The NY Times has a great piece up today about high schools attempting to mount productions of the musical Rent. This is the first school year that a modified edition of the play — which skips bad language and the sexually explicit song "Contact"– has been available, but that hasn’t been enough for some school districts. The problem? Apparently the show features a few gay people. (Lest you think this is just a problem in the red states, the piece focuses first on a California high school whose theater teacher says he had to drop a planned production.)
I had two reactions reading the piece: First, anger that the simple fact of gayness can still be so objectionable. On second thought, though, I was kind of envious. When I was in high school in the early ’90s, a show like Rent wouldn’t have been discussed at all. The theater department at my school did a stage version of the movie Fame in which one of the characters was thoroughly de-gayed. (In our version, the aspiring actor was just really, really sensitive.) And I won’t even get into a neighboring high school’s version of Hair. (No, "Sodomy" didn’t make the cut.)
What do you think PopWatchers? Is the battle over Rent a sign of progress? Or of how far we still have to go?
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I was a drama geek all my life. I saw rent when I was at the ripe age of 19 or 20, and hated it. I thought it was far too grown up for me. I saw it with my mom and she loved it.
She was 44.
Seriously, Rent is too gay? What a terrible message to send to gay highschoolers – “sorry kids, but your sexual orientation is too objectionable to even discuss”. Fail. I mean, I’m with you in that it’s good people are even considering this in the first place – my high school stuck with classics like Hello Dolly or West Side Story (just so we’re clear, extramarital sex and gun violence are appropriate for a school play, but not homosexuality? Gotcha). But it’s still really disappointing that people would object to performing Rent because it dares to show that there are gay people! And they’re just like us! They fall in love, they screw up, they have fun, they live their lives! It’s 2008 people. Get over it.
I would have killed to be able to perform RENT in high school! Sadly, the most provocative thing we did was “Sugar” (The musical version of “Some Like it Hot”) where the two lead males dressed up like women.
I did that same version of Fame in HS (also southern Ca)–poor sheltered me hadn’t even seen the movie at that point. We kept ad-libbing references for which our director kept getting into trouble, to her vast amusement. These are the same officials so concerned about parents’ reaction they allowed a young actress to traipse about onstage in her skivvies in a production of Noises Off.
I can see editiing some of the explicitness out of Rent for a HS production, but pretending gay (or any sexual) relationships don’t exist is just silly. Are they editing the references to drug usage as well? It’s not as if the show doesn’t relate possible, realistic consequences of the decisions we make. Bravo to the schools who forage ahead in producing the show.
I can see taking out the cuss words and explicit items, but to edit the gay characters, that is just wrong. I am a teacher and I would have no problem with a tamer Rent being performed at my school.
West Aurora High School (IL) was able to put on a production last spring – the first high school to do so, and even got permission to do it before Rent closed on Broadway – they have a phenomenal theatre department and put on a great performance of the musical with no edits what-so-ever (as far as I could tell).
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1807032,00.html
I’m surprised these people didn’t think Grease was promoting “promiscuity” and gangs. Rent would be an amazing opportunity for kids to get out of the Oklahoma, Sound of Music..etc, school production rut. The story behind Rent is amazing!! (and I’m 50 yrs old, I took my daughter to see it when she was in high school)
My old high school, West Aurora High School in Aurora, IL was the first high school to actually perform the school version of Rent last year in May. I was disappointed that the NY Times article didn’t highlight them. The article makes it seem as if every attempt at a school version has been met without support and therefor unsuccessful. West’s show sold-out all 3 nights and was even written up in TIME Magazine. (http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1807032,00.html)
I’m proud of my alma mater.
if they cant do the play the way it is intended then it should not be done. i love, love rent my daughter and i have seen it probably 100 times. and i let her watch it to show her that being different should be embraced not pushed away. i also wnated her to see not only what hiv does to yourself but to the ones you love. it is a beautiful and touching musical that shows that as long as you love yourself then that is all that matters. it should be done BUT the way it was written it could open these kids eyes sooo much and show young homosexual children that it doesnt matter what color, what sex you are,what sex you love, and most importantly how just because youre different life is good. it has great messages about drugs, sex, and even violence that REAL people face. my daughter now knows that i will love her if she loved another woman, she knows that sex needs to be safe, and hiv doesnt discriminate.
My only problem is that one of the messages of the show seems to be “people with artistic integrity don’t need to pay their bills.” Not exactly a great notion to pass on to kids who are about to go enter the real world.
I’ve seen the high school edited version and it was really good. I live in West Virginia, and to my knowledge, there was outcry about the gay characters. The audience loved Collins, Angel, Joanne and Maureen. It was a big hit, and having seen both a “real” production, and the edited version, I can say the cussing wasn’t really missed and the message of the play still came through. Kudos to the high schools who are willing to take a chance with this play.
I meant there was NO outcry.
When I was in high school (1993-94), we put on a play called “Mary, Mary”…there’s a line in there about some guy who has the theory that Shakespeare was gay. We had to take out the line…it was just a throwaway line, but we tried to fight it. It’s amazing how repressive things were even 15 years ago, isn’t it?
There are probably things that high school students aren’t ready to deal with, but I think they’re all aware that gay people and “contact” exist. Most of the time censorship is unnecessary, silly, and useless.
Are you kidding me DW? That’s the message you get from “Rent.” You may want to go rent, no pun intended, the movie real quick and give it another look. And people with artistic integrity shouldn’t pay rent. so there
When I was in high school my chorus teacher wanted us to do a song from “Rent.” Then someone found out that the play had (Gross! No way!) gay characters, and the boys in the class practically RIOTED so they wouldn’t have to sing it. Ah, Proctorville, OH in the late 90s…