Ithaca High School brings in new director to replace 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' with 'Hairspray' (2024)

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After a casting controversycaused the cancellation of a production of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" at Ithaca High School,a new musical has been named in its place.

The school will perform "Hairspray," set in 1962 Baltimore, confirmed Ithaca High School's Director of Fine and PerformingArts David Brown on Wednesday.

The musical will be performed April 13-15, the same dates scheduled for "Hunchback."

More: Ithaca High School pulls 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' over casting diversity outcry

'A lack of race education'

An Ithaca City School District board meeting Tuesday drewstudents, parents and community memberswho advocated for anti-racisteducationin the district during the meeting's public comment section.

After 30 minutes — the amount of time allowed by the board for public comment—the board madea motion to extend the public comment period to accommodate all who wanted to speak.

"I am sick and tired of the lack of conversation and education on race our school has," saidEamon Nunn-Makepeace, an African American student at Ithaca High School and member of Students United Ithaca, at the meeting.

Nunn-Makepeace is one of several students who have received hundreds ofhateful, threatening andracist messages as a result of their efforts to make Ithaca High School more inclusive.

"The things that I have been experiencing during this movement, the hate, the threats on my life, they all come from a lack of race education in every school system," Nunn-Makepeace said at the meeting.

In November, members of the student-run groupStudents United Ithaca began writing letters and meeting with administrators after a white actress was cast in the role of Esmeralda—a Romani gypsy living in 15th-century Paris—in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

In response, the school canceled the production on Jan. 24 with the promise of a new, collaborative project.

The project "will provide young people and our community the opportunity to engage together while fully expressing the talents of our students," a statement on the school's website said.

Butthe situation escalated in February after the students' efforts received national coverage.

Since the cancellation of the school's production was reported in The Ithaca Journal on Jan. 29, it has been pickedup by alt-right sitesThe College FixandBreitbart,as well as neo-Nazi siteThe Daily Stormer.Mainstream outlets such asFox Newsand theWashington Timeshave also covered the issue.

Private messages, social media posts and comments on Students United Ithaca's page have doxxed (publishing identifying information about a person online) students' family members and even threatened lynching.

One photograph, including Nunn-Makepeace'spicture, suggested "this is why we search for trees.”

Another directed atone Student United Ithaca member, who is Indian, read "If you had any talent you would have been the lead. go back to s***y india and stop crying about whites in this WHITE COUNTRY if u dont like it go live in africa or even better go back to your own s***hole country india."

Since then, Ithaca High Schoolhas tightened up security, members of Students United Ithaca said, and added a police presence to the school. Administrators have reached out to the students, offering them words of support and a place to vent.

But, at the board meeting, students said the current efforts were not enough.

And while students claimed the district skirts around issues of race, "Hairspray" addresses racism head-on.

The musical's Corny Collins Show dedicates one show a month to "Negro Day."

But heroine Tracy wants to make every day "Negro Day" by integrating the show.

"Would you swim in an integrated pool?" white characterVelma Von Tussle asks Tracy.

"I sure would.I'm all for integration. It's the new frontier," Tracy responds.

A new director steps in

Joey Steinhagen, theartistic director andresident director of Running to Places Theatre Company in Ithaca, has replaced "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" directorRobert Winans and will direct "Hairspray."

He was officially approved as the director at the Board of Education meeting Tuesday.

Anyone internally or externally was eligible to apply to direct the new production, Brown said in an email.

Winans did not apply to direct the new production.

Before founding Running to Places, Steinhagen worked at local schools as a freelance director in 2005 and 2006,directing productions at Dryden Middle School, Dryden High Schooland Ithaca High School.

Steinhagen said he was asked by Ithaca High School students to apply to direct the new production.

In an email sentto interested students,Steinhagen said "Hairspray" was the only production he would direct if hired to direct the school's musical.

"'Hairspray,' to me, felt like the only choice that made sense," he said in a phone interview Wednesday. "What I wasn't interested in doing was just another musical. I felt it would have been a wasted opportunity, after everything that had happened and the conversations that have begun, to ignore those conversations."

Music Theatre International holds the rights to both"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Hairspray." MTI worked with Brown totransfer the rights and royalties to the new production.

"Hairspray tells the story of young people who identify a racial and social injustice that they are experiencing. They come together, rise up, and tear down the walls that divide — and they do it with joy and love, through music and dance — in pursuit of a more just and beautiful future for all," he said in the email to the students."This is the story I want to help tell. I will work to tell it to the theatre students, to the entire student body, to the people across our community, and indeed, to the rest of the nation that is now listening in, too."

The production will be fully produced with scenery and costumes, Steinhagen said.

Any student at Ithaca High School will be eligible to audition for "Hairspray."

"We are reaching out to our communities inviting all students to audition for this production," Brown said.

An informational meeting will be held after school for students on Thursday, with audition workshops on Friday and Monday. Auditions will take place March 6-7, with callbacks March 9 and rehearsals beginning March 12.

"It's going to be lightening fast," Steinhagen said.

The students have just over one and a half months to produce the production. But both Brown and Steinhagen areconfident the production can be completed in this timeline, asSteinhagen has directed shows on a shorter timeline with Running to Places.

"If you keep raising the bar of what to expect from teenagers and you give them support and encouragement and the tools to achieve the works that you ask of them, I have never seen it fail," Steinhagen said."I have never seen teenagers fail to rise to any challenge they have been faced with."

Steinhagen is currently in conversation with Nia Nunn (the mother of Nunn-Makepeace) atthe Southside Community Center. He collaboratedwith the organization last year to organize a musical theatre intensive for fifth-graders at Beverly J. Martin Elementary School in the Ithaca City School District.

"Bringing in previously marginalized students is something we've been working with," he said.

Steinhagen hopes to attract students who previously did not feel welcome or included in the school's theatre program.

"Honestly one of the best tools that we're going to have at our disposal are the students themselves," he said. "The students are now spreading the word to each other, to their peers, to their classmates, especially to friends who previously may not have had a home in musical theatre, that the doors have just swung wide open brand new."

Joining Steinhagen will be local choreographer and Ithaca High School alumnus Harmony Malone.

"'Hunchback' was not the problem," Steinhagen said. "It was the result of what the kids perceived as being years of a problematic environment."

Students United Ithaca believes the show is a step in the right direction.

"SUI is incredibly excited to have Joey and Harmony [Malone]teaming together to unify the community and create a more diverse and inclusive program," Students United Ithaca said in a Facebook message Wednesday.

Follow @MaggieGilroy on Twitter

More: 5 times casting drew controversy, plus 2 ways authentic casting drew applause

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