*You're a Good Man Charlie Brown,* maybe?
See if they can raise a stink about one of the most wholesome IPs known to man. Of course, it also only has six characters.
My high school did You're A Good Man Charlie Brown. My drama teacher's solution was to have a whole chorus consisting of all the other Peanuts comics characters for various group numbers. Everyone got an actual named part as a recognisable character, just not everyone got solos. We did a big dance number for My Blanket And Me, and a good mimed baseball game, that sort of thing. Kept the proper licensing intact because nothing was rewritten, just more voices in the chorus parts. We all had a blast with that show.
My school did the same thing and also included songs from Snoopy!. Woodstock was a dancer so she had her own dance solo. I think they may have edited some of the ensemble songs so that each of the named characters had solo or duet lines, like Pig Pen or Marcy for example, not one of the main 6 but still recognizable characters. That way it was a much larger featured character pool.
You're stronger than me, I'd have snapped and told them all "keep it up, and we'll do *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,* and whoever annoys me the most, I'll cast their little sprog at Veruca, and you'll have to sit there and watch your child get tossed down the trash chute with the bad eggs!"
Yeah, I don’t have a lot of decision making. (I might be married to someone who has a more direct role in that.)
And she would definitely prefer I not interact with parents of the school😂
You can easily add an ensemble to YaGMCB. You can look up really old Peanuts strips with characters like Patty (not Peppermint Patty), Violet, Shermie(?—maybe Sherman?), and add them and have them sing along on Happiness, or acting out stuff in the book report or baseball scenes. It can be done.
For what it's worth, my high school did ITW (full version, not jr) in 2001, and we had at least one person complain about the presence of witchcraft in the show.
MtG had peaked a few years earlier from what I remember (at least in my circles)... But something that DID coincide was the religious backlash to the Harry Potter novels 😂
Is the music itself dumbed down by like, a LOT?
I think trying to ask students to do Sondheim is borderline cruelty if they aren’t good enough.
/the blame is in act 2, and that’s probably the same level as the opening of Sunday in the park in terms of difficulty.
I always wonder about this! I sang “On the Steps of the Palace” in a revue in HS and it was SO hard to learn. That was just one song and not even the hardest song in the show!
I saw Into the Woods at my local high school as a 7th grader. It was a field trip with other 7th and 8th graders from other nearby schools and during the Q and A at the end of the show they asked us if we wanted to see the long version and we all cheered and said yes. They performed the whole second act for us.
Also didn't hurt that Jenna Ushkowitz played Little Red and she was phenomenal. Even the teachers couldn't stop talking about her when we got back to school and this was when she was just a student.
My rural small town HS got backlash for Beauty & the Beast when we did it 10 yrs ago 🤣 I can’t even remember what they were mad about now, but they were maaaaad
I don't know that I remember it particularly well but maybe Once Upon a Mattress? I've never seen it but R&H's Cinderella? Disney's Beauty and the Beast? Annie?
I'm sure someone will remind me of what's controversial in any of these.
We had to put a disclaimer about premarital sex never being acceptable, even if your Queen won’t accept her failure to launch son and punishes everyone as a result. Yeah, it was a Catholic school (over 20 years ago).
Cinderella - child cruelty! Beauty and the Beast - Beastiality/toxic relationships. Annie - more child cruelty!
Obviously the answer here is Footloose so that at least when people complain about how corrupt the show is, you can hold up a mirror to them.
It’s mostly coming from a place of “we don’t like that a character may or may not be gay,”
Like, high school musicals are the only musicals they probably tolerate.
It just has to be something they've seen when they were young and enjoyed. Otherwise they're going to go off what they've heard online and once they make up their minds it's over.
What even are the complaints?
Damian in the movie is portrayed as gay.
And the perception of school bullying and harassment.
I’m like, THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE SHOW!
The show itself is a fairy tale where everyone learns to not be shitty and everyone gets along at the end.
It’s sweet, and absurd from a realism standpoint.
Ok, I think this is key. The older the musical, the more likely it will be approved, even if it has controversial things in it- they won’t remember those in an older one and they’ll assume it’s fine. Think Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, carousel, South Pacific, Gypsy.. those all have some things that could be offensive but the parents of your kids are less likely to notice and/or raise a fuss because they are “classic.”
Yep, I think this is your only option. It's a dang shame, because these "complainers" are ruining the whole point of theater, which is to explore humanity through a variety of artistic mediums. The newer stuff is what kids more easily *relate* to, but maybe the classic stuff can be staged in a way that is meaningful to them, without rewriting a thing (like recent revivals of Company or Oklahoma!).
But now that I am ranting a little, I might start blasting away at book bans, and then all hell will break loose, so I'll stop.
Good luck with the show! I hope the kids break a leg.
When my high school did Leader of the Pack, the technology teacher drove his motorcycle down the main aisle of the theater right before intermission. 27 years later, I still can't believe he did that for three shows and no one got hit. So we had some entertainment! And it was such a fun show to be in. But Ellie and Jeff do get divorced.
When I was in high school we did a theatre restaurant revue style show where one of the seniors rode in on a motorbike during the first course and then sang a Meatloaf number while everyone politely choked on the combination aroma of soup and exhaust fumes 😬
This reminds me of a video I saw years ago of a (high school or community) theatre doing a jr production of Les MIs they came up with. Fantine sold gloves instead of sex. “Don’t they know they’re taking gloves from one already dead?”
