More on Censorship of School Theater

[In “Censorship on School Stages” (30 July 2023), I wrote:

The First Amendment to our Constitution—Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . .—is supposed to protect artistic expression.  It’s significant, though, that the First Amendment constrains only government action—federal, state, and local—not private conduct.  State-supported (that is, ‘public’) schools, whether primary and secondary schools or state colleges and universities, are arms of the government, however. . . .

As I declared on Rick On Theater back in 2010 in ”The First Amendment & The Arts,” I’m fundamentally a First Amendment absolutist.  In that post, I quoted one of my favorite theater lines, from Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards’s Tony-winning (Best Musical) 1969 Broadway musical, 1776.  

The character Stephen Hopkins (1707-85), delegate from Rhode Island to the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence, declares, when asked for his vote for or against an open debate on independence:

Well, I’ll tell y’—in all my years I never heard, seen, nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn’t be talked about.  Hell yes, I’m for debatin’ anything . . .!

That’s exactly how I feel about free speech.  In this democracy, we shouldn’t be constrained from talking about anything.  That includes ideas other people don’t like.  

The only proper response to speech we don’t like is more speech.  Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941; Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States: 1916-39) wrote that in 1927 (Whitney v. California).  You don’t cut people off when you don’t like what they’re saying; you debate them.  (It’s known as “The Counterspeech Doctrine.”)

[These words couldn’t be more appropriate to preface the post below, two-and-a-half years later.  In the time since I first blogged on this topic, I reiterated my support for freedom of speech and artistic expression in posts including:

   •   “Degrading the Arts” (13 August 2009)•
•   “The First Amendment & The Arts” (8 May 2010)
•   “Disappearing Theater” (19 July 2010)
•   “‘The Arts Are Under Attack (Again!)’” by Paul Molloy [Allegro] (22 May 2011)
•   “Culture War” (6 February 2014)
•   “The First Amendment & The Arts, Redux” (13 February 2015)
•   “‘How to Free Speech’” by Lee C. Bollinger (23 November 2015)
•   “Fighting for Free Expression” (5 February 2016)
•   “‘Arts and the State’” [1990] by Paul Mattick, Jr. (14 November 2021)
•   “Censorship on School Stages” (30 July 2023)
•   “‘The Courage to Produce: A Conversation on High School Censorship’” by Allison Considine, Jessica Lit, Jordan Stovall, and Nadine Smith (21 April 2024)
•   “America’s Culture War—Now at Your Local Theater” (25 October 2024)
•   “‘The Arts and the Battle for the Soul of Civilization’” by Dr. Indira Etwaroo (4 May 2025)
•   “Degrading the Arts (Redux)” (14 May 2025)
•   “Pentagon Bans Books from Base Schools” (11 November 2025).   

[In The Life of the Theatre, Judith Malina (1926-2015) of the Living Theatre asserted that her husband and partner Julian Beck defined an artist as “a maker of maps” who “will draw up the map for the liberation of dreams: the transformation of ideas into working acts.”

[“The work of the artist,” Beck (1925-85) wrote, is “as the creative of solutions thru [sic] the exercise of the imagination.”  He further declared, “An actor who brings back from his adventures a moment of communicable penetration is a hero, the light of our lives.”

[Artists see the future long before any scientist or engineer can invent it.  Da Vinci saw flying machines half a millennium before the bothers Wright made history at Kitty Hawk; Cyrano de Bergerac envisioned men on the moon three centuries before any Apollo spacecraft was launched; Jules Verne put Captain Nemo in a submarine decades before a real one was built.  As Shakespeare’s Duke Theseus of Athens put it:

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name. (Midsummer Night’s Dream V.i)

[“Things unknown” are often also “things uncomprehended.” “Things uncomprehended” are often “things unwelcome.” It is the artist who is usually at the forefront of efforts to acquaint us with and explain these “things,” often whether we want to hear about them or not.  Silencing artists is an act of willful blindness.  We do it at our own peril.]

“[REDACTED] ROUNDTABLE”
by Robert Schenkkan 

[Playwright Robert Schenkkan’s transcript of this roundtable appeared in The Dramatist Vol. 27 No. 4 (Autumn 2025): “Courage.”  The Dramatist is the quarterly journal of the Dramatists Guild of America.  The discussion transcribed below was posted on the website of the Dramatists Guild on 1 September 2025.]

