This local high school play will have guns!
The original Broadway poster, updated by Dan with the local director’s name.
One of the details that I sought but was unable to get in time for Thursday’s column about the no-guns policy in Patrick Henry High School’s production of “Les Miserables” was details about another upcoming high school performance: “The Foreigner” by Community High School, March 15 & 16 at the June M. McBroom Theatre.
Community High School, in case you are unaware, is a fine private school that, deserved or not, has a reputation as a hippie/peacenik kind of place.
A thespian-minded colleague noted the script for “The Foreigner” calls for a couple of Klansmen with pistols, so I reached out late in the day Wednesday to director Les Epstein to find out if his production will change them out for foam rocks or something.
Epstein called back on Thursday. The answer was: his production at will use prop pistols.
I also got received this email from someone who signed it only “Tammie:”
“Hi Dan!
Just a question about today’s column. How is it that the [Patrick Henry] ROTC program is allowed to carry fake weapons when presenting colors? Just a thought …”
If she’s correct about that, it’s a good question.
March 8, 2013 - 8:00 AM
I saw “The Foreigner” at Mill Mountain a few years back. It’s really excellent. It’s a funny, entertaining story, but it has something to say as well.
How crazy is this. Banning guns in plays . WHAT ARE THEY THINKING !????????
I can’t believe it . This is going to far !
Lots of plays have guns ???????????????
Hey folks,
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I believe government schools are managed and staffed by well-meaning folks, for the most part. However, we bind these schools with layer after layer after layer after layer of government bureaucracy at the specific subject level, school level, system level, state level, and of course the federal level…and let’s not forget the various accrediting agencies. Mix into that bureacratic mess all of the various elected political constituencies with which government schools also must deal with, and it’s pretty easy to wonder, “just how in the world do those folks even manage to find their way to work each day?” I doubt that folks in that “system” can figure out the best way to get out of a paper bag which is open at the end.
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Leave it to a small, private school to allow commen sense and reason to guide their curriculum! I applaud common sense and reason. What better proof do we need than this example, to realize that government schools are woefully inadequate in their support and practice of common sense and reason?
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Political correctness rules the day!
Has anyone else heard that Roanoke County is following suit and forbidding use of prop guns in West Side Story at CSHS/HVHS and othe county schools? I did! The world has gone mad! This is a reaction to Sandy Hook. That tragedy is a mental health issue, not a gun problem, and here we are talking about props, not real weapons! At my office, people are laughing at thi sheer foolishness!
Linda Dwyer,
Chuck Lionberger at Roanoke County schools informed me that the system’s no toy weapons policy indeed extends to theatrical productions. But I didn’t get that info until after my deadline Wednesday; otherwise I would have put it in the column.
We have to take our shoes off to get on a plane. After that, what’s really surprising?
The best thing we ever did for our children was to get them out of the Roanoke County school system. Common sense is uncommon indeed in the public schools.
Oldblue….where did you put them after.
Kristen
Roanoke Catholic. It wasn’t the academics. It was EVERYTHING ELSE that went with the whole public school environment. One small example: They went from a school that felt compelled to have an armed police officer in the building to one that didn’t need locks on the lockers. Also, at RCS, I felt the administrators were accountable to the parents and students. That was definitely not the case in the county (and it was the same in the public school system I attended). More positive atmosphere.
Roanoke Catholic School provides a wonderful environment for kids to grow up in, and learn the three r’s, manners, self-respect, and respect for others.
“They went from a school that felt compelled to have an armed police officer in the building to one that didn’t need locks on the lockers.”
old blue, you realize that events like the recent one that caused the NRA to call for armed guards in every school could happen anywhere, even RC. That one was in an elementary school. There was even one at a Mennonite school. As for locks on the lockers, I agree that criminal things are much more likely to happen at PH, but if you think they never happen at RC, you’ve been fooled.
Is Chuck Lionberger with the County? Fuzzy Minnix, the Cave Spring Rep on Ro County School Board has heard nothing about this. I just got an email back from him.
I’ve heard good things about RC, old blue.
gdad, I have no illusions about crime never happening at RCS. There was a time that the school agonized about putting locks on the lockers after some thefts occurred, but they found the culprits and expelled them. That’s a luxury the public schools do not have. The kids at RCS were not angels, in fact some were there because they had problems elsewhere. But my impression was the discipline at RCS was based on mutual respect, while at the county schools, they clearly ruled by instilling fear in the students.
Chuck Lionberger is the spokesman for the Roanoke County School system. Here’s the email exchange we had Wednesday (I’d called and left a question on his voicemail Wednesday morning).
2:45 p.m.
CL: “Dan, Per your question about a policy regarding the use of prop weapons in high school theatrical productions, there is no specific school board policy that covers this issue. However, we do have a policy that bans weapons and look-a-like weapons on school property.”
2:47 p.m.
DC: “Chuck, Does the cited policy apply to prop weapons in theatrical productions?”