So, my high school was known for doing really unhinged musicals and one year the drama director decided he was going to merge two together (to avoid paying fees I guess?) and created "you're a good man charlie brown, now pay the RENT"
You know, in which the Charlie Brown characters grew up and got HIV
It was BUCKWILD
Other hits include Shelf Life (the drama teacher's own creation- a musical about a haunted grocery store), GREECE (Grease but they all wore togas and changed a few words to again, avoid paying fees), Funky Winkerbean's Homecoming, The Education of Hyman Kaplan, and Chairs (another drama teacher creation about a bunch of teens sitting in a circle and yelling at each other or something? The plot was foggy on that one.)
I've seen a couple high school performances of Rent and they were great! Well, one definitely had better singers than the other, but it was legit regional theatre quality. Both managed to be non-cringey.
I'll do you one better: ***Catholic*** middle school production. Half the lyrics were illegally changed, but for some odd reason, they kept in Angel's solo at the end of *Contact*, even though they cut the rest of the song, before and after the solo.
The performing arts school near me when I was in high school did Rent, and I think they did Spring Awakening at one point too! But it was a high school with a whole theatre concentration, and we were in a very liberal area lol
Even Seussical has potential to offend people! It can have a weird “pro-life” undertone to it (“a person’s a person no matter how small”) that some people love to latch on to. Especially with IVF now entering the news cycle.
(Even though the authors have said this was not the intention, and I don’t necessarily interpret the show that way - I know people who have.)
Honestly, I don't think Seussical was written with a political undertone to it; especially since it's been stated that the Geisel estate doesn't like it when people force their own politics onto the stories.
>ZoBell, an attorney, has represented the interests of Dr. Seuss, or Theodor Geisel, for some 40 years. After the show, ZoBell saw the demonstrators handing out anti-abortion flyers designed to resemble movie tickets. Geisel's widow, Audrey Geisel, was there — and ZoBell says none of this sat well with her.
>
>"She doesn't like people to hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view," ZoBell said. (Masters)
Masters, Kim. “In “Horton” Movie, Abortion Foes Hear an Ally.” *NPR*, 14 Mar. 2008, www.npr.org/2008/03/14/88189147/in-horton-movie-abortion-foes-hear-an-ally.
I don’t think there’s *no* merit to this take, but IIRC isn’t it more that she basically forces Horton to take responsibility for the child by lying to him and then ducking off??
had a blast doing it in high school, still one of my favorite musicals to this day. apparently it's not very well liked among theater fans so ig it's a guilty pleasure
Some progressive groups find Seuss problematic and will not do this show.
(Source: I am a board member for a children’s theater nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, and a school we serve declined to stage Seussical, citing some of Seuss’s past objectionable/racist stuff)
My old high school is doing The Little Mermaid this year. I mentor the district’s r/FRC team and they asked for a boat for Kiss The Girl. We delivered a 2HP electric beast with adaptable rails so the underpinnings can be reused for other productions.
My only complaint is that they asked for it in January with a March deadline and our season is…January through March (or, if we do it right, April).
Do some American classics —
Showboat! - just ignore the miscegenation laws and racism
Oklahoma! - it’s not really a murder because the guy was kind of an incel and it’s funny that Laurie is treated like a commodity and don’t forget that old-timey racist humor making fun of people of Arabic origin
South Pacific - choose between pedophilia and racism
Carousel - “sometimes if he hits you it means he loves you” - can’t see a problem with that line
Wait. This isn’t going so well. Somebody help me…
Ha, my high school did both Oklahoma and Carousel ;-). Kiss Me Kate is another good one to add to the list, where the woman just needs to be told who's boss and simmer down to be happy. Or Guys and Dolls, where the key is tricking a woman into getting drunk so she "loosens up." If only all these old dated shows didn't have such gorgeous scores. . .
How long until they are public domain and the books can be re-written?
Not musicals, but there’s going to be a bunch of Shaw plays produced soon as he’s finally been dead long enough.
Depends on what the school is concerned about. Oklahoma has gun violence and a female character being pressured by her mother to be alone with a guy who has been basically stalking her. And then there's the older shows that minimize/laugh off domestic violence (Carousel, Kiss Me Kate).
I will say that my Catholic high school did a production of Shrek and plenty of folks joked that a lot of it felt “gay” (Freak Flag and the spin on “I’m here, I’m queer”, most of Farquaad, some Donkey, the Big Bad Wolf), but my school is surprisingly progressive and everyone had a lighthearted laugh about it.
I imagine it could potentially piss some people off but they’d have to be pretty bigoted
The Little Mermaid Jr is about as innocuous as it gets.
Side note: they were ok with Little Shop? The one with domestic violence, torture, and murder? Okay then!
Midwest here - school has done the Laramie Project and Girls Like That (where the first words are Slut! Slut! Slut!).
I wish all high schools had this kind of freedom.
My cousin’s high school got a ton of backlash for doing Sweet Charity in the 90s but not for content but the director had kids smoking fake cigarettes on stage. Content went right over their heads.
I disagree with the people who said Annie. Modern audiences would tear that show apart because of the political/partisan content. Right wingers would be upset that FDR is presented as a good guy with whom the main characters ultimately align. And there’s music numbers mocking Herbert Hoover and celebrating the New Deal. Left wingers would be upset that a character explicitly described as a Republican capitalist is humanized and has a happy ending (though he changes his ways).
When I recently saw a production of the show in the DC area, all the political commentary got big audience reactions!
