Texas school cancels field trip to children's theatre after parents complain about cross-gender casting

by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder

TW: The following story contains examples of transphobia and talk regarding pronouns.

A Texas elementary school has canceled its field trip to see a production of ‘James & the Giant Peach’ at a local theatre after a parent complained about actors portraying both female and male roles. The schools said that due to its casting, the show was not “age-appropriate” for young children.

The Spring Branch Independent School District was supposed to take their students to the show at the Main Street Theater in Houston. But after one parent complained, the school canceled their trip.

That parent, Jessica Gerland, was infuriated that the school would attend such a show. Spoke to someone at the theatre and was angered by their justification for such casting.

“The way that they are normalizing this, especially in front of 5- to 6-year-olds, it just raises concerns for some parents,” Gerland said. “She [woman at the theater] explained to me how they wear flamboyant makeup and wigs to make it fun for the kids. Do you know what the definition of a drag queen is? It's something that I thought would be more appropriate for high schoolers, not kindergarteners.”

Other comments on social media also shared similar statements.

One message read: “Omg we went there for our 1st-grade field trip. I'm so p*****! The theater told us there is no room for parent chaperones! I'm talking to the school about not supporting the theater. What the hell! They are not doing enough continual vetting.”

While another said: “We (along with many) are keeping our son home tomorrow, but a lot of parents are asking me about the drag queens’ role in the show.”

According to the theatre, there are no drag queens in the show.

To be clear, eight actors portray 20 roles in the show, and yes, some are playing both different genders and gender-neutral characters. Also, I would love to see if high schoolers would be interested in seeing a children’s production of ‘James & the Giant Peach.” Also, I don’t expect someone as closed-minded and ignorant like Jessica Gerland to know that casting like this has occurred throughout theatre history.

Rather than ignore preposterous and bigoted comments from parents, the school board agreed with their stance and canceled trips to see the production.

It released a statement that said, “We received feedback from employees and other adults who attended Main Street Theater’s production of James and the Giant Peach that expressed concern over elements of the performance that were not age-appropriate for elementary students.

‘Based on the concerns we heard, the decision was made to request campuses planning to attend make alternative arrangements. My responsibility is to ensure that content students are exposed to during school hours is age appropriate. Given the information we had, the decision was made to err on the side of caution. Please understand these decisions are not always easy to make and are always done in the best interest of our students.”

Rebecca Udden, the executive artistic director for the 43-year-old nonprofit theater, said the controversy stems from, surprise surprise, bigotry aimed misinformation.

“Except for a few characters in the show, they're all insects, for heaven's sake. They're not even people,” she said. “Every theater in the world has men playing women and women playing men. It's just part of the tradition. This is certainly blown out of context. We do not do drag in our theater for youth.”

It’s also worth noting that the Main Street Theater has been down cross-gender casting with its children’s productions for years. No one had ever complained until this year when the right wing decided to make targeting trans and non-binary people a platform pillar to their campaigns.

I hope the Main Street Theater will be fine and its actors safe. They did nothing wrong, no matter what these parents said.

A more considerable fear for me is that this will become a nationwide trend. Hatred, fear, and paranoia of trans people are becoming increasingly promoted and normalized. While I haven’t heard many theatre stories involving it, I feel they’re coming.

I don’t believe that Broadway will have this issue anytime soon, but regional theatres, community theatres, and school theatres will all face this issue. Productions of shows like ‘Hairspray’, ‘RENT’ and ‘Kinky Boots’ would be outlawed. Even classic theatre like “Twelfth Night’ could be prohibited by communities under the false pretense that it’s promoting something explicit.

It’s a shame that a few close-minded parents are preventing students from seeing a show that…checks notes…teaches the importance of friendship and how maintaining good relationships with your friends can help overcome many of life’s difficult situations.

Yep, totally not appropriate for children nowadays.