To increase diversity-course offerings at the U, the department of theatre is offering a course on the role of gays and lesbians on and behind the stage. But the class is coming under fire from one group.
“Most diversity classes are constructed around the basis that minorities play a role in society, a role that gets over looked in other classes, like the African-Americans’ role in U.S. history,” said Mona Luvsitt, the theatre and performing arts adjunct professor teaching the class. “With this class, we want to expose students to the role of a sexual minority in an important part of culture.”
The course syllabus consists entirely of plays written by gay and lesbian playwrights and performed by gay and lesbian actors.
“Syllabus looks pretty much like every other [theatre] syllabus I’ve had,” said one student.
In response, however, one group is protesting the department of theatre.
It’s not a Christian group opposed to the idea of teaching homosexual topics in a university setting, though, it’s the National Guild for the Advancement of Heterosexuals in American Theatre.
“What makes this course syllabus different from any other theatre syllabus in the country?” asked a NGAHAT spokesman on condition of anonymity. “Hetereosexuals are the most neglected minority in modern theatre. The term ‘coming out of the closet’ in theatre terms means telling people you’re straight.”
According to NGAHAT, this kind of thing isn’t uncommon. All modern plays discuss sexuality in one form or another, and no college or university in the United States offers a class on heterosexual theatre.
“This isn’t unusual. I mean, every time we complain to the Equal Opportunity Office that everyone on Broadway’s gay they say, ‘Shoo! We run a progressive institution here!'” the spokesman said. “And now this!”
NGAHAT sent a letter to the head of the U’s theatre department requesting a class on the role of heterosexuals in theatre to celebrate diversity in popular culture.
“It seemed like an idea worth looking at,” said Donald Penobscott, head of the theatre department. “We’d do it if we were still on the quarter system, but frankly (whispered) I don’t think we could fill a whole semester on the subject.”
Unsatisfied with the rejection, NGAHAT sent the same letter to Sara Carpenter, dean of the College of Fine Arts.
“Those guys. What a joke,” Carpenter said in a phone interview. “We run a progressive institution here!”
NGAHAT petitioned the fine arts dean at Brigham Young University to offer the heterosexual-theatre course, hoping that the school’s conservative stance on gay and lesbian issues would make it more inclined to offer such a class, but without success, as the school’s honor code prohibits use of the word “sex” in any class?except in zoology classes where the word “assexual” can be used.
NGAHAT plans to continue petitioning schools to “celebrate the sexual minorities” in U.S. theatre. The key to tolerance, the spokesman said, is education.
“Find me one heterosexual playwright anybody takes seriously,” the NGAHAT spokesman continued. “I mean, we used to have Woody Allen, but for some reason his sexual preference isn’t ‘celebrated’ by anybody?well, except by people in Thailand.”
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