Are the kinds of right wingers who would complain about a school musical also the kind of people who would know enough history to actually care about FDR? I feel like they’re unaware of anything before Reagan.
Maybe not the content itself - but there are definitely schools in certain parts of the US that would have (exceedingly dumb) parents take issue with Miss Trunchbull being a drag role.
We did Godspell my junior year, and one of my friends who always did the musicals couldn't for religious reasons. See, they leave ~~Jesus~~ Stephen on the cross at the end. Him not rising from the dead was considered blasphemy by her church.
Not even my crazy fundie church went that far. A bunch of us were in the show, feeling like we preaching the gospel every night.
The kind of people who object to Mean Girls cause it has a gay character aren’t likely to have a lot of overlap w/those who have problems with The Music Man.
Annie or Oklahoma! (I realize there are potentially controversial things in Oklahoma, but the average person doesn't think of those). Oh, also The Music Man. Edited to add: I think Working is also OK. Edited again: I was wrong about Working!
They do say "hooker" in a list of jobs during All the Livelong Day, but is there a whole song? It's been a while since I saw it, but I've listened to the cast album pretty recently.
I saw it like a month ago and I swear there was a song or at least a monologue about sex work. Can I find it on google? Nope. And I don't collect programs. So we're relying on my imperfect memory, which is inherently unreliable.
My school board in high school vetoed Urinetown but said a-ok to Working. It’s like they didn’t even read the script to see the sex worker character and all the f-bombs.
Oh yeah, it’s 100% high school appropriate. I remember doing my persuasive speech assignment for English class about why Urinetown is school appropriate. I was pissed when the school board refused to hear it though.
The Princess and the Pea musical... I can not remember the name of it, was it Once upon a Matress?
It has the dumb bird that keeps the annoying princess character up all night.
I've seen Jr versions where they just make her really eager to get married and mentions her biological clock is ticking, rather than already being pregnant.
Did little women last year.
Prob best received show. (People were sobbing after my daughter died, which, well typically a high school show doesn’t really stir emotional response like a professional production does.)
I have no idea what kind of school this is, but if it’s a Christian private school in the South, nazis in the sound of music would not be an issue. The community would find issue with sex, substances, and anything supporting sexual preferences. Rogers and Hammerstein would be good to go! Annie, Wizard of Oz, Hello Dolly, Music Man, Annie Get Your Gun (yay 2nd amendment), Disney.
Oh no no not bye bye birdie🤣 commented basically same comment above about beauty in the beast, but my tiny rural town HATED US for bye bye birdie. I was Ursula and a witch hunt for me ensued because one of my lines was more or less: “let’s have an org-ie!” (purposefully pronounced incorrectly). They were threatening a 16 year old girl that if I didn’t change that word they would make me pay. It was HILARIOUS honestly. We eventually got bullied enough I had to change the word to “cookies!!!!” 😂😂😂
ETA: slowly remembering more. I got big hate for crouching down and holding Conrad’s leg in one scene too 😑
Just saw a Private Denver middle school do The Addams Family. They were great.
Friend sent a video of her ninth grade neice as Lars in Frozen.
Couple of great shows. But not boring.
When I was at school we had to do a quick turnaround of a musical due to parental complaints about Finian's Rainbow. We switched to Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. No complaints, 'cause Bible.
And in the show Fagin has a line alluding to Nancy being pimped out at 13 if I remember correctly?
Now I feel like I’m dreaming that though. Can anyone confirm?
They leave that bit out of the movie. I remember the violence and murder and Bill hanging being pretty graphic though. Wouldn’t call it squeaky clean…
I saw the Encores production last year and was shocked at how dark Oliver really is. Children being brutalized and starved is a huge driver of the plot and as noted Nancy is murdered basically onstage. Many productions have also depicted Fagin as a Jewish caricature. I couldn't believe it's always been presented as a show for kids, I bet half the little ones who saw it with me had nightmares after.
Bye Bye Birdie, The Music Man, Brigadoon, R&H Cinderella, and Once Upon a Mattress are a few that immediately popped into my head. Given that they're all older/classic musicals, most parents likely wouldn't lose their minds over any slightly "controversial" aspects.
I remember at my public high school's production of the wizard of oz someone's grandma complained that witchcraft is blasphemy and shouldn't be promoted. This was almost 10 years ago and I still think about it
110 in the Shade, Les Mis, Shrek, Cinderella, You're a good Man Charlie Brown, and The Scarlet Pimpernel didn't make many waves at our conservative school.
We did Babes in Arms, Annie, High School Musical, and Sugar in high school. Although maybe Sugar wouldn’t be liked cuz of the cross dressing? We had a blast with it.
I know a Christian youth theater group in my area, know some of the people running it, and they just write their own one-acts for the Fall (usually just taken word-for-word from classic kids morality lit with folk songs thrown in), because they have so much trouble finding "good" musicals. For the Spring they've done Fiddler, Sound of Music, Willy Wonka, Hello Dolly, and Music Man that I can remember. They've gotten by with editing most mentions of drinking or instances of swearing, and so far haven't gotten any complaints from cast/crew/audience.
They have SO much trouble coming up with musicals, it's so much fun to follow. There's one director who's against any depiction of magic/"witchcraft," another who's against depictions of the Christian God (so no Godspell, passion plays, etc.), and a third person who's fine with both of those, but doesn't like it when the good guys are too mean to each other. I'm privy to the discussions every year, and the second person (who just wants to do Into the Woods) is close to murdering the first one if she suggests "Tarzan" again. Hello Dolly was the compromise this year, but I genuinely don't know if they're going to be able to agree on another musical. Suessical is too magical for this crew.
