To the Editor:? Last week The Phillipian reported on the supposed censorship of our current main stage show, Jungal Book. While this event created stress and confusion for most of those involved with the show, one potential good thing came out of it. A play was on the front page of the paper, a first in my Andover career. It’s a shame that it takes a “scandal” to put Arts on the front page. This is a trend that we see all over the media. Scandals sell papers, so it’s no wonder editors choose to move such stories to the front page. However, this gives the impression that the entertainment industry consists solely of seedy deals and broken contracts. This may or may not be true in the professional world, but it is certainly not true of our theatre department at PA. As an avid participant I know that there are a lot of exciting, good things that we do. Violet, last Spring’s Theatre 520, received the Moss Hart award for all categories. Last winter we were one of the first high schools in the country to obtain the rights to The 24 Hour Plays. A few weeks ago we organized the first ever Eight Schools Theatre Festival. All of these events took immense amounts of work to plan and execute. I would think that The Phillipian would want to cover major achievements made by students. I am in no way implying that only happy news should be published, or that the Theatre Department should be on the front page every week, but I believe efforts should be made to cover all aspects of the school in a more even way. Molly Shoemaker ’08 The writer is a student producer and is currently working on the Jungal Book production.