This roundtable discussion with Jereme Anglin, Brent Lindsay, Dean Jahnsen, and Leila Paine was moderated by Robert Schenkkan.

The DLDF [Dramatists Legal Defense Fund] Defender Award, presented annually at the Dramatists Guild Awards [6 May 2024, presented at Sony Hall in New York City (West 46th Street, near Times Square)], is given in recognition of an individual, group, or organization’s efforts in support of free expression in the dramatic arts. For its 2024 award, the DLDF board named the students at Santa Rosa High School’s ArtQuest Theatre, who led a fight against the school’s attempt to shut down their production of Dog Sees God and then helped create a new theatrical work, [REDACTED], to comment on their experience; their drama teacher, Jereme Anglin; Brent Lindsay, artistic director of The Imaginists, who helped the students create [REDACTED]; and the Mercury Theater of Petaluma [22 miles south of Santa Rosa], for providing a new home for Dog Sees God after performances were suspended at the high school. On July 20, DLDF board member and Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist Robert Schenkkan met with students Leila Paine and Dean Jahnsen, as well as Jereme and Brent, to discuss their experience.

[Santa Rosa High is in Santa Rosa, California. With a population as of the 2020 census of a little under 180,000, Santa Rosa’s the seat of Sonoma County, in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. SRHS, founded in 1874, has a student body of just over 1,600.

[The ArtQuest program at SRHS was launched in 1994 to “provide an above and beyond experience for students who wish to concentrate on the [visual and performing] arts during their high school years and for whom creativity and artistic expression is of paramount importance.” It provides students with the skills to pursue conservatory, college, and professional paths.

[The Imaginists, a theater collective that has been part of Santa Rosa’s culture scene since 2002, is, according to its website, “an artist-run performing arts organization that explores the intersection of art and community, honoring the power of live performance as a vital space for questioning, dialogue, and invention. From original new works to community-based projects, education initiatives, site-specific works, and international collaborations, the Imaginists up-end convention, re-imagine public space, and cultivate radical inclusion as they continually re-think theater: who participates, where it happens, and what it is.”

[Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead is a 2004 written by Bert V. Royal. It’s an “unauthorized continuation” play that reimagines characters from the Charles M. Schulz comic strip Peanuts as degenerate teenagers. (It’s unauthorized and unapproved by the Schulz estate or United Features Syndicate.) Substance abuse, eating disorders, teen violence, rebellion, sexual relations and identity are among the issues covered in this parody.

[Dog Sees God was first presented in a reading on 3 May 2004 at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York City’s Greenwich Village. It had its world premiere at the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival (13-29 August 2024). It was presented Off-Off-Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse (in the Hudson Square section on western SoHo) from 13 August to 19 September 2004, produced by Sorrel Tomilinson/File 14 Productions.

[The play received its Off-Broadway premiere at the Century Center for the Performing Arts, running from 15 December 2005-20 February 2006. The production was directed by Trip Cullman; the set design was by David Korins; the costume design was by Jenny Mannis; the lighting design was by Brian MacDevitt; the sound design was by Darron L. West.

[Later productions were mounted in Los Angeles (2008 and 2024 for the play’s 20th anniversary); Manchester, U.K. (2009); and Toronto, Canada (2009), among other places.]

Jereme Anglin: My name is Jereme Anglin. I’m the theatre teacher at ArtQuest at Santa Rosa High School. Dean and Leila are my students, and Brent is a guest artist that we bring in every year to work with our students.

Brent Lindsay: I’m Brent Lindsay, and I work with the local theatre company here called The Imaginists. Every year, I go to ArtQuest, and we devise an original work together. 

Leila Paine: I’m Leila Paine. I just graduated from ArtQuest, and I was the vice president last year. 

Dean Jahnsen: I’m Dean Jahnsen. I just graduated from ArtQuest Theatre, and I was the president last year.

Robert Schenkkan: I’m Robert Schenkkan, Council member of the Dramatists Guild Council and the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund. I’d like you to set the stage for this story. November 2024. ArtQuest theatre program at Santa Rosa High School is performing a play and there is some controversy.