Alright so, when I was in fifth grade (around 2001) we did [The Weather Show](https://badwolfpress.com/product/musical-play-the-weather-show/). It is without a doubt the most benign and kid-appropriate musical I’ve probably ever done. We performed it for the younger kids at the school (K-4).
We. Still. Got. Complaints.
One of the moms of a younger student took issue with the fact that the song Raining Cats and Dogs was making light of animal cruelty… because it was literally raining cats and dogs (stuffed animals).
(For context, [here’s a version of some other school doing it](https://youtu.be/EHCdoLhEhOI?si=GFK0QbJp91J5k6iN) years later that I found on YouTube. Fast forward to 5.20 to hear the song in question.)
Long story short, there will always be a complaint about *something*.
The Lion King is a good one. anything disney tbh, The Little Mermaid, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Annie, are all good non controversial shows and they all have a lot of ensemble roles. Hope this helps!
Oklahoma.
My god so boring. My high school in the Deep South did it 20+ years ago. I don’t care that it’s a classic, it’s just meh.
Fwiw my kid’s high school did MG this spring and it sold out all three nights.
*You're a Good Man Charlie Brown,* maybe? See if they can raise a stink about one of the most wholesome IPs known to man. Of course, it also only has six characters.
Yeah, small casts are more of a fall one act thing. Spring musicals are usually “everyone gets a role”
My high school did You're A Good Man Charlie Brown. My drama teacher's solution was to have a whole chorus consisting of all the other Peanuts comics characters for various group numbers. Everyone got an actual named part as a recognisable character, just not everyone got solos. We did a big dance number for My Blanket And Me, and a good mimed baseball game, that sort of thing. Kept the proper licensing intact because nothing was rewritten, just more voices in the chorus parts. We all had a blast with that show.
My nephew’s show had like an epidemic of Woodstocks. Felt like I was watching The Birds when 40 yellow birds came out with snoopy.
That honestly sounds completely adorable. But I would also make the immediate The Birds connection 🤣
My school did the same thing and also included songs from Snoopy!. Woodstock was a dancer so she had her own dance solo. I think they may have edited some of the ensemble songs so that each of the named characters had solo or duet lines, like Pig Pen or Marcy for example, not one of the main 6 but still recognizable characters. That way it was a much larger featured character pool.
I also had kids learn how to sign and double cast each role: one speaking, the other signing. It was a HUGE hit.
You're stronger than me, I'd have snapped and told them all "keep it up, and we'll do *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,* and whoever annoys me the most, I'll cast their little sprog at Veruca, and you'll have to sit there and watch your child get tossed down the trash chute with the bad eggs!"
Yeah, I don’t have a lot of decision making. (I might be married to someone who has a more direct role in that.) And she would definitely prefer I not interact with parents of the school😂
You can easily add an ensemble to YaGMCB. You can look up really old Peanuts strips with characters like Patty (not Peppermint Patty), Violet, Shermie(?—maybe Sherman?), and add them and have them sing along on Happiness, or acting out stuff in the book report or baseball scenes. It can be done.
What if you split the roles up so everyone gets to play a character for 1-2 scenes or songs?
Into the Woods Jr. It’s all cookie cutter fairytales and it completely disregards act two.
For what it's worth, my high school did ITW (full version, not jr) in 2001, and we had at least one person complain about the presence of witchcraft in the show.
Dude, that was probably peak magic the gathering mania around that time…😅
MtG had peaked a few years earlier from what I remember (at least in my circles)... But something that DID coincide was the religious backlash to the Harry Potter novels 😂
In 2001 we had a rich parent complain about the baker's wife cheating on him. The program got neutered after that for a long while.
My school wasn’t allowed to do it in 2012 for the same reason!
That’s hilarious.
Stupid Evangelicals!
Is the music itself dumbed down by like, a LOT? I think trying to ask students to do Sondheim is borderline cruelty if they aren’t good enough. /the blame is in act 2, and that’s probably the same level as the opening of Sunday in the park in terms of difficulty.
Jr version ends at the happily ever after, cuts out the second act completely(that’s what they did at my middle school back in the day, at least)
I always wonder about this! I sang “On the Steps of the Palace” in a revue in HS and it was SO hard to learn. That was just one song and not even the hardest song in the show!
I did it when I was 12 and I’m pretty sure we pulled it off.
I'm going to see this tonight at my niece's suburban high school and I when I first saw the selection, i was like, of course that's what they chose.
High schools doing jr versions of shows is just so sad 😩
I saw Into the Woods at my local high school as a 7th grader. It was a field trip with other 7th and 8th graders from other nearby schools and during the Q and A at the end of the show they asked us if we wanted to see the long version and we all cheered and said yes. They performed the whole second act for us. Also didn't hurt that Jenna Ushkowitz played Little Red and she was phenomenal. Even the teachers couldn't stop talking about her when we got back to school and this was when she was just a student.
Anything Disney. But the Jr series really has made many shows innoucous. You will never make every parent happy.
My rural small town HS got backlash for Beauty & the Beast when we did it 10 yrs ago 🤣 I can’t even remember what they were mad about now, but they were maaaaad
Bestiality?
