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Advocacy Newsroom

Trans Student Actor Unjustly Barred from School Musical Inspires Nationwide Advocacy

The Dramatists Legal Defense Fund (DLDF) proudly bestowed The 2024 Defender Award upon Philip, Amy, and Max Hightower of Sherman, Texas, at the Dramatists Guild Awards Night held at Sony Hall in New York City. The DLDF is privileged to honor the Hightower Family with this prestigious award. Their unwavering commitment to inclusivity and equality has left an indelible mark on the...
Business Article Archive

“Where there’s smoke…”

The New York State smoking prohibition law permits only non-tobacco products to be smoked indoors but it allows for a waiver of the ban in individual circumstances.
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We All Lean Back Everywhere

There was no textbook for the class. Ed would assign us a photocopied packet of cases and notes on a particular topic, and we would come to class and he’d make some prefatory statement to introduce the topic, and then we would all argue for an hour or so.
Business Article Archive

On Theatre, Politics, And Censorship: A Challenge

The revulsion against political plays is expressed with such wit in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, that it is irresistible. Annie has taken up the cause of Brodie, a soldier facing six years in prison for vandalizing a war memorial. He has written a play, and Annie wants her lover Henry, a playwright, to read it, perhaps improve it. Henry: It’s no good.
Business Article Archive

On Censorship - The Fear Factor

Suicide bombers – particularly young female ones – were not yet as explored by films and documentaries as they have become, and the average, un-invested American was not as familiar with the layers of complexity surrounding the issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as many are today.
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On Censorship - Responsibilities Of The Poet

Exceptions abound, but New York Theater Workshop’s actions point to a trend: the institutional narrowing of what the theatre is, what it can talk about and deal with.
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On Censorship - Controversy: Embrace It!

1. High schools in Washington state, Oregon, and Illinois canceled Moisés Kaufman’s The Laramie Project. In Iowa, The Laramie Project was staged only after all profanity was removed. 2. A student play about lesbians that won a major award in Charlotte, N.C., was banned from the stage.
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Of Words and Deeds

However, another Portland teacher is not going so gently into that good night. Drama teacher Wade Willis presented The Laramie Project to his high school back in 2005, but he claims that he met great resistance, and for producing the play he was “harassed, intimidated and humiliated” by the administration. He resigned after the school year but is now suing for wrongful termination.
Business Article Archive

Mae West, Sex, Censorship, Prison, & Politics

Why? Who was Mae West in 1926? unemployed since 1923, the singing comedienne fretted as the vaudeville frontier contracted, eliminating jobs. A screen test went nowhere. As she approached 30, her career capsized. Still living at home with her parents and faced with no offers, she must have worried she was washed up. What were her options?
Business Article Archive

First “Rent,” Then Repaired

The choice of the show by Ms. Spillane and her theater group had always been an independent decision, but Guarino advised Spillane that, after consulting with his vice principals, the PTA, and the school superintendent, the production was to be canceled. in late November, he announced his decision to the troupe to put the production on indefinite “hold.”
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