7:54 p.m.
CL: “Yes.”
Guess it’s never come up before. Darn shame. Kids will be upset.
Is this really going to be the new benchmark for how we judge schools. Does anyone seriously believe this is the biggest challenge facing them these days? Really, they’re going to get barraged with emails about theatre props?
How about:
http://beta.roanoke.com/news/1712900-12/franklin-county-high-school-shooters-nail-nationals.html
“Three cheers for Franklin County marksmen!” story.
Hey old blue,
gdad can’t bring himself to grasp the concept of private schools being able to establish different learning processes which generally achieve better success than do government schools. Certainly private schools are not without things to improve…they just offer a different and better environment for learning, in my opinion. And, the students wear uniforms, which aids in the process. And, the open lockers you mentioned also aid in the process.
Respect is a common theme.
Good one, Dave Hicks! Great story.
“Roanoke Catholic School provides a wonderful environment for kids to grow up in, and learn the three r’s, manners, self-respect, and respect for others.”
Gosh, Frank I wonder where my great kids learned all that. Oh, I remember, at home. I didn’t depend on the schools to teach that, although they did mostly.
gdad
I don’t have an axe to grind. I know lots of fine folks who graduated from City and County schools. It just wasn’t working for us.
Area high school marching bands have Color Guard squads. Do they still use fake rifles in their routines or do they just use flags now?
When my grandson was a little boy, he had slow onset asthma. This means he never had a sudden asthma attack; rather, if he got a cold, flu, or any respiratory ailment, his asthma would more than likely act up.
When he was in second grade in the late 90s at a Roanoke County elementary school, he missed 9 days of school due to illness. He was an A/B student, never in trouble, respectful, engaged, read several grade levels above second grade. His mother was called to a mandatory meeting at the school to discuss my grandson’s absences. That meeting included the principal, my grandson’s teacher, and the school nurse. My daughter explained that she kept her son at home those days because he was sick, had asthma, and that she had only taken her son to the doctor on three of the nine days he was absent. The teacher began lecturing my daughter on how difficult it was for students to make up work from being absent and how terrible it was for absent students to miss classroom lectures, projects, etc. The principal told my daughter that if my grandson missed two more days of school without seeing a doctor and without a note to the school from the doctor, they would ‘have no choice but to contact Child Protective Services with concerns of educational and medical neglect’. The school nurse and the principal wanted my daughter to sign a release of information form allowing the school all access to my grandson’s medical information. My daughter refused to sign the release, told them all that SHE was the parent, left the meeting, and homeschooled her son for the rest of that year. By third grade, they had moved and my grandson was able to attend Salem Schools until he graduated, with honors, and with no school nannies sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.
Understood, old blue.
Frank, however, always seems to have an ax to grind.
hey gdad,
Go back and review the posts, and you’ll see that …you… are the ax-wielder, grinding away. i made a simple postive comment about Roanoke Catholic in support of old blue’s positive comment about same, and all of a sudden, there you are, with the ax-a-grinding!!
How did Roanoke Catholic manage to harm you so bad so as to bring THAT kind of behavior out of you?
13 Suns,
Thanks for sharing your personal experience. I’m glad your grandson was able to find a public school environment more open-minded than Roanoke County’s is. Over the years since the Salem School System broke away from Roanoke County, I’ve heard of a number of examples where kids from the county or city transferred to Salem, and achieved superior educational success than was being offered at their “home” school.
Interestingly, I’ve never encountered an example to the contrary.
I need to make a correction. It was a Roanoke City elementary school that my grandson attended.
Thank you for your comment, Frank. Overall, I think Salem operates the superior school system in the area. They are not without problems and challenges, but my daughter and others I know with children in Salem schools all agree that Salem has a policy of working WITH parents and guardians and their children, rather than being overbearing, overreaching, and condescending.
Congratulations to Salem High School’s boys and girls basketball teams! Also, congrats to Salem’s drumline for their 1st place showing! Lots of happy kids, parents, and boosters in Salem this weekend!
Full dislosure: I’m the thespian-minded colleague who alerted Dan to this production.
Even more full disclosure: I played one of the white-hooded, gun-wielding Klansmen in the Mill Mountain Theatre production a few years back. They appear briefly, and quickly get their come-uppance, but they are essential to the show. And I don’t know how you could do that particular scene without (fake) weaponry.
But wait, there’s more: The playwright, Larry Shue, has an unfortunate Virginian connection. He was killed in a plane crash in Augusta County in 1985. He was from the Midwest, but had bought some property in the Shenandoah Valley as a rural retreat and was traveling there when the small commuter plane he was on got lost in the fog on its way to the airport and Weyers Cave and crashed into a mountain. I helped cover that crash for The Roanoke Times; I believe 19 people in all died.
Finally, I’m advised by Community High School that the production has been postponed until the 22nd and 23rd.
– Dwayne Yancey, senior editor