A June event highlighting censorship of the arts has been canceled after some of the show’s content was deemed to be offensive to Muslims.
At issue is Neil LaBute’s “Mohammed Gets A Boner,” a one-act play “about an actor asked to perform in an offensive satire.”
“The prophet ‘Mohammed’ stands on a barren stage, recalling the first time he made love to a white woman. Is this reality or a theatrical convention? Where do the lines between ‘satire’ and ‘censorship’ intersect or is nothing sacred when it comes to the theater?” read a description on the event’s website before it was changed.
The event was to benefit the National Coalition Against Censorship.
“Unfortunately the event was starting to become all about my play and its title and not about the fine work that Erik Ehn, Halley Feiffer and Israel Horovitz were also presenting that evening, along with the accompanying speeches and the cause of the evening itself,” Neil LaBute said.
“I had hoped my work would be viewed on its own merits rather than overshadow our message or become a beacon of controversy. I am honestly not interested in stirring hatred or merely being offensive; I wanted my play to provoke real thought and debate and I now feel like that opportunity has been lost and, therefore, it is best that I withdraw the play from Playwrights For A Cause.”
The venue where the benefit was to take place opened last year with funding from the archdiocese of New York and is named after former Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.
“When an artistic project maligns any faith group, that project clearly falls outside of our mission to highlight the good, the true, and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages,” William Spencer Reilly, the executive director of the Sheen Center, tells the New York Times.
The irony was not lost on the organizers of the event.
“It’s hard to imagine a more ironic outcome: a venue attempts to alter, edit and censor the works that are being performed at an anti-censorship event. And when the artists won’t compromise their vision, the venue cancels the show,” said Joan Berlin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, in a press statement.
“The management of The Sheen Center actually suggested that we alter the title of Neil LaBute’s play, and alter the content of some of our panelist’s speeches,” artistic curator Glory Kadigan tells Playbill. “Which we find completely out of line with the anti-censorship mission of the benefit.”
LaBute says the Sheen Center was “was absolutely within their right” to back out from holding the event but was “saddened” by the decision.
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