Citing the pressures of rising enrollment, a school superintendent in Everett, Massachusetts has eliminated theatre classes at Everett High School. But there appears to be more to the story than that, reports theatre pundit Howard Sherman in a HuffPost blog.
To begin with, Sherman writes, eliminating a section of classes and reassigning a teacher does not seem to be a logical administrative response to increasing enrollment. Moreover, the superintendent had previously expressed reservations about the school's theatre program based on the content of recent shows.
"The plays bothered a lot of us," Superintendent Frederick Foresteire was quoted by Sherman. "The plays had references to sex and drinking." The new drama director will run an extracurricular program and will be required to submit descriptions of props and stage directions to his principal for review two months in advance of each production.
"Does anyone still think this situation has anything to do with budgets?" Sherman writes.
Read his full blog post.