Dean Jahnsen: Yes. The play is called Dog Sees God [by Bert V. Royal]. It’s a spinoff to the Charles Schultz’s Peanuts, and it’s basically about them growing up and going through life as teenagers. The play was written in 2004, so it had a lot of pop culture moments from then, and it has a lot of drug use in it, and it uses certain slurs that are not accepted today.

Leila Paine: There are a lot of difficult topics that happen during high school. A lot of stuff with mental health, including suicide, drug use, alcohol abuse, things like that, and just overall bullying.

Robert Schenkkan: Leila, Dean, how was it you came to be doing this play?

Dean Jahnsen: At the beginning of last school year, Mr. Anglin brought four plays for us to choose from, and we gravitated toward two plays. Both of them had very real topics—the other one talked about sexual assault. Our entire class decided on Dog Sees God together. 

Leila Paine: We read the scripts for all four plays, and I think it was a week that we took discussing which one we wanted to do.

Robert Schenkkan: Sounds like the students are super involved at this theatre program.

Jereme Anglin: When the students began as freshmen, the content that they’re given is really selected by the teachers. Same thing as their sophomore year. They’re required to do some Shakespeare, some comedy of manners, and different topics that the teachers choose. But in their advanced years, I like to treat them like they’re a burgeoning theatre company. Students then take on leadership roles and have a say in what content they want to do. When they’re producing their shows, they oversee the budget and all that, so they really learn how to work as a theatre company.

Robert Schenkkan: Fantastic. Would you say there was anything unusual about the selection of this particular play for ArtsQuest?

Leila Paine: I feel like it was the usual. Honestly, it was more entertaining than other shows that we’ve done there.

Dean Jahnsen: Yeah. It just felt like another play.

Leila Paine: In level three, it’s a lot more college level material, but it’s also stuff that we enjoy and find important. That was why we chose Dog Sees God over the other shows, because we really connected with the topics that were in it, and we thought it was important to do, especially in a high school.

Dean Jahnsen: It really felt relevant to the times, and it was true to the high school experience.

Jereme Anglin: We’ve done The Laramie Project [(2000 verbatim play – blog ed.) by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project] in that class. The Wolves [(2016 play – blog ed.) by Sarah DeLappe], She Kills Monsters [(2011 comedy-drama – blog ed.) by Qui Nguyen] . . . so Dog Sees God didn’t stand out to anyone as particularly provocative. [A different instance of the suppression of Nguyen’s play is recounted in “Censorship on School Stages,” referenced above.]

Robert Schenkkan: Which brings us to this rather extraordinary moment where suddenly the play is canceled. Were you informed whose decision this was, and what were the reasons given for the cancellation?

Jereme Anglin: We did our first performance on Thursday night [14 November 2024], and then Friday, before I had a chance to meet with the students again, I was pulled into the principal’s office, and there was someone from the superintendent’s office there who said that there had been one anonymous complaint from someone who was in the audience the night before, and that we were gonna need to cancel the play. 

Robert Schenkkan: Had this ever happened before in the history of your program?

Jereme Anglin: Not in recent times. I heard that in the ’80s they were performing Cabaret, and Cabaret was forced to close because of antisemitism, but it’s really unusual, I think. 

[Cabaret, the 1966 musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and book by Joe Masteroff, was set in 1929-30, on the eve of the declaration of the Third Reich. (Adolf Hitler [1889-1945; Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party] was elected Chancellor [prime minister] of Germany on 30 January 1933.) The antisemitism in the musical was confined to the characters who were Nazis or Nazi-sympathizers—which was part of the point of the play and it sources, the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten and the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.

[The play has garnered numerous awards, including the 1967 Tony for Best Musical, 1967 New York Drama Critics’ Circle and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Besst Musical, 1998 Tony for Best Revival of a Musical, 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical, 1998 Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Revival, 1998 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical, 2022 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival, and many nominations.]

Robert Schenkkan: The complaint was anonymous.

Jereme Anglin: Yeah.

Robert Schenkkan: Were you ever given any more explanation of who voiced this complaint or what specifically they were upset about?

Dean Jahnsen: I believe the first time it was because of the language that was used, and then the other time it was sexual innuendos onstage.

Leila Paine: They kept changing it in every email or talk that we had with them. It was always something different. It’s like they couldn’t agree on one reason why it was canceled.

