Parents Planning to Protest at Amity BOE Meeting

A group of parents and community organizations are reportedly planning to protest tonight at the Amity Board of Education meeting for what they are calling a "despicable" decision.

The protest, made public in an announcement posted on Patch, questions the high school Drama Department's musical production choice, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Of the musical, the announcement, posted by Laura Carroll, states:

"Amity High School students are assigned and taught to perform the horrific acts of gruesome murder, cannibalism, rape, suicide, etc."

"Our children and communities are still going through the effects of the Sandy Hook massacre. What is Amity’s message to these children? Amity High School is supporting violence in our community."

The play is described this way, in a review written by Richard Eder and published in The New York Times on March 2, 1979, following its Broadway debut:

"It is the story of a barber, unjustly convicted and transported to Australia by a wicked judge who coveted his wife. Upon his return the barber takes the name Sweeney Todd, and takes his general and particular revenge by slitting the throats of his clients, who are then turned into meat pies by his industrious associate, Mrs. Lovett."

For Eder, the production was an "extraordinary, fascinating, and often ravishingly lovely effort," yet, he writes:

"There is, in fact, no serious social message in Sweeney; and at the end, when the cast lines up on the stage and points to us, singing that there are Sweeneys all about; the point is unproven."

"The Amity Board of Education Meeting on Monday, March 11, 2013 will be faced by parents and community organizations protesting this despicable form of education," Carroll writes.

The meeting is at 6:30 p.m., in the cafeteria at Amity Regional High School, 25 Newtown Road in Woodbridge.

The agenda includes discussion and possible action on the superintendent's proposed budget for 2013-14, among a host of other items. The full agenda is attached as a PDF to this article.