Trinity Preparatory School’s production of La Cage aux Folles will be performed off campus at a local theatre this weekend, billed as an independent show with no ties to the Episcopal school.
Headmaster Craig Maughan announced the decision in press release this morning. There will be four performances of the musical at the Orlando Repertory Theatre.
The production was to open last weekend at the private school near Winter Park but was cancelled at the request of Bishop John Howe, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida. Howe, a leader among the nation’s conservative Episcopal bishops, thought the comedy featuring a gay couple and actors dressed in drag was inappropriate for a Christian school.
We regret the scheduling of this performance has been interpreted as a departure from our 40-year history as an Episcopal school,” Maughan said in his statement Thursday. “The students who worked hard to prepare for this play had neither a political nor social agenda.”
The decision to cancel the show — a culmination of Trinity Prep’s summer theatre program — angered some students, parents and alumni who questioned why Howe should dictate shows at the independent school. They also said the award-winning musical, which opened on Broadway in 1983, promoted tolerance and family values, even if not of the traditional sort.
If the production has no ties to the school, why did the headmaster announce it?
“The students who worked hard to prepare for this play had neither a political nor social agenda.” Of course the students don’t have an agenda. What a ridiculous statement.
Yes, but the art director who chose this as well as “The Laramie Project” to be performed in November clearly does has an agenda.
Kinda like those churches who don’t get on with their bishop’s views, just find another that does, then it’s okay! Now that the play is outside the local bishops authority, the show must go on!
Robroy, my thoughts exactly!
The Bishop and the Diocese should move immediataly to sever all ties with this school and let it be the secular prep school it wants to be.
Br. Michael,
Perfect. Whenever someone does something we don’t like- let’s get rid of them, kick them out, ex-communicate them! I think Jesus really meant that.
The school must make a choice. Bp Howe is the spiritual authority of the diocese of Central Florida. The art director’s choices of this musical and “The Laramie Project” is an in-your-face insult at a time that the Episcopal Church is being torn apart by these issues.
plainsparson,
One might equally complain that, rather than honor the traditions and authority of an ancient institutions they join voluntarily, the heterodox insist that the institution be deconstructed to fit them.
6, let them chose this day! If they want to be secular then let them be secular. The Church is under no obligation to fund this trash. And I have seen the play and it is trash. And Jesus was very clear about those who refuse God’s Kingdom. It is not fashionable to preach on that, but you don’t poke a finger in God’s eye with impunity. The universalism that all are saved regardless has no foundation in Scripture.
Now if he could only hold Sewanee, of which he is a trustee, to the same standard of scrutiny we’d all have a little better sleep sending a son or daughter there.
Cluck, cluck. Good for the students.
The theatre teacher needs to be terminated immediately.
midwesternorwegian,
Why? On what gounds? Because you don’t like the play? Don’t like it’s content? Because the bishop asked an independent school not to perform it and it moved of campus? Why?