Jereme Anglin: I have a suspicion that the initial reaction was the vocabulary, the language, the slurs, and some of that content. But after the backlash from the community and all the support we got, I think the district then consulted with their legal team and found that the reasons they canceled the play were not actually something they could do. I think they slowly pivoted toward “protecting the audience members” versus, “is this something appropriate for our students to present?” Someone in the audience could sue the school because they were exposed to something they were not prepared for. And that could pose a legal threat somehow to the school district, if a student could say that they learned about something or were forced to confront something that they weren’t ready to do. 

Robert Schenkkan: Do you typically have content warnings on your play programs and on the publicity surrounding your productions?

Dean Jahnsen: In our morning announcements, we do content warnings. We have one outside the theatre and inside the theatre, and then also in our [preshow] speech. We started doing it on social media as well. 

Robert Schenkkan: So, suddenly, they’ve shut you down. How did you all respond?

Jereme Anglin: When I first found out, I was a little stunned and not sure what to do, but I just sat the class down in a circle and let them know what I had been informed of. At first, they thought I was joking, and then when they realized I was serious, they got upset. People were angry. Some were crying, but they quickly became motivated, and I’ll let them tell you what they did. They’re the ones who did it. 

Dean Jahnsen: I sat there, and I was like, “You’re lying,” and then I cried a little bit, and then I went outside, and I talked to my mom, just because I needed comfort. I noticed that, everywhere I looked, they were sad or they were angry. A group of students left the classroom and went around the school to talk to other teachers on what to do. I thought to contact our local newspaper, The Press Democrat [daily paper of Santa Rosa]. One of our fellow classmates contacted one of the editors. 

Robert Schenkkan: So, you went right to the press! That’s fascinating. And Leila, I gather that pretty quickly, you also pivoted to another production venue. Can you talk me through that?

Leila Paine: Right after it happened, we realized that we still wanted to try and find a way to put [the show] on. The class had all agreed—especially because the show was double cast, and because there was only one performance, only half of the class got to do the show. 

Dean Jahnsen: The cast was split up—the level three class is juniors and seniors, and the cast that went was mostly juniors, so the senior class didn’t get to perform at all. So, that was also devastating, because there isn’t a next year.

Leila Paine: My mom is involved in the theatre community in our town, and I was working at a theatre, so I was messaging her and my boss at the theatre company I work at. Mr. Anglin and the other theatre teacher at our school, Miss Cain, were contacting everyone we knew that had venues. Our treasurer has a connection at another theatre company and was contacting them, so we were all reaching out to find what place was available as soon as possible.

Jereme Anglin: A lot of theatre companies had something already built on their stage, so we were looking for an empty space that we could just jump into, and [we] finally found one in the neighboring town, Petaluma. A little theatre company called Mercury Theater said that they had space, and we could go down there and set up. So, the next morning, we all met at the high school, loaded up our vehicles, and spent the entire day at the theatre. I was rebuilding the set and setting things up while the students took over restaging it themselves on the stage. We were multitasking to try to and get it open that same night.

Robert Schenkkan: The students restaged the play themselves. Is that an unusual activity for them? Typically, would you be doing the staging?

Dean Jahnsen: The students will stage it, and then Mr. Anglin will review it and make sure it works for every perspective in the audience. But at that point, we didn’t have time [for that]. But we did it, and honestly, I think the staging was better than it was before.

Robert Schenkkan: It’s so interesting how you took this moment for grief, and rage, and confusion, and then you very, very quickly pivoted to action. So, you have found another theatre, the Mercury Theater. You moved in. You’ve restaged the play, and you did a single performance there, two performances?

Dean Jahnsen: We did two: one earlier in the evening and one later. It was, like, an eighteen-hour day, nonstop. It was crazy.

[The SRHS students did their two Petaluma performances on Saturday, 16 November 2024. The small Mercury Theatre, provided by the resident troupe free of charge, was sold out for both shows, totaling an audience of 240 theatergoers and raising $3,500 for the ArtQuest program. All box-office receipts went to ArtQuest. Outside the theater was a hand-lettered sign that read: “censorship kills creativity.”]

