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

By Ray Pitz

The Sherwood Gazette, Feb 20, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (97 Reader comments)

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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.”

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