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I'm involved with my college's production of Hair right now, and the instructors have chosen to cut some things out of it. If you've ever seen the movie or a stage production of Hair, you'll know that it's got quite a bit of risque things going on. It's a long show, about 2 hours. The students here at my school were afraid it'd end up about 20 minutes with the way they were cutting stuff out of it.

The main reason they were cutting stuff was because this play is part of our Crossover Project, where we cast half the people at our college, half the people at a college in England, and perform it at both places. Most of the students at the English college are under the age of 18 and they don't want to get into any messy legal trouble. But if they're in an institution of higher learning being exposed to theatre, shouldn't they be exposed to the whole thing instead of a pansified version of it's former self?

To my knowledge, things that were cut:
- The song "Sodomy"
- The song "White Boys" (no black girls to sing it)
- The song "Initials" (nobody in England would understand it)
- The nude scene
- The rape scene
- Any and all usage of the word "********"
- Any and all sexual language

My question to the faculty is: WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO HAIR?! The actors seem to be okay with it for the most part. The actor playing Woof was VERY upset over Sodomy being cut, but other than that, the actors pretty much kept their mouths shut. The orchestra and tech crew is more upset about it than the actors are, which is disturbing to me.

So my question to all of you is: Does it give your stomach a little turn when stuff is stricken from a particular performance because it's not "appropriate"? I understand some allowances have to be made for high school, but if an adult production is being censored, does it send the same shudder of disgust up your spine that it sends up mine? Opinions?

I have the exact same question. Why do Hair if you're going to hack and slash it so much?

Er. No pun intended.

Yeah i've always wished we could do Rent but my drama teacher said it's too inappropriate (meaning he doesnt like gay people)

I agree that it's okay to censor a couple of things here and there in high school. A lot of plays aren't written with high schoolers in mind. But in college, I'm pretty sure all parties involved are mature enough to include whatever is written in the play. And if not, DON'T PERFORM THE DAMN PLAY.

I was massively pissed off that Hair was so mutilated, because two of the musicals in consideration for next year are Rent and Rocky Horror. Both of which would have made me super excited, but since it's pretty much certain that both of those plays would have to be edited to within an inch of their lives, I don't want to do them any more. I don't see the point of performing Rent without drugs, or Rocky Horror without the sex. I don't want to be involved with a lame sunday-school version of a kick a** show. Not gonna do it. I'd honestly rather do something standard and overdone and do it CORRECTLY than half a** a musical I truly love.

SIGH. [/rant]

Yes, Why produce a play that you end up changing so much it takes the meaning of the play away?!



Its like RENT without the Rent/aids issue!

In other words, all the good stuff has been cut (jk)

But seriously, if you don't want to present something where there's all that stuff, choose another production instead of cutting some essential parts of it. I mean, Hair talks about that, maybe a controversial way for some, but still. So if you take out all of that, what's left?

And well, people under 18 all know what's a p***s and a v****a, and they heard the word "********" a thousand times in their life. I mean, the only way to know if it is acceptable is to get informed, asking to the institutions if it's not too "hardcore" for people in their college.