“Just think,” says Sir Lancelot, of his nuptials to a young man named Herbert in Monty Python’s Spamalot, “In a thousand years time, this will still be controversial.” The administration of the South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Junior/Senior High School seems determined to prove the gallant knight prescient, as it has canceled a planned 2015 production of the musical due to its “homosexual themes.”
When the cancellation was first reported in early July, the reporting was based primarily on charges by the school’s drama director, Dawn Burch, who spoke of an email she said she had received from the school’s principal, Jesse Smith, requiring a change of show. On advice of counsel, Burch did not provide the email to the press.
Last week, as a result of a release of emails requested through Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know law, it became clear that the musical’s gay content was, in fact, singularly and explicitly the reason for its cancellation. In a June 27 e-mail from Smith to Burch, he wrote:
I am not comfortable with Spamalot and its homosexual themes for two main reasons:
1. Drama productions are supposed to be community events. They are supposed to be performances that families can attend. To me, this kind of material makes it very hard for this to take place. I don’t want families to be afraid of bringing small kids because of the content. I don’t want members of the community staying home because they feel the material is too risqué or controversial.
2. I think that choosing productions with this type of material or productions that may be deemed controversial put students in a tough spot. I don’t want students to have to choose between their own personal beliefs and whether or not to take part in a production.
When Burch appealed to the superintendent on June 30, he replied, in the only readable portions of a heavily redacted email:
[School Principal] Jesse [Smith] has given the drama program considerable time and attention this year. He has thoroughly explained his reasons regarding show selections to you and discussed them with me as well. His decision is sound.
As for Stamm’s assertion that the musical was never approved for production, the released documents include a $1,935 check from May 12, 2014, payable to Theatrical Rights Worldwide, the licensor of Spamalot, signed by Smith, as well as a check request and contract dated a week earlier, signed by Burch, for the rights to the play. While the check doesn’t specify that it is for Spamalot, it is unlikely that Smith would have assumed the check was payment in arrears for the school’s spring musical presented in March, as standard show licensing practice is for advance payment.
Following the release of the internal communications by the school in mailings dated Aug. 18, the contents were disclosed by the two parties that had filed a request for them: progressive advocacy organization Keystone Progress (via press release, including links to the complete document set) and me (via blog post) on Aug. 21. This yielded a half-dozen national news stories, but to date, no local or regional press outlet in central Pennsylvania has reported on the new disclosures, leaving the administration’s obfuscations intact. [Update, Aug. 26: The Williamsport Sun-Gazette informs me it is working on a story on the topic.] Stamm and Smith have not responded to my requests for comment, and Burch, when reached, declined to comment further.
Prior to the release of the materials, the school administration announced at an Aug. 4 board of education meeting that a “public performance policy” had been put in place. It says, in part:
Material that is generally considered offensive, suggestive, or demeaning based on race, religion, age, gender, or sexual orientation is not appropriate for school performances.
What the policy did not say is that material supporting inclusive representations of race, religion, age, gender, or sexual orientation would be encouraged. Currently in Pennsylvania, marriage equality is the law, however there is no equal rights protection for sexual orientation.
Students return to school in South Williamsport today with the false impression that their drama director provoked an unfounded controversy. What they don’t know is that their principal and superintendent assert that LGBTQ life is unsuitable for families to see, that their parents might be “afraid” of “small kids” seeing gay relationships even in a broadly comic setting, and that there are concerns about attendance at such a show because the material is “risqué.” The students also don’t know that their principal believes that LGBTQ representation might force some of them to make decisions about their personal beliefs, which is presumably part of education and maturation. There are important lessons still to be taught in South Williamsport, but only if the school administration and the community learn them first.
To see this article as it appeared on Slate, click here
“I chop down trees, I wear high heels, suspenders and a bra.
I wish I’d been a girlie, just like my dear papa.”
My friends and I happily sang those Monty Python lyrics, at the drop of a hat, throughout our teen years, identifying with Michael Palin’s exuberant character, rather than the men who walked away from him in dismay. Yes, we’d seen men dress as women in comedy sketches, but those were burlesques, painted in broad, garish strokes. There had never been a declaration of donning women’s garb as a part of regular life, let alone by a macho character like a lumberjack.
In my little gang of friends, we didn’t necessarily know or talk much about homosexuality, which was decidedly less open in our suburban lives in the 70s (though one of our group later came out, to little surprise from any of us). We also hadn’t heard of terms like transvestitism or cross-dressing. Remarkable as it may seem, Monty Python may have played a key role in raising our consciousness, even more so when we learned, in the following decade, that Python’s Graham Chapman was gay, sadly lost too young to cancer.
