OGDEN — Ogden High School officials are drawing fire for allowing students to put on the musical "Godspell.'
Some protesters say the play is too religious. Others say it is sacrilegious.
School officials and supporters of the play praise the message behind "Godspell," which they say is one of community healing, and they say the show will go on.
Ogden High parent Valerie Bentley-Ballif asked the Ogden School Board Wednesday to cancel the play. She presented a letter asking the school to excuse dissenting students from attending the play. She also requested that a performing arts council be established to review future productions and to provide a written plan for staging a proposed second musical.
Another complaint concerned school officials' assertion that Brigham Young University had once presented the play. The information was false and influenced many people into supporting the play, Bentley-Ballif said.
Principal Debbi Gomberg said the school had received bad information and took responsibility for passing it on.
Harold Oaks, BYU associate dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications, said "Godspell" had been presented as a high school workshop but never as a university production.
Oaks said that while The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints takes the position that the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar" does not recognize Christ as a deity, the church has taken no similar stand on "Godspell."
He said he considers it a much milder production.
First staged in 1971, "Godspell" offers a modern retelling of the Gospel using music, mime, comedy and slapstick.
Proponents say the characters represent warring factions of society — in this case, the different cliques in a school setting. They say the message promotes tolerance, forgiveness and loving one's neighbor, not specific religious beliefs.
"This has been billed as a great unifier. But there are people who won't be in it, won't attend it and are asking the community not to support it," Bentley-Ballif said. "How can you say it's unifying us?"
She said she does not impugn the play's artistic merits but questions the appropriateness of its religious imagery in a public high school.
In a different context, "it could be wonderful," she said.
Bentley-Ballif's son, Chris Bentley, 17, said the script's re-enactments of the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, with dialogue lifted from the Bible, were offensive. Emotions have run high and discussions have grown heated in classrooms, he said.
Last week, the school hosted two meetings to discuss the play's contentious issues. Close to 60 parents and students attended the first meeting, and around 120 students attended the second one.
"It's a beautiful play," said Nathan Dame, 16, the production's piano player. "It's sad that parents and the community would want to deprive other people of it."
More parents and students have protested the play's perceived irreverence than its supposed religious themes, Dame said.
Originally scheduled for four performances the last week of October, production could be delayed by the ongoing discussion, Gomberg said.