Leila Paine: Then we got together at one of our classmates’ houses to relax and talk about what was going on, and we all made signs about censorship, and we hung them outside of the theatre where we performed.

Dean Jahnsen: That was the night the article got posted, and our entire community really got involved. We were just reflecting on everyone’s support, and that was the big moment where our class bonded. 

Jereme Anglin: The students were also very active on social media, posting on various platforms, and contacted the playwright, Bert V. Royal. He got on board to support us, so there was a huge avalanche of support and positive things that came out. 

Dean Jahnsen: [There were] theatre departments from all over the Bay Area contacting us, [asking] if we wanted to come to them. It was so overwhelming, but it was so cool to see.

Leila Paine: It felt like it came out of nowhere. Initially, when we got shut down, our entire class felt alone in what had happened. We were like, “There’s nothing we can do about this,” but we found, as we kept pushing and trying harder instead of giving up, that there are lots of people in our community and outside of our community that actually care about what happened. It was strange to see that happen, that it’s not just something small that’s happening to us.

Robert Schenkkan: You were surprised by the response?

Leila Paine:  Yeah.

Dean Jahnsen: Yes.

Robert Schenkkan: This is really extraordinary. And there are lessons here, for artists everywhere, professional and nonprofessional. You did not allow yourselves to be shut down. You did not shrink away in shame. In fact, you stepped up and embraced the issue, embraced the controversy. Publicity became your friend.

As a result, there’s a greater sense of ownership by the students. You have expanded a play which already dealt with serious and potent topics into an examination of censorship and the importance of speaking out against censorship. Extraordinary. But my understanding is you didn’t stop there. After Dog Sees God closed, you traditionally begin a new project with another local theatre company, The Imaginists. What have you previously done with The Imaginists, and how was this collaboration different?

Leila Paine: Well, initially, the process started the same. Every year, Brent comes in, and we usually start [brainstorming] around the same time that we’re rehearsing our fall show. 

We did that in about September/October, and then we’d take a break for a little bit when we’re doing our fall show, but then as soon as the show closes, we jump right into rehearsals for what we’re bringing to Lenaea [High School Theatre Festival]. This year, I think we started a little bit earlier, and we started talking about censorship before everything even happened, how the arts seemed to be almost dying a little bit. That was an idea that we were playing with going into it, and we had a rough draft of the script that Brent had created. After everything with Dog Sees God happened, we jumped straight into making [REDACTED]. 

[According to its own website:

“The Lenaea High School Theatre Festival is an annual three-day celebration of creativity and talent, bringing together high school theatre students from across the West Coast. This dynamic event invites students to perform, receive personalized feedback from professional theatre artists, and explore their craft through hands-on workshops in every corner of the theatre world. 

“Founded in 1956 and inspired by the ancient Greek Lenaea festivals, Lenaea began as an initiative of Sacramento State College (now [California State University,] Sacramento) to nurture and elevate high school theatre programs. Since becoming an independent nonprofit in 2012, Lenaea has found its home at the Harris Center for the Arts at Folsom Lake College.”

[Folsom Lake College (FLC) is a public community college in Folsom, California. It’s part of the California Community Colleges system.

[The Lenaia (preferred spelling; cf. ancient Greek: Λήναια) was an annual Athenian festival with a dramatic competition. It was one of the lesser festivals of Athens and Ionia in ancient Greece. The Lenaia took place in Athens in Gamelion, roughly corresponding to January. Beginning in the second half of the 5th century BCE, plays were performed at the Lenaia festival, whose origins reach back into the pre-classical era, and contests of some sort continued into the 2nd century BCE, though it’s unknown when the festival was finally abandoned.

[The Lenaia festival was in honor of Dionysus Lenaios (“Dionysus of the Wine-Press”; the sobriquet “Lenaios” likely derives from the Greek word lenos, meaning ‘wine-press,’ though another possible origin is from lenai, another name for the Maenads, the female worshippers of Dionysus). Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, theater, and revelry, among other things, was known to the Romans as Bacchus.]

Dean Jahnsen: Every year, it’s a relevant theme of what’s going on in the world, and every year, it always has a message. The year before, when we were juniors, it discussed the toxicities of social media [Dreamletting, 25-26 January 2024], but then this year, I remember talking about Moms for Liberty [political organization founded in 2021 that advocates against school curricula that mention LGBTQ rights, race and ethnicity, critical race theory, and discrimination], their censorship and their influence. And this seeped into when we were writing [REDACTED], how people have influence on the school board, how the school board affects our every day.