So it’s particularly galling, more than three decades later, to find that South Williamsport Junior/Senior High School in Pennsylvania has just shut down an intended production of Monty Python’s Spamalot reportedly because of its gay content. WNEP News paraphrases the school’s drama director, Dawn Burch, as saying, “school officials dropped the musical because of its homosexual themes, according to an email she says she received.” WNEP quotes the superintendent as saying, “We want our performances to be appropriate for the student performers and audiences so that anyone participating or watching can enjoy all aspects of the show.” There’s no indication of what he finds inappropriate or unenjoyable.
I have already reached out to Burch, as well as to the school’s superintendent, for comment; I’ve received no replies as I write a few hours later. I would very much like to read exactly what the e-mail that nixed the production said. The language needs to be brought out into the open. But if Burch’s characterization is accurate, it marks the first time I’ve encountered a school explicitly saying that gay content caused cancellation of a show; the language is usually veiled, with references to mature themes, difficult material or, as even the WNEP report is headlined, “questionable content.”
The WNEP piece continues, “In that email, Burch says the principal wrote that homosexuality does not exist in a conservative community such as South Williamsport.”
If the principal believes that, then he is standing with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad who denied that homosexuality existed in his country during a 2007 speech at Columbia University. He is backing the rationale of Russia’s Vladimir Putin who has outlawed the “promotion” of homosexuality. That’s a very strange cast of characters for any high school principal to be aligned with, especially in such a conservative community.
While I’ll grant that there’s some language in Spamalot that a combined junior and senior high school might have some concerns about, they certainly could take those moments up with the licensing house, Theatrical Rights Worldwide. In fact, TRW already has an FAQ with suggested edits for schools right on its website (click here, then ‘Resources,’ then ‘FAQ for School Productions’).
But the marriage of the characters Herbert and Lancelot is non-negotiable. I asked Jim Hoare, director of licensing for TRW, whether they would ever entertain the excision of those nuptials, and his answer was blunt: “Absolutely not.” Hoare said that hundred of schools perform Spamalot annually.
This news is just breaking, and I’m writing with limited information at what I suspect and hope is the start of a story, not the end. One facet to be explored: Dawn Burch’s husband Samuel is on the district Board of Education, and both are active in community theatre as well, so there may well be support for the show above the level of superintendent.
Despite this coming to light just before a national holiday (gee, didn’t Trumbull High cancel their production of Rent right before Thanksgiving?), it must survive the weekend festivities, on a wave of deserved outrage. School may not be in session, but hopefully the students can organize, like students in Trumbull High School in Connecticut, like students at Timberlane High in New Hampshire, via social media, to increase pressure on the narrow-minded, retrograde administration.
That any educator or school administrator is still denying gay love and gay life in 2014, that a school would cancel a show in a move designed both implicitly and explicitly to shame and frighten any gay student, teacher or person, is simply ugly and wrong. It’s worth noting that in the very first news piece on this, reporter Kristina Papa quickly found people to counter the principal’s alleged, now retracted, assertion about gay life in South Williamsport, which must have really startled the blinkered administration.
It’s worth noting that gay marriage is legal in Pennsylvania. So it is ironic that, as they marry in Spamalot, Lancelot says to his spouse, “Just think, Herbert, in a thousand years time this will still be controversial.”
I guess Tim the Soothsayer had warned Lancelot about South Williamsport, PA. But maybe we can change history, if we raise our voices together.
I urge you to write Superintendent Dr. Mark Stamm (mstamm@swasd.org) and Principal Jesse Smith (jsmith@swasd.org) to voice your concerns (and please share your correspondence with me, if you’re willing, at howard [at] hesherman [dot] com. But I ask that you do so respectfully, even if the district doesn’t afford the same respect in its attitudes and actions.
Addendum, July 3, 5 pm: WNEP now reports that the principal did not make the statement about “homosexuality not existing.” I have left the material in place with the text and my rhetoric about it struck through, because I cannot deny having shared that original report or that I made statements resulting from it, but to show that they are also no longer supported by facts in evidence. Disclosure of the e-mail at the root of this controversy seems more essential than ever, and it should be noted that the school administration certainly has the legal right to disclose it should it wish to do so.
For those who do read the original WNEP story, it should be noted that the local resident and parent, Manny Tskitas, who makes several statements in support of the school administration’s position and questions the play choice, is also a staff member of the South Williamsport school district, as the librarian for grades K through 6. It would have been beneficial if WNEP had noted his affiliation.
Correction, July 5, 7:30: The original version of this post stated that Graham Chapman died of AIDS. That was an error and the text has been updated with accurate information.
