Miami school district says it denied Pulitzer play due to racy scenes. Others say censorship
Days after the Miami-Dade County School District denied students from attending Miami New Drama’s production of Nilo Cruz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Anna in the Tropics,” school officials pointed to lines and imagery they considered to be “sexually explicit” or inappropriate for school-aged children. Among the examples cited were comments between characters, such as “I would’ve shot the son of [expletive] a long time ago,” and a stage note that referenced lovemaking on top of a table. There’s also a description “of what lovers do” and a violent passage in which a character reads from Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel “Anna Karenina.” In total, the school district objected to nine parts of the script.
The decision to prevent students from seeing the play as part of the district’s Cultural Passport program came after a script review process that included two curriculum support specialists, the supervisor of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts, the administrative director, and the assistant superintendent over the Division of Academics. The district did not identify the names of the people in those positions. “If families want to go watch it on their own, that’s one thing, but staff felt it shouldn’t be a school-recommended trip,” Miami-Dade Schools district spokesperson Jaquelyn Calzadilla Diaz told the Herald Wednesday.
But, to some in the arts community, the district’s stance constitutes artistic censorship. The school district is “trying to protect students by playing dictator,” Arnold Mittelman, the former artistic director of the Coconut Grove Playhouse, told the Herald Wednesday. In 2004, Miami-Dade public school students attended a performance of “Anna in the Tropics” at the Playhouse, when he was its artistic director. The Playhouse has since closed.