Brent Lindsay: At one of the first meetings, someone brought up theatre and how it is basically either under attack, or it is not finding its enrollment. The COVID blip is real. We see theatre and other art forms struggling. I think this came up early in the conversation, so it wasn’t necessarily about censorship, but censorship, of course, became a very convenient way for us to “find our villain.”

The early drafts, I was playing with One Thousand and One Nights [presumably the collection of Middle Eastern folktales, often known in English as The Arabian Nights, compiled in the Arabic language from as early as the 8th century CE]. We present this show at the Lenaea Festival [6-8 February 2025], so this was a way for us to take something that was going to celebrate the art form, theatre, but also be a little bit cheeky—a satire about a theatre company going to a festival and the antagonist being Mommies Against the Arts. So, we were taking those components, and it was rather messy in the beginning. Then Dog Sees God happened in the middle of this process, and I must say it wasn’t just the cancellation; it was then these meetings that came thereafter in the next two months where I had to be in the room—from the principal to the district to the superintendent. Every one of these meetings, I was taking mad notes, and the show was changing and evolving. Between Jereme and the students and me, it was like, “We could write all this into the material.” 

So, it wasn’t just becoming satire. It was very close to home, and quite dangerous.

Robert Schenkkan: When you say, “Quite dangerous,” what do you mean?

Brent Lindsay: Well, I mean, because the other side of this story that, as soon as Dog Sees God was canceled and they moved it to the Mercury Theater, I think it was the next day that the school board had received enough pressure that they allowed the play to continue, and at that point, it was already too late. Am I getting that right? 

[The board reversed the cancellation on 16 November 2024, the day the ArtQuest troupe had scheduled and prepared for their off-campus performances.  The reversal of the decision to terminate the production was accompanied by the imposition of new restrictions, including script approval for future presentations and age limits for shows with “adult themes.”]

Dean Jahnsen: Yeah. 

Brent Lindsay: The students and [their] social media blasts, they were ferocious. The testimonials were beautiful. I mean, every screen in our community, especially the theatre community, was just blasted, so it was very easy for us to turn to our school board, the superintendent, the principal, everybody, and say, “What the hell’s going on?” 

I think that that kind of community support created a situation where they found themselves in a place where it was very uncomfortable. They step back, and then they have these meetings with the students, which I gotta say all seemed ridiculous. They wanted to save face. They wanted to play the victim, and they were putting it on these guys as if they were the antagonists, that they were actually on the offense. 

So, what I mean by “dangerous” is we got to take all that information in quite some detail and write it into the script. So, if school board members or superintendents came to see the play, they saw themselves. There was no question, not by name, but they knew exactly who we were talking about. 

Robert Schenkkan: I wish I could say I felt adept at social media. Could you school me for a minute here, Leila and Dean, on your social media work throughout the experience? What was your focus? How was it organized? 

Dean Jahnsen: It started with us calling The Press Democrat, our local paper, and that story being written, and everyone started reposting. And there would be updates on the article because we kept in contact with the writer. People were constantly refreshing and reading what’s happening, and it was just repost after repost. I remember looking at that post and looking at the other ones that The Press Democrat put out, and it had like, 5,000 likes, 20,000 views, where the other ones were like, 30 and twenty. 

Leila Paine: And then some of our classmates posted the email addresses of the administrators who were in charge of what had happened, explaining what the actual issue was from our point of view—like, if you’re against this, please contact these people.

Dean Jahnsen: We used our company’s Instagram and Facebook, and also word of mouth. It just spread like wildfire. 

Robert Schenkkan: Fantastic. So, I gather the new play you created with the Imaginists was kind of a story within a story that reflected what you had actually just lived through. Could you give our audience a quick explanation of the plot of this new play?

Brent Lindsay: I think that it boils down to a class bringing scenes and monologues to a festival, and you’re always doing your pieces for a group of respondents. It can be one respondent looking at the playwright’s submissions, two respondents or three looking at scenes or monologues. So, this play starts with one student before a group of respondents, and all of a sudden, it becomes apparent that one of the respondents is one of these Mommies Against the Arts. 

