Indiana high school cancels production of Jodi Picoult play in act she calls ‘censorship’

Students at Mississinewa High School in Gas City, Indiana, were set to take the stage this week for opening night of “Between the Lines,” the musical based on a Jodi Picoult book about living “the story you want, even if it’s not the story you’re in.”

But the show was canceled just two weeks before the teenagers were set to perform for their families and friends in what Picoult criticized as an act of censorship.

She said she learned about the cancellation while she was in London for an adapted production of “The Book Thief,” a novel about censorship in Nazi Germany.

“It all felt on the nose,” Picoult told NBC News.

‘We’ve already lost freedom of expression’

An email sent Oct. 16 to parents by Jeremy Fewell, superintendent of the Mississinewa Community School Corporation, said the show “contains language and content that are not appropriate for a public school–sponsored performance and do not align with the expectations of our community.”

He also told the local Facebook news group Channel 27 News that he met with students who were “understandably upset” after having hear of the cancellation.

“Even with the licensed edits, there were still sexual innuendos and alcohol references that I couldn’t, in good conscience, allow in a public school performance,” Fewell said.

Picoult, one of America’s most banned authors, emphasized that there is “nothing objectionable” about the musical and that Mississinewa High School had licensed an amended version that “plays a little easier in a conservative area.”

The play centers on a lonely high schooler named Delilah who seeks comfort in her favorite book, but the lines between fantasy and reality blur when the characters start speaking to her. According to the play’s website, Delilah has to confront whether she “has the power to rewrite her own story.”

In a Facebook post this month, Picoult alleged that the complaint about the play came from a single parent who objected to the original text’s having a nonbinary character. The amended production did not refer to the character’s gender identity, Picoult said.

“But when one parent makes a decision that affects every other parent’s child, that is censorship, and one person should not be allowed to determine what is or is not appropriate,” she said.

The email announcing the cancellation and Fewell’s interview with Channel 27 did not mention the nonbinary character or say a parent complained, as Picoult has alleged. Fewell did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“The problem is that when people start censoring the arts, you are suggesting that only certain kinds of stories and certain kinds of people’s stories are worth telling, and that is problematic, because that means we’ve already lost freedom of expression,” Picoult said.

‘Where does it stop?’

Kim Spicer Sandoval had already bought tickets for her family to see her teenage son, Luke, perform in the show. His older brother was planning to travel from Bloomington to Gas City to cheer Luke on in what would have been his first theater production.

She said she learned of the show’s cancellation from Fewell’s email, adding that there were no conversations with parents before that to work out some kind of compromise.

“If it was a situation where this is not appropriate for the kids to be doing, my kid was already exposed to it for over 160 hours,” Sandoval said. “My kid put sweat into this musical. So it’s a little late in the game to say, ‘Oh, we can’t do that.'”

Sandoval had already seen much of the script, which she said was no worse than anything she saw kids previously perform from “Grease.” She described the show as being somewhat PG-13 and much milder than the 2004 film “Mean Girls.”

She described the decision to shut down the show as censorship, saying it sends a bad message to the kids. She said she believes that at the high school level, parents should be able to talk to their kids about sex and alcohol because they will be exposed to it if they haven’t been already.

If parents can sign permission slips for sexual education, they should be able to decide for their own families about the play, she added.

“Like, are we just going to go into the school libraries and go into everywhere and just start pulling out books and movies and shows and plays and songs and everything that might offend one person?” Sandoval said. “Where does it stop?”

‘It just didn’t seem fair’

Luke, a senior, estimates that the students had spent nearly 160 hours preparing for the show, with rehearsals going until 8 or 9 p.m. depending on the week. Before he started working on the show in September, he was working at his part-time job about 20 to 25 hours a week.

That went down to five to 10 hours in the last two months, Luke said. His mother said that his car recently broke down and that he didn’t have the extra money to fix it.

“I know for a fact that I made a lot of sacrifices to do this and everybody else around me made a bunch of sacrifices to do this,” he said. “It just didn’t seem fair to me” to cancel the show outright without trying to make exceptions.

Luke had experience singing in the school choir, but it was his mom who encouraged him to try for a musical. He said he enjoyed the challenge and pushed himself to learn to act.

The play was a “great learning experience all around,” Luke said, and he hopes to purse theater in college.

Luke said the main message throughout the play is that all the characters have flaws or problems that they’re learning to deal with. He said that it’s a message that should be celebrated and that people his age should be hearing.

“I personally feel like I’ve learned to accept myself for how I truly am, and I know myself pretty well, but there’s a lot of people that don’t,” he said. “They don’t get themselves. … I feel like it’s one of the worst situations you can be in.”