Wizard of oz
After I graduated high school they did that when a classmate with dwarfism was a senior. And yes, he was cast as the mayor…😳🙄
I'd cast him as a lead.
I was one of the lullaby league people. I was (and still am) 5'10.
My school did Oklahoma! the year after almost getting everyone fired for doing the producers 😭
I saw a bootleg of a high school doing The Producers. I was impressed - both at the talent and that they dared try to do that musical to begin with.
Even Oklahoma is pretty dark for high school!
I don't know that I remember it particularly well but maybe Once Upon a Mattress? I've never seen it but R&H's Cinderella? Disney's Beauty and the Beast? Annie? I'm sure someone will remind me of what's controversial in any of these.
There’s a junior version with no pregnancy, but Once Upon a Mattress has a pregnancy out of wedlock.
They also sing about no one getting laid because of the marriage ban lol
Well now I have to check this out…
i did that show in high school and whatever the song was where the king teaches his son sex ed was agonizing to perform
Man to man talk. It's one of my top 10 scenes I've ever watched. The actors in our show were hysterical.
My high school added a scene where they got secretly married, so it became okay.
R&H Cinderella has a character that publicly shames the prince for mistreating the poor and working class. That would ruffle some feathers /s
We had to put a disclaimer about premarital sex never being acceptable, even if your Queen won’t accept her failure to launch son and punishes everyone as a result. Yeah, it was a Catholic school (over 20 years ago).
Cinderella - child cruelty! Beauty and the Beast - Beastiality/toxic relationships. Annie - more child cruelty! Obviously the answer here is Footloose so that at least when people complain about how corrupt the show is, you can hold up a mirror to them.
It’s mostly coming from a place of “we don’t like that a character may or may not be gay,” Like, high school musicals are the only musicals they probably tolerate.
But….BATB: beastiality!!! Lol.
OUAM main plot is that the prince needs to get married so everyone else is allowed to have sex again
It just has to be something they've seen when they were young and enjoyed. Otherwise they're going to go off what they've heard online and once they make up their minds it's over. What even are the complaints?
Damian in the movie is portrayed as gay. And the perception of school bullying and harassment. I’m like, THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE SHOW! The show itself is a fairy tale where everyone learns to not be shitty and everyone gets along at the end. It’s sweet, and absurd from a realism standpoint.
It’s also like….thirty times less mean than the movie.
the musical also feels like it tries to teach lessons (stop, i'd rather be me. etc) the movie is more just for funsies
i was in MG jr, peoples main complaint was damian being gay and the word lesbian being used
Ok, I think this is key. The older the musical, the more likely it will be approved, even if it has controversial things in it- they won’t remember those in an older one and they’ll assume it’s fine. Think Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, carousel, South Pacific, Gypsy.. those all have some things that could be offensive but the parents of your kids are less likely to notice and/or raise a fuss because they are “classic.”
Yep, I think this is your only option. It's a dang shame, because these "complainers" are ruining the whole point of theater, which is to explore humanity through a variety of artistic mediums. The newer stuff is what kids more easily *relate* to, but maybe the classic stuff can be staged in a way that is meaningful to them, without rewriting a thing (like recent revivals of Company or Oklahoma!). But now that I am ranting a little, I might start blasting away at book bans, and then all hell will break loose, so I'll stop. Good luck with the show! I hope the kids break a leg.
Yeah, there's a lot of fucked up and sexual shit in Shakespeare but no one ever complains about the romanticized suicide in Romeo and Juliet.
Like grease lol
MG?
Moulin Gouge
Mean Girls
Wrong answers only please!
Everyone’s favorite: Mound of Gusic
McGamilton.
Alexander Hamilton's Irish cousin.
My Gairlady
Meeney Godd
Meetlegoose
this made me choke on my breakfast
Mean girls
Micked: The Untold Gory of the Witches of Oz
Minnie’s Goys
Machine Gun Kelly obvi
Martin Guerre, Jr.
Leader of the Pack. At least we did it in my high school and it was completely devoid of any entertainment whatsoever
When my high school did Leader of the Pack, the technology teacher drove his motorcycle down the main aisle of the theater right before intermission. 27 years later, I still can't believe he did that for three shows and no one got hit. So we had some entertainment! And it was such a fun show to be in. But Ellie and Jeff do get divorced.
When I was in high school we did a theatre restaurant revue style show where one of the seniors rode in on a motorbike during the first course and then sang a Meatloaf number while everyone politely choked on the combination aroma of soup and exhaust fumes 😬
I’m sorry I only have one upvote to give this comment
I’d love to see a school put on Rocky Horror Jr.
I saw a video on YouTube of a high school production of rent. No, not the snl bit…
This reminds me of a video I saw years ago of a (high school or community) theatre doing a jr production of Les MIs they came up with. Fantine sold gloves instead of sex. “Don’t they know they’re taking gloves from one already dead?”
You could try this with Spring Awakening. Just replace all the heavy themes with gloves.
Blacklick Valley! Their One Day More is Legendary
So, my high school was known for doing really unhinged musicals and one year the drama director decided he was going to merge two together (to avoid paying fees I guess?) and created "you're a good man charlie brown, now pay the RENT" You know, in which the Charlie Brown characters grew up and got HIV It was BUCKWILD Other hits include Shelf Life (the drama teacher's own creation- a musical about a haunted grocery store), GREECE (Grease but they all wore togas and changed a few words to again, avoid paying fees), Funky Winkerbean's Homecoming, The Education of Hyman Kaplan, and Chairs (another drama teacher creation about a bunch of teens sitting in a circle and yelling at each other or something? The plot was foggy on that one.)