It’s all about, then, how do we kill the arts by way of killing, literally killing these students? So, it becomes this high satire of the students being at risk of death from Mommies Against the Arts. And, à la One Thousand and One Nights, one student steps forward and says, “I wanna do my scene,” and that becomes a scene within a scene within a scene and keeps them all living until she can get to the final scene, basically surrounding all the Mommies for the Arts and threatening to tear them all apart and beheading them and all that. 

Then all the lights come on. That same student steps forward and says, “Hey, relax. It’s just theatre,” and then it’s a blackout. 

Robert Schenkkan: Wonderful. And I understand you went on to win a bucketload of awards at this statewide festival?

Jereme Anglin: Yeah. That came as a shock. We always bring original work there, because of the nature of our ArtQuest program. Our students have a lot of training, and we tend to do pretty well at the festival. We have, I think, a bit of a reputation and respect from other schools and other programs, but this year, we really were surprised at how much they had heard about what we have been going through and how much they liked the [REDACTED] script. The big award that they gave at the end is called the Bob Smart Award. He’s a theatre teacher who created the Lenaea Festival many, many years ago, and they created this award in his honor, to go to an individual or individuals who have undergone some significant struggle in bringing pieces of theatre to the festival, and so last year, we were given that award.

[Bob Smart (life dates unknown) was a professor at Sacramento State College (now CSU Sacramento) who guided many students into professional theater careers. The original idea for a high school drama festival at Sacramento State was initiated in 1955, but by the next year, Smart became a central figure in its operation and enduring legacy.

[Smart retired from Sacramento State College in 1998 and it’s likely his active participation in the Lenaea High School Theatre Festival ended then. The festival probably initiated the prestigious Bob Smart Spirit of Lenaea High School Theatre Festival Award, its highest honor, at that time as a memorial to Smart.  It recognizes individuals or groups who embody the festival’s values, particularly for things like fighting censorship and promoting the spirit of theater.]

Robert Schenkkan: Congratulations! And finally, as a sort of postscript to this whole extraordinary event, I understand that the superintendent who initially censored this production was fired. Is that correct?

Jereme Anglin: Yes.

Dean Jahnsen: The entire school board has been going through a lot of fire recently because of consolidation efforts, and she was let go at the end of last year.

Jereme Anglin: I think it was after a series of bad decisions, and then the community just feeling that the superintendent didn’t really mesh well with our community, with our program.

Dean Jahnsen: And our beliefs.

Robert Schenkkan: Very clearly not. We live in a very challenging moment right now. The arts are definitely under assault. Censorship is a very real issue. Leila and Dean, as you look back on it now, what are the lessons that you took away from this experience which you think might be meaningful to other artists?

Leila Paine: I think that the biggest thing that came out of it, at least for me, is that instead of being passive and letting it happen and accepting it, we took all the emotions and anger, what we had gone through, and we worked with Brent and turned it into art. Instead of just letting it happen, we took our experiences and made something greater. And then also the fact that, as artists, you’re not alone. There are so many more people out there who support the arts than you think there are. So, just because you have one person telling you, “No,” or a group of people telling you what you’re doing isn’t okay, that it’s not right, [that] doesn’t mean that they’re right, and doesn’t mean you have to listen to them. 

Dean Jahnsen: What I noticed is that I didn’t really see a lot of support from the younger generation when it first happened, but when I got to Lenaea and noticed everyone supporting us, it really showed me that the young generation is out there to support and defend the arts, especially in the political climate we are in. 

Robert Schenkkan: Jereme, Brent, did you have anything you wanted to add to that?

Brent Lindsay: Hearing Leila and Dean talk about it, I’m reminded that when we performed [REDACTED] at the school, when we had school board members, or assistant superintendents, or even the principal or vice principal come and sit and watch that piece, oftentimes what happened at the end is the whole black box would leap to its feet uproariously. And the one person sitting would be that school board member, isolated, alone, and I think it was just as shocking to me to see that story play out, to see how lonely it was to be that person who is trying to achieve some sort of power that was rejected by the community. And I think that that’s where art lives. When art finds its feet and its power, that’s what could happen, and this show, like no other that I’ve done with the students, absolutely reflected that. 

