Grand Prairie school officials have discovered a troubling thing about theater: people pretend to be somebody else.
A high school senior, Ana Mota, earned the role of Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors. Then administrators said she couldn’t play him because she is female, according to her lawsuit. The production was canceled after she declined a different, shared role for which she hadn’t auditioned.
A human-eating plant? Fine. A girl playing a boy? Now we’re asking too much of the audience.
The district invoked Texas’s anti-DEI law, Senate Bill 12. Mota’s suit argues that nothing in it forbids her casting and that excluding her because of her sex violates Title IX. Her parents supported her playing Seymour. Parental rights apparently did not extend to the parents saying yes.
The school had already planned to cut Seymour’s kiss with Audrey, regardless of who played the parts, the Texas Tribune reports. The romance had been made safe by removing the romance. Still too much theater.
The district declined to comment on the lawsuit, which seeks to restore the production. Students are now doing Frozen instead.
Casting for the snowman should be rigorous.
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