NEW YORK (AP) — Writer Jodi Picoult has the doubtful honor of being banned in two mediums this fall — her books and now a musical based mostly on her novel “Between the Lines.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m the first author who has now had censorship occur in two different types of media,” Picoult says. “Honestly, I’m not out here to be salacious. I am writing the world as it is, and I am honestly just trying to write about difficult issues that people have a hard time talking about because that is what fiction and the arts do.”
The superintendent of Mississinewa Excessive Faculty in Gasoline Metropolis, Indiana, canceled a manufacturing final week of “Between the Lines,” saying issues had been raised over “sexual innuendo” and alcohol references within the musical. Jeremy Fewell, the superintendent, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
“It’s devastating for us to know that these kids who put in hundreds of hours of hard work had that torn away from them because of the objections of a single parent,” says Picoult.
“What I know, perhaps better than most people, as someone whose books have been banned, is when one parent starts deciding what is appropriate and what is inappropriate for the children of other parents, we have a big problem.”
Picoult famous that the identical Indiana highschool has beforehand produced “Grease,” the place the sexual innuendo and alcohol abuse is way larger, together with a being pregnant scare, sex-mad teenagers and the road “Did she put up a fight?”
“Between the Lines” facilities on Delilah, an outsider in a brand new highschool, who finds solace in a e book and realizes she has the ability to write down her personal story and narrate her personal life. “It is a very benign message. And it’s actually a really important one for adolescents today,” says Picoult.
The unique work, which includes a nonbinary character, had already been edited with licensed adjustments to make it extra palatable for a conservative viewers, together with eradicating any reference to the nonbinary character’s gender orientation.
The manufacturing was scheduled for Halloween weekend on the Gasoline Metropolis Performing Arts Heart. The present has music and lyrics by Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, and a narrative by Timothy Allen McDonald, based mostly on the 2012 novel by Picoult and her daughter, Samantha van Leer. It performed off-Broadway in 2022.
Picoult, the bestselling writer of “My Sister’s Keeper” and “Small Great Things,” has additionally written in regards to the moments main up to a faculty capturing in “Nineteen Minutes,” which was banned 16 occasions within the 2024-2025 college yr, in response to PEN America, making her the nation’s fourth most-banned writer.
“I had 20 books banned in one school district in Florida alone because of a single parent’s objection and she admitted she had not read any of the books,” mentioned Picoult, a PEN America trustee. “She said that they were banned for ‘mature content and sexuality.’ There were books of mine that did not even have a single kiss in them.”
The uptick in e book banning has unfold to phases as nicely. The Dramatists Authorized Protection Fund has documented not too long ago challenged performs and musicals from states together with Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio and New Jersey after mother and father or lecturers complained that the works’ social themes weren’t applicable for minors.
The Northern Lebanon Excessive Faculty, in Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania, canceled a 2024 manufacturing of “The Addams Family,” citing issues over scenes with violence, youngsters smoking and delicate queer themes. Paula Vogel’s play “Indecent,” which explores a flashpoint in Jewish and queer theatrical historical past, was abruptly canceled in Florida’s Duval County in 2023 for “inappropriate” sexual dialogue.
Final yr, the Instructional Theatre Affiliation requested greater than 1,800 theatre educators in private and non-private colleges throughout the U.S. about censorship. Greater than 75% of respondents reported stress to rethink their play and musical selections throughout the 2023-24 college yr.
“We are not protecting kids,” mentioned Picoult. “We are robbing them of materials that we use to deal with an increasingly complex world.”
