Did you know that you can ban a book simply because you think it may be racial or radical to students, even if you’ve never taken the time to read it yourself? Concerns and fears are behind these challenges for censorship and they have been escalating each year at alarming rates, supposedly to promote children’s morality, about race, gender, history and sexual orientation. For example, the Washington Post found in a 2023 analysis that only eleven people were responsible for filing book challenges in over 100 school districts while in a survey by PEN that Republican-led censorship laws in the 2023-2024 academic year resulted in about 10,000 books being banned.
Censorship started early in the Puritan colonies in 1650 and continued with slavery issues in the Civil War, with the publication of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” unfortunately rising each year to being front and center today. In recent years, books from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and Harry Potter, Anne Frank’s Diary and Shakespeare have been in the foreground for challenges. Back in 1959 in Alabama a school librarian faced her own censorship obstacles. Thanks to Ivoryton Playhouse, until October 20, you are invited into the center ring of the debate with Kenneth Jones’s “Alabama Story,” a true account of this issue at a pivotal moment in American history.
Come make the acquaintance of Ivoryton’s Executive Director Jacqueline Hubbard starring as Emily Wheelock Reed, a fierce defender of her beloved books and freedom of speech, and her fiery opponent in bigoted men like Michael Irvin Pollard’s Senator E. W. Higgins. With eloquent and flowery disguised language, he attacks a children’s book “The Rabbits’ Wedding” by Garth Williams, author and illustrator, who dared to have a black bunny wed a white bunny. Higgins viewed it as an attack on whites and segregation, and the sacred principles of the South. For her part, Emily had the protection and dedication of her library assistant Nicholas-Tyler Corbin’s Thomas Franklin for support in her battle against censorship.
In a compelling side story, the long term relationship and termination of that friendship are illustrated by a wealthy socialite teen Allie Seibold’s Lily who develops an unacceptable affection for the African-American son of the family’s cook, Anthony Vaughn Merchant’s Joshua Moore. Their reunion later in life illustrates the long approved division among racial lines clung to by Southerners. Daryll Heysham portrays Garth Williams among other characters and narrator. This is a compelling tale, told with fervor and authenticity by the talented actors, a true story, a love story, an historical story, and one that resonates today in school board conference rooms across our great land. You need to acknowledge the dangers that loom over our library shelves and be educated about the risks that threaten our children, no matter which side of the printed page you stand on.
For tickets ($60, seniors $55, students $25), call the Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main Street, Ivoryton at 860-767-7318 or online at ivorytonplayhouse.org. Performances are Wednesday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 pm, Thursday at 7:30 p.m, Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m, and Sunday at 2 p.m.
Last week was Book Banning Week so this is a timely reminder of the need to protect our freedoms, the importance of books and our libraries, and our need to educate ourselves and be curious about our world all the days of our lives.
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