The Gilded Age star Carrie Coon is criticizing her alma mater after it canceled a play featuring LGBTQ+ themes.
“I find it absurd and offensive,” Coon told The Akron Beacon Journal of Copley High School’s recent decision to cancel a student production of playwright Qui Nguyen’s 2011 dramedy She Kills Monsters. “I just find that a wild abridgment of their First Amendment rights.”
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According to the outlet, the Summit County, Ohio, high school’s drama club had already cast the production and were two days into rehearsals when they were informed that the play had been canceled.
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Copley Superintendent Aimee Kirsch denies that the play, in which a young woman learns that her late sister may have been queer, had been canceled due to its LGBTQ+ themes. Instead, she claims the decision came after she learned the play had not been properly vetted by school administrators.
“I want to be unequivocally clear: Exploring diverse characters, stories or perspectives is not the reason for this decision,” Kirsch said, according to the Beacon Journal. “High school theater is a vital outlet for creative expression, collaboration and personal growth. However, we have a responsibility to ensure all performance materials undergo a consistent, transparent review that respects age boundaries, publisher agreements and district standards.”
However, Kirsch also admitted that her investigation of the production was sparked by a letter from a parent expressing concern that the Copley community would be “upset” to learn that the school was hosting a play that “explicitly explores sexuality and LGBTQ identity.”
According to the New York Times, following its initial run at The Flea Theater in New York City, She Kills Monsters has become one of the most popular productions among amateur and school theater programs across the US, with 652 schools and colleges staging the play between 2013 and 2021. Over 400 of those productions used Nguyen’s “Young Adventurers Edition,” a version he adapted for younger performers and audiences. (It’s unclear which version of the play Copley High’s drama club intended to use.)
But as arts administrator and writer Howard Sherman told the Beacon Journal, high schools in multiple states have canceled the play in recent years. Two Ohio schools, Hillsboro High School and Hudson High School, canceled student productions in 2021. Hillsboro City Schools Superintendent Tim Davis claimed the Young Adventurers Edition was not appropriate for a K-12 audience.
Meanwhile, Hudson High’s Gender Sexuality Alliance (SGA) club objected to the play’s depiction of LGBTQ+ characters, leading to its cancellation there. “It was decided that if the exact group we intended to feature and support in the production did not like how they were portrayed, it would be best to pivot to a different production,” a spokesperson for Hudson schools told The Buckeye Flame.
In 2024, the principal of a Wisconsin high school claimed that her decision to ban students from staging the Young Adventurers Edition had nothing to do with the play’s portrayal of queer characters, as had been alleged by some parents. And last year, Perry High School outside Des Moines, Iowa, postponed a production of the Young Adventurers Edition after school administrators determined that “certain elements of the production [did] not fully align with the core values and mission” of the school.
Both Coon, who graduated from Copley High in 1999, and Tiffany Jamison, the parent of one of the Copley students cast in the play, questioned Kirsch’s official reasoning for its cancellation.
“If the play was not approved, that’s not reason enough to cancel it,” Jamison told the Beacon Journal. “It’s reason to review it.”
“The kids are not stupid. They knew that wasn’t the reason why,” Coon said. “And so, then, to discover that they’re getting this vague sort of explanation that maybe there was a complaint about the homosexual relationships, which by the way, they were excited to present in a serious way because so many characters in theater that are homosexual are a joke. That’s a chilling message to send the students at this high school.”
According to the Beacon Journal, Coon first commented on the cancellation on Facebook, then spoke with students in the school’s drama club on a conference call earlier this week.
“I just wanted the students to feel supported because it’s ridiculous,” the Emmy, Golden Globe, and Tony Award nominee said. “They know, as I know, that theater is a refuge. It’s a refuge for marginalized communities. It is an important place, especially for LGBTQ students.”
Kirsch says the school has set up a new committee to approve school plays made up of the assistant superintendent, teachers, and the student drama club leader. The committee recently approved a production of Alice in Wonderland to replace She Kills Monsters this fall.
Meanwhile, the artistic director of Akron Civic Theatre’s Millennial Theatre Project has offered to host the canceled production.
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Author: Gavin Boyd
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