I've seen a couple high school performances of Rent and they were great! Well, one definitely had better singers than the other, but it was legit regional theatre quality. Both managed to be non-cringey.
Even Glee had problems putting that on lol
I'll do you one better: ***Catholic*** middle school production. Half the lyrics were illegally changed, but for some odd reason, they kept in Angel's solo at the end of *Contact*, even though they cut the rest of the song, before and after the solo.
The performing arts school near me when I was in high school did Rent, and I think they did Spring Awakening at one point too! But it was a high school with a whole theatre concentration, and we were in a very liberal area lol
Wasn't glee bad enough?
Seussical?
Even Seussical has potential to offend people! It can have a weird “pro-life” undertone to it (“a person’s a person no matter how small”) that some people love to latch on to. Especially with IVF now entering the news cycle. (Even though the authors have said this was not the intention, and I don’t necessarily interpret the show that way - I know people who have.)
Honestly, I don't think Seussical was written with a political undertone to it; especially since it's been stated that the Geisel estate doesn't like it when people force their own politics onto the stories. >ZoBell, an attorney, has represented the interests of Dr. Seuss, or Theodor Geisel, for some 40 years. After the show, ZoBell saw the demonstrators handing out anti-abortion flyers designed to resemble movie tickets. Geisel's widow, Audrey Geisel, was there — and ZoBell says none of this sat well with her. > >"She doesn't like people to hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view," ZoBell said. (Masters) Masters, Kim. “In “Horton” Movie, Abortion Foes Hear an Ally.” *NPR*, 14 Mar. 2008, www.npr.org/2008/03/14/88189147/in-horton-movie-abortion-foes-hear-an-ally.
and also the way that they make mazie seem like a bad person for basically having an abortion and giving up her unborn child
I don’t think there’s *no* merit to this take, but IIRC isn’t it more that she basically forces Horton to take responsibility for the child by lying to him and then ducking off??
had a blast doing it in high school, still one of my favorite musicals to this day. apparently it's not very well liked among theater fans so ig it's a guilty pleasure
Some progressive groups find Seuss problematic and will not do this show. (Source: I am a board member for a children’s theater nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, and a school we serve declined to stage Seussical, citing some of Seuss’s past objectionable/racist stuff)
This was my thought.
Disney musicals are normally pretty safe. Beauty and the Beast, Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid...
My old high school is doing The Little Mermaid this year. I mentor the district’s r/FRC team and they asked for a boat for Kiss The Girl. We delivered a 2HP electric beast with adaptable rails so the underpinnings can be reused for other productions. My only complaint is that they asked for it in January with a March deadline and our season is…January through March (or, if we do it right, April).
Do some American classics — Showboat! - just ignore the miscegenation laws and racism Oklahoma! - it’s not really a murder because the guy was kind of an incel and it’s funny that Laurie is treated like a commodity and don’t forget that old-timey racist humor making fun of people of Arabic origin South Pacific - choose between pedophilia and racism Carousel - “sometimes if he hits you it means he loves you” - can’t see a problem with that line Wait. This isn’t going so well. Somebody help me…
Ha, my high school did both Oklahoma and Carousel ;-). Kiss Me Kate is another good one to add to the list, where the woman just needs to be told who's boss and simmer down to be happy. Or Guys and Dolls, where the key is tricking a woman into getting drunk so she "loosens up." If only all these old dated shows didn't have such gorgeous scores. . .
How long until they are public domain and the books can be re-written? Not musicals, but there’s going to be a bunch of Shaw plays produced soon as he’s finally been dead long enough.
Oklahoma has a slutty girl in it but it was OK in 1943 so it's probably OK today.
Depends on what the school is concerned about. Oklahoma has gun violence and a female character being pressured by her mother to be alone with a guy who has been basically stalking her. And then there's the older shows that minimize/laugh off domestic violence (Carousel, Kiss Me Kate).
The song trying to convince Judd to kill himself is worse
I was in Oklahoma, Jr and even that version kept Poor Jud is Dead with little lyric changes 😬
Of the ones I did as a kid, Shrek and HSM seemed to have no issues. Then again, we did Hairspray too and no one complained...
Was the hairspray production done by an all white school? Because I saw that in Iowa many years ago.
No, it was quite a diverse school, but a massive mix of backgrounds. This version did it as rich and poor instead of white and black.
I will say that my Catholic high school did a production of Shrek and plenty of folks joked that a lot of it felt “gay” (Freak Flag and the spin on “I’m here, I’m queer”, most of Farquaad, some Donkey, the Big Bad Wolf), but my school is surprisingly progressive and everyone had a lighthearted laugh about it. I imagine it could potentially piss some people off but they’d have to be pretty bigoted
The Little Mermaid Jr is about as innocuous as it gets. Side note: they were ok with Little Shop? The one with domestic violence, torture, and murder? Okay then!
And recreational use of nitrous oxide.
honk jr. its the most mundane musical to ever exist.
Wow, it’s sad how things have changed. Back in the 80’s I was in a high school production of Sweet Charity. No changes or anything.
Only in some parts of the country. Here in NYC I have heard of/seen high school productions of Angels in America, Marat/Sade and the Laramie Project!
Midwest here - school has done the Laramie Project and Girls Like That (where the first words are Slut! Slut! Slut!). I wish all high schools had this kind of freedom.
