k wrote:

It was six hours before opening night. Sarah Holdren, director of a Yale University student production, had just entered the theater for a routine pre-performance errand when the man who runs the hall gave her an update: In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, a Yale administrator decided that she didn’t want any weapons used or portrayed during theatrical productions.

Holdren was perplexed. Her show, Red Noses, is set in the Middle Ages and includes metal swords and daggers. But they are stage props. And there were no guns.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

They reversed this decision.

Decius wrote:

k wrote:

It was six hours before opening night. Sarah Holdren, director of a Yale University student production, had just entered the theater for a routine pre-performance errand when the man who runs the hall gave her an update: In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, a Yale administrator decided that she didn’t want any weapons used or portrayed during theatrical productions.

Holdren was perplexed. Her show, Red Noses, is set in the Middle Ages and includes metal swords and daggers. But they are stage props. And there were no guns.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

They reversed this decision.

That's good, I'm genuinely glad to hear it.

Nonetheless I'm reserving my right to consider them a bunch of reactionary fogies. If people are going to live in so much fear that a stage prop is going to send them over the edge, they need counseling, not pandering.

Respectfully asking the directors to spend a few moments discussing the violence in their productions in light of VT, as a measure of honor for the victims there, would have been an entirely reasonable and perhaps even laudable way to handle the situation. Issuing a knee-jerk ban and indicating that it might well be permanent is just ridiculous.

What scares me most is the unstated implication from all this that some jittery armed-for-self-defense audience member is going to cap an actor because they think the stage prop is real and the actor's just been faking it long enough to get a chance to open fire on the quiescent audience. Of course, our friend Ted Nugent thinks arming everyone is the way to keep us all safe. I tend to think it's a way to ensure that a lot more tense or uncomfortable situations result in someone dying.

If i was a director of plays at Yale, I'd replace all my weapon props with brightly painted cartoony versions thereof and, as some commenter mentioned, scrawl "Not Real" on each piece. Plus, at least then I could probably ensure my actors won't get shot.