An editorial written on the behalf of the Santa Rosan as a whole.
Following the public uproar over Dog Sees God’s cancellation, the district issued numerous apologies, claiming that they were pro-theatre. In the email sent out to the community by our district office, they stated that: “The decision to cancel the show was made out of a desire to protect students and ensure a welcoming and supportive atmosphere for everyone.”
CHECK THE WARNINGS: The Santa Rosa City Schools district pulled its initial ban, but this incident has left its mark on future performances. “We don’t want to choose shows that should be suitable for a third grader. . . . We picked the show because we thought it had an important message and we will continue to pick shows we think are important,” said Leila Paine (12). Art is emotion and opinion; to censor that is to censor speech and feeling. Photo by Laurel Merrick
MORE THAN JUST A PLAY: Despite moving the show all the way to the Mercury Theater in Petaluma, the community still shows up to support our actors. “It was heartwarming to see how many people cared about what we went through and the support we got from the community. . . It is a sign that things are changing but my class handled it in a way that shows we don’t have to accept censorship,” said Leila Paine (12). Despite the chaos and censorship, this event helped strengthen our local community. Photo by Laurel Merrick
But here’s the scoop: despite fake smiles and apology emails, the only true changes that have been made are the district taking more subtle, underhanded actions to cripple the ArtQuest theatre program.
Censorship is defined as “the use of the state and other legal or official means to restrict speech.” This would include any efforts to use prior review to highlight problematic pieces in order to justify shutting down or changing whatever gets flagged. It would also include completely disregarding the preexisting legally binding contract that parents and students both sign, stating that students are allowed to do college-level work. The preexisting ArtQuest contract should completely protect the theatre performances and other artistic pieces produced by ArtQuest students from censorship. At the moment, the ArtQuest theatre program seems to be the only one that is experiencing prior review.
After talking with every other high school theatre program in the district, it was revealed that none were required to provide any form of prior review, though some chose to include administration in a review process. “I had made the choice to run all our show ideas through our administration before publicizing,” said Maria Carrillo’s theatre program director Denise Elia-Yen. Others simply did not. Montgomery High School’s theatre director Chris Schloemp said, “There was no district review, no previews.” Some theatre teachers willingly included administrator feedback, but it was solely their choice; review never went higher up than the principal, nor was it ever mandated.
Alongside the slew of unprecedented intrusion by the district, ArtQuest theatre was now required to provide content warnings. No school has been required to post warnings for productions, even if several directors do so anyway. “I have not been required to, but my team and I have made the choice to put warnings on all literature and within announcements to promote our plays,” said Elia-Yen. Santa Rosa is now made to belittle their performances with every promotion of productions. An interested party will attend regardless, while a disinterested party won’t. The purpose of promotion is to make people interested. All of this self-denigration is actively putting people off.
The long-term ramifications must be appreciated. Nobody wants to watch watered-down, pacified theatre, which has been demonstrated by the mass attendance following the controversy. It’s degrading and short-sighted. It proves the district’s distrust of students and also completely disrespects the autonomy allotted to the specialized staff. It oversteps, demeans and stunts the growth of the program. Students previously uninterested in pursuing acting in high school aren’t going to witness the magical attraction of this program. The district’s interference will turn this program into tapioca, unsatisfying and unappealing for prospectors and all who participate.
So much of art is the freedom to act and express in a wholly unique, unobstructed way, something that some administrators have forgotten. The intrusion into the realm of creation doesn’t only potentially destroy the confidence of artists, it also scars the creative process by summoning an uninvited entity with unaligned values.
As theatre students were preparing for the Lenaea Festival, one of the largest and most prestigious theatre competitions in California, they had expected little interference. Administrators and the district had both said they supported productions. As such, they were surprised when SRHS administration was told to review their scripts before submitting them to Lenaea. As discussed at a professional development day, all of the VAPA teachers decided that the district should let teachers control their own content. “The whole process we have to go through now is just the same exact process we had before, but now it’s actually written down,” said ArtQuest theatre student and senior Leila Paine.
However, Lenea went almost perfectly. Junior Jonah Wurtzel and senior Ireland Benton earned bronze for their original scripts. Juniors Dalia Bugica and Alexa Bannister won gold for their costume design. Junior Elljay Broderick, senior Dean Jahnsen, junior Josephine Bourgea and Paine won a bronze and three silver awards for their monologues. Jahnsen, Benton, Paine and junior Elanor McCoy won bronze for their duo scenes, with Paine and McCoy earning respondents’ choice. The entire class won gold for their one-act, [REDACTED], and also won both the Synergy Award and Spirit of Lenea award.
[REDACTED]: In collaboration with The Imaginists, ArtQuest Theatre Arts level three produced a play that loosely addressed the district censorship and the forthcoming consequences. “[Redacted] was a response to our district’s completely unjustified censorship. It’s also a commentary on the rising censorship in America,” said Dean Jahnsen (12). This play followed a PTA group bent on destroying the arts due to content they dislike; sound familiar? Photo by Laurel Merrick
Yet the success at Lenaea cannot distract from the underlying issue: the district attempted to alter an award-winning program, conceding only after a massive public outcry and bad press. A truly sorry district doesn’t backstab a program after getting called out. This “truly sorry” district apologized to the public, and then immediately stabbed ArtQuest in the gut with new policies to terminate any problematic creativity.
In light of this discourse, interim principal Dr. Monica Fong explained her role: “I would say that as a principal, it’s important that I know all the curriculum that’s being offered on the site and ArtQuest is a part of the high school.” She claimed that when she went to review ArtQuests’ content, “I did not have any interests or ideas in censoring that [Lenea] content. I simply wanted to make sure that parents were aware of what they were performing if it was a sensitive or a mature topic.” As part of this review, she attended the monologues. This, she claimed, was misrepresented in the Press Democrat. “Somehow it got twisted that I was there to look at the content, and I was not,” said Fong.
ADMINISTRATOR APPROVAL: For the first time in ArtQuest theatre arts’ history, students were forced to have an administrator give prior approval for their monologues. “Some of the monologues got flagged, but not my scene. She had issues with monologues that showed actual real-life things, not a bug having sex,” said Dean Jahnsen (12). The play, along with the monologues, scenes and songs went on to win prestigious awards at the high school theater festival Lenaea. Photo by Laurel Merrick
We understand the difficulty of the position that Fong and the administrators have been handed. If the district wants to save face at the expense of artistic integrity, they can use their administrators to do it.
For all the things that set ArtQuest apart from every other theatre program, district suppression shouldn’t be one of them.
AFTER IT ALL: This experience, despite having a happy ending for Santa Rosa High’s level three theatre, will undoubtedly leave a lasting impact on the future of theatre in the Santa Rosa City Schools. “It’s definitely set an unfortunate precedent that the district can try and push us around, but it’s also set the precedent that we’ll fight back,” said Dean Jahnsen (12). This experience has proven that even under unfortunate circumstances, the arts are not to be suppressed. Photo by Laurel Merrick