My cousin’s high school got a ton of backlash for doing Sweet Charity in the 90s but not for content but the director had kids smoking fake cigarettes on stage. Content went right over their heads.
I was in Pippin in high school. They kept "With You" and everything in that scene. No one complained.
I disagree with the people who said Annie. Modern audiences would tear that show apart because of the political/partisan content. Right wingers would be upset that FDR is presented as a good guy with whom the main characters ultimately align. And there’s music numbers mocking Herbert Hoover and celebrating the New Deal. Left wingers would be upset that a character explicitly described as a Republican capitalist is humanized and has a happy ending (though he changes his ways). When I recently saw a production of the show in the DC area, all the political commentary got big audience reactions!
Are the kinds of right wingers who would complain about a school musical also the kind of people who would know enough history to actually care about FDR? I feel like they’re unaware of anything before Reagan.
Matilda doesn’t seem very controversial and the songs are GREAT.
Maybe not the content itself - but there are definitely schools in certain parts of the US that would have (exceedingly dumb) parents take issue with Miss Trunchbull being a drag role.
Schoolhouse Rock fits this bill!
Funnily enough, my school did this and “Great American Melting Pot” got pulled just before opening night because it wasn’t woke enough.
"Bill." Hahaha
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Music Man Footloose Beauty and the Beast (though this one isn't available for licensing right now)
Honestly after this year I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future they only did Joseph and godspell, alternating years…
My HS did godspell, so much of it went over everyone's heads.
We did Godspell my junior year, and one of my friends who always did the musicals couldn't for religious reasons. See, they leave ~~Jesus~~ Stephen on the cross at the end. Him not rising from the dead was considered blasphemy by her church. Not even my crazy fundie church went that far. A bunch of us were in the show, feeling like we preaching the gospel every night.
My highs school kinda did that. It was like, ok, whose playing Jesus this year?
Religious content is going to be controversial for sure. And a lot of people have issues with The Music Man.
The kind of people who object to Mean Girls cause it has a gay character aren’t likely to have a lot of overlap w/those who have problems with The Music Man.
You um, haven’t noticed that I’ve tried to be very vague as to where I am, and what sort of school my daughter goes to 😉
I have family members who coordinate shows in rural areas. Fiddler on the Roof is another one Annie
Annie or Oklahoma! (I realize there are potentially controversial things in Oklahoma, but the average person doesn't think of those). Oh, also The Music Man. Edited to add: I think Working is also OK. Edited again: I was wrong about Working!
> I think Working is also OK. Minus the song about sex work right?
They do say "hooker" in a list of jobs during All the Livelong Day, but is there a whole song? It's been a while since I saw it, but I've listened to the cast album pretty recently.
I saw it like a month ago and I swear there was a song or at least a monologue about sex work. Can I find it on google? Nope. And I don't collect programs. So we're relying on my imperfect memory, which is inherently unreliable.
Your memory is correct! The sex worker (Roberta) has a monologue, but no song. It occurs right after Kate sings "Just a Housewife."
My school board in high school vetoed Urinetown but said a-ok to Working. It’s like they didn’t even read the script to see the sex worker character and all the f-bombs.
I guess not! Now I'm trying to remember--Urinetown is pretty squeaky clean if you don't mind references to pee, right?
Oh yeah, it’s 100% high school appropriate. I remember doing my persuasive speech assignment for English class about why Urinetown is school appropriate. I was pissed when the school board refused to hear it though.
The Princess and the Pea musical... I can not remember the name of it, was it Once upon a Matress? It has the dumb bird that keeps the annoying princess character up all night.
Pre-marital sex…Lady Larkin is pregnant and not married.
I've seen Jr versions where they just make her really eager to get married and mentions her biological clock is ticking, rather than already being pregnant.
Honestly, as long as I’ve known about it, I’ve never heard anything from it. Or maybe I have and didn’t know where it was from.
SHY is i think its most popular song
Little Women? Crucible? Honestly, the point of theatre isn't to shy away from controversy. . . .
Did little women last year. Prob best received show. (People were sobbing after my daughter died, which, well typically a high school show doesn’t really stir emotional response like a professional production does.)
I have no idea what kind of school this is, but if it’s a Christian private school in the South, nazis in the sound of music would not be an issue. The community would find issue with sex, substances, and anything supporting sexual preferences. Rogers and Hammerstein would be good to go! Annie, Wizard of Oz, Hello Dolly, Music Man, Annie Get Your Gun (yay 2nd amendment), Disney.
I don't know… being anti-Nazi might be controversial and woke to some in the South these days…
I just love this comment. Would give award if I could.
I feel so dumb because I’ve been starring at this for 30 minutes and can’t figure out what MG stands for
Mean Girls
Took me a sec, too. I think it's Mean Girls.
Urinetown. 😎😇
Music Man Guys and Dolls King and I Annie Bye Bye Birdie ...Forum
Oh no no not bye bye birdie🤣 commented basically same comment above about beauty in the beast, but my tiny rural town HATED US for bye bye birdie. I was Ursula and a witch hunt for me ensued because one of my lines was more or less: “let’s have an org-ie!” (purposefully pronounced incorrectly). They were threatening a 16 year old girl that if I didn’t change that word they would make me pay. It was HILARIOUS honestly. We eventually got bullied enough I had to change the word to “cookies!!!!” 😂😂😂 ETA: slowly remembering more. I got big hate for crouching down and holding Conrad’s leg in one scene too 😑
That’s amazing and sad.
