The play “Almost Maine”, the second most performed in high schools nationwide, according to the Educational Theater Association of the United States, has been seen amid controversy lately.
The student, the daughter of a woman, has chosen another student as her stage partner, although according to the text the other protagonist is a boy.
The text describes how the figures had to kiss and undress until they were in thermal interiors for the winter.
According to the Miami-Dade School District, “students had the option of selecting a scene or monologue from a play to perform as part of a class assignment,” among several alternatives, they say there is no there was no taxation.
But according to the mother, when the students asked to make a change, the teacher refused.
“That if the two were going to act, that they had to do it specifically, and it had to be the full. And he told her that they had to put different clothes on it to make it look like she was undressing. And that if they were going to kiss, they had to put both of their big toes in their mouths to pretend to give a strong, passionate kiss, as the play alludes to.
For its part, the school district says that it “is aware of the concern of a student’s parents regarding the scene chosen by the student”, and that “the school administration and the district have met the parents, and the matter had been broached.
The pupil’s mother, on the other hand, argues: “My anger is that the children feel intimidated into doing this and if my daughter had not told me and I had simply ‘skipped’ the class, no one wouldn’t have noticed.”
The mother fears that the play will be part of the theater program.
Florida laws define material harmful to minors as material containing descriptions or accounts of sexual arousal.
Around the work “Almost, Maine”, in previous years there have already been controversies and suspensions of its production in schools in Maryland and North Carolina, for having been considered to have overtones of sexuality explicit and sexual innuendo.
The school district says “Almost Maine” is not on any list of inappropriate or prohibited works or materials.