS Theater Arts Association. For this year’s event, which took place Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 8–10, Keahey wrote a play titled “Cat Calls,” which he was asked to alter due to language and innuendo of a sexual nature that was deemed inappropriate for a school-sponsored event, according to YSHS Principal John Gudgel and Superintendent Norm Glismann.

“Cat Calls” is a play about a group of construction workers whose “cat calling” to women on the street is met with serious misfortune after a gypsy woman curses them for their vulgarity. The play’s message, according to Keahey, is that “you shouldn’t be obscene or offensive toward women because nothing good will happen if you do.” And in order to make the audience really feel the offense of the men’s bad behavior, he said, he had to include lines in the script that one might really hear on the street.

“I wanted people to go, ‘Oh, that’s not how you talk to somebody,’” Keahey said on Monday.

According to Glismann, Gudgel had requested to review any potentially offensive material two weeks in advance of production. But because of students’ busy schedules, said one-act participant Meggy Hild, traditionally the one acts are written late and produced and rehearsed at the last minute. This year in particular, with the YSHS’s special Water Gala performance of Urinetown on Jan. 30, students were late finishing their one acts, causing the production to be delayed by a week, she said.

No scripts were turned in until this year’s one-act coordinator Jill Wells submitted “Cat Calls” late in the afternoon on Thursday, the day before opening night, Glismann said. Both Gudgel and Glismann reviewed the script and then met with Keahey, Wells and Theater Arts board membr Marybeth Burkholder the following afternoon at school to express their concerns with it, Glismann said.

Several lines were singled out by school administrators as particularly offensive, Keahey said, including the pick-up line from a construction worker, “Hey, are you a Pokemon, because I wanna get a Peekachu.” Another line that caused concern was, “I may not be Fred Flintstone, but I can make your bed rock,” Keahey said. In a different but potentially offensive part in the play, one of the construction workers is seen thrusting his hips while using a power drill between his legs.

“There were six or seven lines that we felt were inappropriate and that violated the guidelines in the student handbook,” Glismann said on Monday. “Kids can show their creativity and wit in ways that don’t cross a line.”

Keahey’s inclination, rather than to alter the one act, was to cancel it altogether, he said. After discussing it with his cast on Friday afternoon, the students agreed to remove “Cat Calls” from the production and replace it with a statement about the dangers of censorship and the importance of free speech, which they wrote a few hours before Friday’s curtain.

Friday’s production and censorship speech received a full house standing ovation, and in an interview afterward, student participants John Hempfling, Anna Forster and Hild said they felt they had represented themselves fairly and completely. From their perspective, the one acts have always been an outlet for self expression for youth. They were all aware that audience members have complained to the school about previous plays and one acts in the past. But according to Forster, in the past the cast has handled potentially offensive material by warning the audience ahead of time and sometimes providing childcare services for parents.

According to Gudgel, last year’s one act, “Man Man,” received complaints regarding inappropriate content of a sexual nature, as did last fall’s Broadway play, “Lost in Yonkers,” which included the use of the word “Goddamnit.” “Man Man” was co-written by Keahey and Forster and included a giant phallic gun that was supposed to symbolize the ridiculous over-inflation of masculinity in society, Keahey said.

“The one acts are a creative outlet that have allowed me to get across certain messages I’ve thought about, and I wanted to make people laugh at the same time,” he said.

Organizers of the one-act plays have never specified what age or type of audience the students are writing for, according to Keahey, who said he typically writes for his own age group.

But everyone in the community is welcome to attend school-sponsored events, said Glismann, whether it is a family with young children, an aunt or a grandfather, or someone from outside Yellow Springs who may have different standards and levels of tolerance.

“We strive to maintain integrity, character and values in the schools,” Glismann said. “Our decisions aren’t based on who’s views are the loudest or most popular, but we try to do what’s right for our students.”

“We’re in a position as school administrators trusted by the public to make sure the kids are following proper protocol, and we have to take into account issues such as community values, student handbook, proper context, artistic expression, consistency and what’s appropriate for the classroom and extensions of the classroom,” Gudgel said.

Limiting the creative content of the one acts, however, according to Jerome Borchers, a board member of the Theater Arts Association, has the effect of stifling the youth the village is trying to support. As a parent of four children and with a six-year history of heavy involvement in the school’s theater program, Borchers feels that the openness to explore creatively is what distinguishes Yellow Springs schools and allows its students to thrive in ways they might not elsewhere, he said. And if the standards for creative expression are changing, he feels he and all community members deserve to participate in defining how.

“I appreciate this forum for expression for the kids in the one acts, and censoring them is wrong for this community,” Borchers said.

School administrators began a dialogue with Theater Arts Association board members over the weekend, and school board members will continue a public discussion of the issues at their meeting, which will take place Thursday night, Feb. 14, at 7 p.m. in the Mills Lawn gym.

According to school board member Richard Lapedes, this is a “teachable moment in Yellow Springs” about the issue of censorship and appropriateness in the community, as well as the purpose of and latitude afforded to the one acts. He anticipates the community will address the managerial process regarding the one acts as well as the community’s tolerance level and how that applies to the one acts and to school board policy.

“It isn’t black and white, and it is not subject to either conservative or progressive fundamentalism,” Lapedes said on Monday. “Anyone that’s got a simple answer, beware.”

Though “Cat Calls” was not performed as part of the YSHS One Acts over the weekend, it did get a full-house audience at Antioch Theater on Sunday as a privately sponsored show. After Sunday’s school performance of the one acts, audience members were invited to exit the building and then reenter for a free viewing of “Cat Calls” in the theater, which was rented by Keahey’s mother, Justeen Keahey.

Because one-act performer Kyle Buchwalder could not make Sunday’s performance, Keahey had “Cat Calls” video taped and is making copies of the performance that are available for purchase.

Keahey said he never meant to cause controversy with his plays, and that much of the response has come from community members.

“All I did was cancel a play; the town did the rest.”

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com