Ohio high school students say their fall play was canceled because it had a gay character
Superintendent claims Hillsboro High School's play was canceled because of "language and mature content," but students are skeptical.
Students at an Ohio high school say their fall play was canceled because one of the characters was gay, blaming school officials for scuttling the play after the students had rehearsed for more than a month.
The drama department at Hillsboro High School in Hillsboro, Ohio, approximately 50 miles east of Cincinnati, has been preparing to put on a production of Qui Nguyen’s She Kills Monsters, a play in which the main character, who loses her parents and her younger sister in a car accident, and then seeks to find out more about her sister — whom she was never close with — by playing a Dungeons & Dragons module written by her sister. In the course of her investigation, she realizes her sister was struggling with her sexuality.
She Kills Monsters is popular among high school and university drama programs, and was ranked No. 3 on TheaterLove’s list of 35 best plays for high school, reports The Cincinnati Enquirer. Hillsboro was slated to hold its opening night on Nov. 19.
Officially, the reason for the cancellation was the “sexual nature” of some scenes, according to school administrators and district-wide education officials.
“The district’s decision to cancel the fall play is based on the play being inappropriate for our K-12 audience. This production is recommended for ages 12 and older due to the language and mature content,” Superintendent Tim Davis said in a statement. “As a district, we based our decision on the play’s use of inappropriate language, profanity, homophobic slurs, sexual innuendos and graphic violence.”
But some of the Hillsboro students involved in the play dispute the stated reason for the cancellation. Junior Chris Cronan told the Enquirer that there are three different versions of the script for She Kills Monsters, including a “Young Adventurers Edition,” which tones down some of the profanity and sexually explicit scenes to make them more suitable for younger actors and audiences. That dulled-down version was the one the Hillsboro students were using.
Cronan said the play is supposed to be about inclusivity and learning “to love and accept people for who they are.”
Cronan’s father, Ryan Cronan, said the show’s directors held a meeting for students and parents a week before the cancellation to answer questions about the play. He said he had expected parents and school officials to have reservations about scenes in which actors engage in combat on stage, but no parents complained. However, they did complain about the “sexualization” of certain characters, specifically those implied to be gay.
“They didn’t have a problem with the sexualization until it became about the LGBTQ community,” Ryan Cronan said. “So, it’s pretty obvious.”
Duncan Pickering-Polstra, a senior, also expressed skepticism about the stated reason for the cancellation, noting that when he was 13 years old, he appeared in Les Miserables as a pimp selling prostitutes at the docks — but no one took objection to the content of the musical or his portrayal of that character.
“It’s not about the sex,” he said, calling school officials “cowardly” for not allowing the play to move forward. “It’s about gay people. And if anyone tells you otherwise, they’re lying.”
See also: California high school students tear down LGBTQ Pride flag, defecate on it
Some students and parents noted that Jeff Lyle, the pastor of Good News Gathering, a church in Hillsboro was present at the meeting held a week before the play was canceled, implying that he may have exercised influence over Superintendent Davis. Davis denied those allegations in his statement, saying that he had not had “any contact or communication with Mr. Lyle or any other religious entities concerning the characters in or the production of this play.”
“This decision was made after the administration read through the script,” Davis said. “I do apologize to the students for the time already spent on the play. Future plays and productions will be read and approved by the administration before we hold any auditions. I would also like to apologize to the entire community for any stress or division this may have caused.”
Students and alumni of the high school’s theater program have created a GoFundMe to raise money to put the show on at a different venue — potentially in Cincinnati or Columbus — over the summer. Thus far, the site has raised more than $20,000.
“Without the show being sponsored by the school, though, we have no funds to produce it, which is why we need your help,” Zebadiah Pickering-Polstra, Duncan’s brother, the GoFundMe’s organizer, wrote on the fundraiser site. “These kids, my siblings included, have poured their heart and soul into this show. We want to see their aspirations realized.”
He added that any donations that do not go toward the show will be donated to a “friendly cause.”
“We are not out to get anybody. We are not out to shame anybody publicly, really. We’re not out to take down anyone. We are out to stop prejudice and bigotry from infiltrating the public school system,” Chris Cronan told the Enquirer. “And we are out to just try to do our play the way it was meant to be done. And we’re going to be able to do that now.”
See also:
Brooklyn Diocese fires gay Catholic school music teacher for marrying his husband
Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs transgender athlete ban into law
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