Venue offers pour in for censored Sherwood Middle School play
Students opt to take play outside of school rather than give in to principal's request for script revisions
Sherwood drama students and their advisers say the play must go on.
One week after Sherwood Middle School students voted to cancel a controversial play rather than give in to a principal’s request to revise the production, area offers of alternative venues — one as far away as Astoria – continue to pour in.
The cast of "Higher Ground" say, at this time, they still plan to produce the play, just not at Sherwood Middle School.
As of Monday, no less than five organizations have offered their support to allow “Higher Ground” to be performed inside their facilities, according to Ria Torricelli, whose daughter, Genny, is a cast member.
They include the Lewis and Clark Student Center, The Catlin Gabel School, Frog Pond Church in Wilsonville, Northwest Children’s Theater and the River Theater in Astoria.
“We’re waiting to see who’s got what dates (available),” Torricelli said.
Meanwhile, students also are looking for locations around Sherwood where they can practice in case that opportunity comes up sooner than expected.
“We can’t rehearse in the school; it’s basically been censored there,” Torricelli said.
“Higher Ground" is an original play written by the school's drama teacher, Jennie Brown, that explores the effects of bullying and hate speech. The play was originally scheduled to open last weekend but was postponed just two days before the first curtain call after Principal Anna Pittioni announced that the content of the play was "too mature" for her students.
Cast members met on Thursday, Feb. 21, to discuss Pittioni’s announcement and voted to not revise the play and, therefore, to not perform at the middle school.
“They had two options,” Pittioni said. “They could vote to work on revisions or to not revise the play.”
Not revising the script would mean not performing the play at the middle school. In the end, 35 of the 47 cast members present voted against making revisions, Pittioni said.
Pittioni postponed the play earlier in the week and said some of the content was too mature for her students.
“Based on the broad audience of students we serve, I believe that the existing content exceeds the maturity of many of our students,” Pittioni wrote in an announcement sent out to parents on Wednesday, Feb. 20. “Additionally, I believe that the play can be revised and performed at a later date.”
Pittioni met with students and some parents Wednesday afternoon to explain her reasoning. After the meeting, she said it will be up to students to come up with a play that works.
“What I’ve done is ask them to work with me and the drama director to rework this,” Pittioni said later.
She had concerns about a number of topics including referring to people as “Nazis” and talk of gassing people in a locker room. In addition, Pittioni said there were repeated uses of terms that could be extremely hurtful to audience members.
Pittioni said there was a mistaken perception that the play was somehow canceled because of a scene involving one boy dancing with another boy.
“The issues that are raised are extremely sensitive,” she said. “They’re poignant, they’re hurtful and I’m not convinced students are ready to view the play as it is.”
Pittioni said the Sherwood School District has a process when it comes to reviewing controversial material and “the process wasn’t followed here.”
“I didn’t read the script,” she said. “I didn’t get the script until yesterday (Tuesday).”
She estimated that there were 36 original cast members. With those working on props, lighting and sets, closer to 50 students are working on the production.
Some parents upset
Although Pittioni said parents had e-mailed their concerns about the play in recent days — including several parents who pulled their children from the production — it was her decision to postpone it. She said she was not sure when it will be rescheduled.
Parent Gary Horner, whose daughter usually is in school plays but skipped this one because of sports, said he supported the play in its current version.
“The whole play has just a fabulous message with it and it’s about bullying,” said Horner.
On Tuesday, Horner sent an e-mail to local media and said he supported addressing the topic, having been a victim of bullying himself.
“To think that ‘Higher Ground,’ a play that confronts the abusive reality of bullying, was canceled three days prior to the performance because of a reference to homosexuality and other contemporary topics that some may have difficulty acknowledging, saddens me,” he wrote.
Sarah Grant, whose 13-year-old son, Freddie, has a major part in the middle school production, she was upset with the late date of the postponement.
“I’m very disappointed on a number of levels,” she said. “The kids have worked really hard. The auditions were in October.”
Like Horner, she said the major themes involve bullying and labeling.
“It really comes together nicely and I thought it was a positive, wonderful message,” Grant said.
In addition to the scene involving the two boys, she said she thinks there may have been concerns about how teachers were portrayed in the performance and said there was a scene where a set of mean girls call another girl a “cow.”
“I think girls call each other far worse things than that,” Grant said.
Grant also said her mother, who lives in Seattle, had already purchased a train ticket to see her grandson perform this weekend.
rpitz@commnewspapers.com