Robert Schenkkan: This is such an inspiring story, and I want to thank you for sharing it with the Guild. And I wish you all the very best in your future endeavors!

Dean Jahnsen: Thank you very much. 

Leila Paine: Thank you so much.

[Santa Rosa High School's ArtQuest Theatre program premièred the original one-act musical entitled [REDACTED], a piece exploring censorship, on 23 and 24 January 2025 in the school’s Black Box Theatre.  The performance featured scenes, songs, and designs created by the students in collaboration with The Imaginists. 

[The one-act play mocked the topic of censorship itself, and featured student monologues, scenes, and songs addressing mature themes such as suicide and sexual assault.  The play touches on canceling plays and burning books and the fictional pro-censorship advocates, Mommies Against the Arts, chanted, “Protecting kiddies is our duty! / We cancel anything that smells a little fruity!”

[The SRHS production of [REDACTED] was performed at the 2025 Lenaea High School Theatre Festival from 6-8 February 2025 at the Harris Center for the Arts at Folsom Lake College in Folsom, California (119 miles east-northeast of Santa Rosa; 23 miles east-northeast of Sacramento).  The SRHS ArtQuest Theatre production of [REDACTED] won several top honors at the theatre festival, including the Bob Smart Spirit of Lenaea Award and the Gold Medal for One-Act Play Production, two of the festival's highest awards, and 12 additional individual and group awards across various categories.

[According to KQED, the National Public Radio outlet in Santa Rosa, Lenaea Festival Board Director Cheena Moslen said upon giving the [REDACTED] company the Spirit Award:

This group refused to be silenced.  They mobilized their community, pushed back against censorship driven by fear, and ultimately staged their production, selling out performances.  But that hurdle seems to be the beginning of a larger issue of silencing and oppression.

My experience with this school reminded me that we are not just performers—we are powerful, and our voices matter.

[(Besides being Board Chairman of Lenaea, Moslen taught secondary-school English and theater for 25 years, performs as a Filipinx American storyteller, and is an educational equity coach.)

[Robert Schenkkan is a Pulitzer Prize, Tony, WGA, and Humanitas Award winner and three-time Emmy nominated writer.  Author of twenty plays including: All the Way (2012; Broadway: 2014), The Great Society (2014; Broadway: 2019), The Kentucky Cycle (1991; Pulitzer Prize: 1992; Broadway: 1993), Building the Wall (2017; Off-Broadway: 2017), and Old Cock (2024 [world premiere, Porto, Portugal]; U.S. premiere: 2025 [Off-Off-Broadway, New York City]).  Upcoming: ReCON$ruXion at Alabama Shakespeare Festival (April 2026) and Motion/CAPTURE with Lisbon’s Mala Voadora company (workshop in Alentejo, Portugal: February 2026). Member of DG Council, DLDF, Orchard Project, NTC, and New Dramatists Alumnus.

[Jereme Anglin is an actor, director, and educator whose career has taken him from the streets of Paris to the stages of both U.S. coasts.  A proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and a devoted practitioner of the Suzuki Method of actor training, Anglin taught for a decade on the East Coast before joining ArtQuest, where he champions rigorous, imaginative, and physically dynamic performances.

[Brent Lindsay, proud member of the Osage Nation, creates contemporary performances that intentionally upset assumptions and expectations, honoring the power of live performance as a vital community space for reinvention.  Brent is a writer, director, actor, and founding Artistic Director of the Imaginists, a regionally and nationally recognized artist-run theatre based in Santa Rosa, CA. 

[Dean Jahnsen (SRHS Class of ’25) is a freshman at the University of California, Davis, where he’s studying Political Science and Art History.  He’s passionate about protecting artistic freedom and fighting censorship. Dean was president of the ArtQuest Theatre company, where he played a major role as a student activist in defending his program.  He continues to advocate for the arts in the Bay Area. 

[Leila Paine (SRHS Class of ’25) is an incoming freshman at Cornish College of the Arts [since 2025, the arts school of Seattle University, a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington] and is majoring in Acting and Original Works.  She was the vice president of ArtQuest Theater at Santa Rosa High School, where she found her passion for the arts.  She plans to continue fighting against censorship and fighting for equality.]