Many saw it as a lost opportunity for students to have the frank conversations that generations of Americans need to have over their country’s history.
The Biloxi School Board’s decision spread online and outside the state. The same year, the book was retained on a supplemental eighth-grade reading list in the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Arizona despite protests by black parents and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that it was unfit for junior high use, the A.L.A. In 1985, its inclusion at a Park Hill junior high school in Missouri was challenged because of profanity and racial slurs. TOM TITUS covers the local theater scene for the Pilot.Set during the Depression in a small Alabama town where a black man is accused of raping a white woman, its exploration of racism, injustice and discrimination has placed it among the most banned or challenged works of literature in the United States, according to the American Library Association. They will be announced next week as the Daily Pilot reveals its Man and Woman of the Year in Theater for 2011.
Of all the local stage productions, on all three levels - professional, community and collegiate - two people emerged as especially memorable. At UC Irvine, both Ben Jacoby and Chris Klopatek were brilliant in “Waiting for Godot.” Rick Golson’s major general in “The Pirates of Penzance” topped the list of OCC performances, while Wes Timmons, Leo Martinez and Jessica Slagle also impressed in the same show. Other notable achievements came from Lucas Moore and Katelyn Spurgin in “Romeo and Juliet,” Lucas Moore, Candace Miser-Blanton and Mary Lee Tandy-McGlasson in “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” and the father-daughter team of Michael Fidalgo and Sarah Maresch in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Other memorable acting achievements at the Costa Mesa Playhouse came from Amanda Hart and Bethany Price for “Steel Magnolias,” Paul Griffiths, Danielle MacInnis and Emily Price, all for “Blithe Spirit,” and Ron Grigsby and Ed McBride in “The Book of Liz.”Ī number of performers shone brightly in Newport, including Vince Campbell, Toni Beckman and Christopher Utley, all for “All My Sons ” Julie Ellis and Della Lisi for “The Dixie Swim Club ” Erin McNally and Maxwell Corpuz for “Spelling Bee ” and Mark Kaufman, Alec Malczynski and Nathanial Carpenter, all for “Biloxi Blues.”Īt Vanguard, Paul Eggington (Atticus) and Danae Hayes Macpherson (Scout) delivered the year’s top performances in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” while Royen Kent and Rosalyn Brickman also were very impressive as the title lovers in “Romeo and Juliet.” Jonathan Deroko and Amber Bonasso delivered memorable portrayals in Newport’s “All My Sons.” At Costa Mesa, Norma Jean excelled both as a leading actress in “The Book of Liz” and in support for “Blithe Spirit.” Newport’s season was spiced by Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues,” staged by Gigi Fusco Meese, and the farcical “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” directed by Kari Hayter.Ī pair of second leads topped the performance tabulations in community theater during 2011. Other memorable productions at the Costa Mesa theater were director Jason Holland’s mounting of “Steel Magnolias” and Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit,” directed by David A. There, Robert Cohen staged an intriguing version of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” in the venue rechristened as the Robert Cohen Theater for its director/professor, who’s been at UCI as long as UCI has been in Irvine. The most resoundingly accomplished show of the year, however, came from UC Irvine.
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