LAWRENCE — Bowing to pressure from parents and the school community, Notre Dame High School has canceled its spring production of "The Laramie Project," a play based on the violent 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard.

The decision to shut down the production has proved to be just as controversial as the play’s edgy and dramatic portrayal of a Wyoming town gripped in the aftermath of a hate crime.

On one side, school administrators say parents worried that the choice for the play was inappropriate for high schoolers, too loaded in its tale of the murder of a young gay man beaten and left tied to a fence to die.

But cast members and students at the Catholic high school said they’ve been unfairly robbed of their ability to put on a thought-provoking and powerful play, one whose message of tolerance resonates powerfully in the wake of the Tyler Clementi cyberbullying verdict and other anti-harassment efforts.

“I wanted to do a show that had meaning and purpose to it and when I found out we were doing ‘The Laramie Project’ I got really excited because this show teaches the values I’ve been taught my last 12 years of Catholic education,” cast member and Notre Dame senior Tessa Holtenrichs said. “When I was told we couldn’t do it, I felt like it was really hypocritical.”

While students described Notre Dame as a high school with an unusually tolerant and friendly atmosphere, “We felt it was breaking barriers being at a Catholic high school,” senior cast member Macklin Fitzpatrick said.

School president Barry Breen and principal Mary Ivins said in a statement the choice for the spring play was originally seen as a “powerful and appropriate vehicle” to address issues of respect and tolerance. But as calls questioning the play’s content rolled in, officials worried that the controversy would become distracting, and the decision was made Tuesday to cancel the show.

“The expression of these concerns opened our eyes to the realization that different eyes will see radically different messages than the ones we intended,” they said.

“This has led the administration to conclude that we might inadvertently be placing our school at the center of an undesired and potentially damaging controversy by moving forward with the production.”

Cast members — 32 students in grades 9 through 12 — were informed Wednesday the show would be shut down, just days after rehearsals started. Some admitted they cried at the news.

“If students can handle something like this, why can’t the parents?” junior Kim Woodcock asked.

The new pick for the spring play has yet to be announced. In their statement, Breen and Ivins said, “We are proud of our students, and with the help of God and as a duty of our faith, we will continue to find less controversial ways to help them address hatred and intolerance.”

A Facebook group started by Notre Dame alumnus and Rowan University freshman Dan Blazejewski opposing the cancellation had more than 800 students, cast members, parents and alumni weighing in on the furor as of last night.

“I think the people had the assumption that the play was going to do something it never would have done, to encourage students to become homosexuals instead of not killing homosexuals,” Diane Steinberg, a parent of a Notre Dame student and an alum, said during an interview.

She said the school missed the chance to turn any controversy into a teachable moment.

“Allow the play to go forward, and also allow a nonartistic forum to discuss the Catholic Church and GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender) people,” Steinberg wrote to Breen and Ivins. “Can the presentation of the play be accompanied by a speaker or speakers that present Catholic teaching on human sexuality?”

Hundreds of high schools, colleges and community theaters have put on Moisés Kaufman’s play, which became a 2002 HBO film, with varying degrees of controversy.

In 2009, members of the extremist Westboro Baptist Church picketed a production at an Indianapolis high school. Other shows, including several at Catholic high schools, have drawn little in the way of fire. “The Laramie Project” played for two nights at Robbinsville High School in 2008.

Cast members and school officials said the play had been edited slightly to remove some language and one particularly intense scene. Few uttered surprise at the complaints the play drew at Notre Dame, but said the Catholic Church, which opposes gay marriage, has maintained gays are still deserving of love and understanding.

“My director, Ms. (Diane) Wargo, said something pretty powerful,” Holtenrichs said. “She said Jesus didn’t die on the cross for us to have so many rules about who to love and how to love. I thought that was great.”

The Diocese of Trenton didn’t return calls seeking comment on the play’s cancellation.

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