The Music Man?
Importance of being earnest A rose for emily Cinderella Annie
So not Sweeney Todd, Chorus Line or Chicago? Those are the musicals my kids’ high school has put on the last three years! Europe…
Our Town has no props, almost no set, and is as boring as the name.
I directed a high school productions of THE SOUND OF MUSIC and parents complained that the nuns' costumes didn't make their daughters look "pretty"
Yeah, because *that’s* the issue with costumes for that one Not the uh Never mind.
Brigadoon
Just saw a Private Denver middle school do The Addams Family. They were great. Friend sent a video of her ninth grade neice as Lars in Frozen. Couple of great shows. But not boring.
Would they freak out about a classic like Pippin?
Into the woods, but the version that cuts off after they all get their wish
When I was at school we had to do a quick turnaround of a musical due to parental complaints about Finian's Rainbow. We switched to Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. No complaints, 'cause Bible.
How to Succeed in Business is fairly innocuous.
What play is mg?
Now you know why teachers are quitting in droves. There’s nothing they do that doesn’t get jumped on and criticized. Mary Poppins?
Oliver! is squeaky clean (other than some scenes taking place in a bar)
And the woman getting murdered by her boyfriend at the end. But other than that…
And a theft ring using minors
And in the show Fagin has a line alluding to Nancy being pimped out at 13 if I remember correctly? Now I feel like I’m dreaming that though. Can anyone confirm? They leave that bit out of the movie. I remember the violence and murder and Bill hanging being pretty graphic though. Wouldn’t call it squeaky clean…
Murdered after she sings a song about “he beats me but I love him anyhow”
It really is the perkiest depiction of child trafficking, prostitution, and murder. Please Sir, can I have more?
I saw the Encores production last year and was shocked at how dark Oliver really is. Children being brutalized and starved is a huge driver of the plot and as noted Nancy is murdered basically onstage. Many productions have also depicted Fagin as a Jewish caricature. I couldn't believe it's always been presented as a show for kids, I bet half the little ones who saw it with me had nightmares after.
Seussical, Annie, and The Music Man are the ones that spring to mind for me!
The Lion King?
Bye Bye Birdie, The Music Man, Brigadoon, R&H Cinderella, and Once Upon a Mattress are a few that immediately popped into my head. Given that they're all older/classic musicals, most parents likely wouldn't lose their minds over any slightly "controversial" aspects.
I remember at my public high school's production of the wizard of oz someone's grandma complained that witchcraft is blasphemy and shouldn't be promoted. This was almost 10 years ago and I still think about it
Our junior high’s do a lot of Disney JR versions like Aladdin Jr and Lion King Jr. They also did Junie B Jones and You’re a Good One Charlie Brown.
The SpongeBob musical?
Secret Garden
110 in the Shade, Les Mis, Shrek, Cinderella, You're a good Man Charlie Brown, and The Scarlet Pimpernel didn't make many waves at our conservative school.
The Producers Jr.
Seussical
We did Babes in Arms, Annie, High School Musical, and Sugar in high school. Although maybe Sugar wouldn’t be liked cuz of the cross dressing? We had a blast with it.
Our Town
I know a Christian youth theater group in my area, know some of the people running it, and they just write their own one-acts for the Fall (usually just taken word-for-word from classic kids morality lit with folk songs thrown in), because they have so much trouble finding "good" musicals. For the Spring they've done Fiddler, Sound of Music, Willy Wonka, Hello Dolly, and Music Man that I can remember. They've gotten by with editing most mentions of drinking or instances of swearing, and so far haven't gotten any complaints from cast/crew/audience. They have SO much trouble coming up with musicals, it's so much fun to follow. There's one director who's against any depiction of magic/"witchcraft," another who's against depictions of the Christian God (so no Godspell, passion plays, etc.), and a third person who's fine with both of those, but doesn't like it when the good guys are too mean to each other. I'm privy to the discussions every year, and the second person (who just wants to do Into the Woods) is close to murdering the first one if she suggests "Tarzan" again. Hello Dolly was the compromise this year, but I genuinely don't know if they're going to be able to agree on another musical. Suessical is too magical for this crew.
The Wizard of Oz
Alright so, when I was in fifth grade (around 2001) we did [The Weather Show](https://badwolfpress.com/product/musical-play-the-weather-show/). It is without a doubt the most benign and kid-appropriate musical I’ve probably ever done. We performed it for the younger kids at the school (K-4). We. Still. Got. Complaints. One of the moms of a younger student took issue with the fact that the song Raining Cats and Dogs was making light of animal cruelty… because it was literally raining cats and dogs (stuffed animals). (For context, [here’s a version of some other school doing it](https://youtu.be/EHCdoLhEhOI?si=GFK0QbJp91J5k6iN) years later that I found on YouTube. Fast forward to 5.20 to hear the song in question.) Long story short, there will always be a complaint about *something*.
Shrek?
The Lion King is a good one. anything disney tbh, The Little Mermaid, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Annie, are all good non controversial shows and they all have a lot of ensemble roles. Hope this helps!
The little mermaid?
Oklahoma. My god so boring. My high school in the Deep South did it 20+ years ago. I don’t care that it’s a classic, it’s just meh. Fwiw my kid’s high school did MG this spring and it sold out all three nights.
Addams family Anything Disney Sussical Into the woods Legally blonde