Students tearful, parents frustrated after Turlock High cancels musical ‘Be More Chill’
By all accounts, Turlock High School’s spring musical, “Be More Chill,” should have been a success.
It was a show many students said they already knew and loved, one that spoke to the realities of high school and allowed them to explore deep messages about growing up. Plus, it was the first spring musical since 2019, a welcome relief after two years lost to the pandemic.
On Friday, however, students felt blindsided when they discovered “Be More Chill” was canceled after Thursday night’s opening performance.
Junior Dalton Howry, who played the lead character, wasn’t there for the announcement meeting. When a friend in the cast called to tell him, Howry thought it was a joke until his friend started to cry.
Howry ran to the performing arts building, where he saw the cast, crew and director all in tears over the heartbreaking decision.
“Everyone was so confused on what to do next, and then it hit me right then and there that this was real,” Howry said.
The response has sparked outrage from members of the cast and crew, other parents, community members and even those in the world of professional theater. Many said they see the cancellation — attributed to a lack of communication about the mature content of the musical — as ignorant to the realities of high school and unfair to students who worked for months to put on this show.
Mature themes
“Be More Chill” is an adaptation of a young-adult novel of the same name. The sci-fi musical follows a high school student who takes a pill, nicknamed a “Squip,” in hopes it will help him become popular in school. The Squip acts like a supercomputer inside his head, telling him how to act if he wants to seem cool. But it comes with risks, and he must choose between the Squip and his true self.
The teen characters mention sex, masturbation, drinking and smoking marijuana. They also curse. Posters for Turlock High’s production advised “mature themes – parental guidance suggested.”
“Be More Chill” was scheduled to run Thursday through Sunday. Ultimately, the district allowed a family-only showing Saturday to honor students’ work and let them perform one last time.
Turlock Unified School District spokeswoman Marie Russell told The Modesto Bee on Monday that concerns prompted a review of “Be More Chill” but did not cause its cancellation.
The school district said some parents and community members voiced concerns about the musical’s mature content, leading administrators to review the content. “Upon looking into the concerns, we learned there had been no discussion about the content between the director and site administration as was the agreed upon practice,” Russell said.
Daniel Benedict, a Turlock school board member, told The Bee in an email that he was not involved in the decision to cancel the show and originally had plans to see it Sunday afternoon.
Multiple warnings were made about mature content, Benedict pointed out, and he believes the content sounded appropriate for a high school audience. “I’m unable to make that determination for myself, as the performance I was going to attend was canceled,” he wrote. “Our students have missed out on so much over the last couple of years, and to take this away from them on such short notice is unfortunate.”
Howard Sherman, a New York-based arts administrator and theater advocate, tweeted out The Bee article about the cancellation, helping to bring it to the attention of the musical’s writer Joe Iconis.
The actor and writer has since posted across his social media profiles about the cancellation and helped to publicize a fundraiser for the Turlock High booster club that supports the speech, debate and drama students.
Michael R. Jackson, who wrote the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner “A Strange Loop,” donated $200 to the Turlock High drama booster club after seeing Iconis’ tweet about the cancellation.
Two actors involved in productions on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean — Jason SweetTooth Williams, who was in the New York Broadway production in 2019, and Stewart Clarke, who was in the London West End show in 2021 — also posted Instagram stories expressing support for the students and the production.
Students and parents told The Bee that administrators suggested the production could be changed to be less profane, but Sherman said that wouldn’t work. Because of copyrights and the contracts for licensed productions, any changes would have to be approved by the regional licensing house and are often dependent on what the author wants.
Musicals are often more complicated because they are more likely to have multiple authors.
Sherman said too often schools’ knee-jerk reaction to possibly controversial content is to squash it instead of allowing for discussion.
“They don’t take time to understand the material, don’t take time to review the work already done,” Sherman said. “They are just risk averse. The easier path is to just stop it.”
Musical has ‘amazing message’
Howry said “Be More Chill” has been one of his favorite musicals for the past couple of years, so he was excited to learn he could be in a production of it.
He began listening nonstop to the musical soundtrack when the show was announced around winter break. And when auditions came around in January, he secured the lead role of Jeremy.
“I felt on top of the world,” said Howry, who has been doing local theater for about a decade.
He was especially excited about the show because of its core lesson. It teaches about staying true to yourself in high school and avoiding all the bad influences Jeremy faces along his journey.
“I feel like that was an amazing message to get across to high school students, so I didn’t think any second thoughts of it,” Howry said.
When a scene would deal with heavy subjects like drugs, drinking or sex, the director would often stop to have a discussion about the issues, Howry said. He hoped it would feel real to the audience, especially high school peers.
Howry’s mom, Amanda, said she is frustrated that a few complaints derailed the whole show. She thinks its messages are realistic and appropriate, despite district concerns.
“It’s like if they wanted to censor reality, and that’s kind of a bummer because that’s like the last thing that needs to happen to these kids right now,” Amanda Howry said.
She wasn’t as familiar with the musical as her son is. When she read the script her son was practicing, she made him sit down with her and explain the what play’s message was and why the mature topics mattered.
Dalton’s thoughtful understanding of “Be More Chill” was enough to make Amanda Howry feel comfortable allowing him to continue on with the show. “I stood behind them in doing it because I saw their message,” Amanda Howry said.
A former teacher’s take
Melissa Lima, parent of a freshman ensemble member, also went into the show knowing what to expect.
She and her daughter knew “Be More Chill” contained mature themes at the beginning of the audition process, so the two discussed them and tried to keep an open dialogue about what was going on. Lima is a former middle school teacher, so she knows the topics in “Be More Chill” are typical for teens to face.
“I wasn’t shocked when I went to the show and saw that there was a mention of drugs or a mention of pornography or anything like that because I was an active parent,” Lima said.
The show’s content was refreshingly mature for Lima and her family, who have seen a wide variety of youthful performances as her daughter grew up in the world of children’s theater. Even Lima’s mother was excited to see something new and a little more mature.
“It does make me concerned that we’re all going to be sitting through, you know, Disney musicals until our kids are out of high school,” Lima said. “It’s just absurd.”
Zefyra Mazuelos, a sophomore ensemble member in the show, said the cancellation felt dismissive of everyone’s hard work.
Her father and younger sister didn’t come to Thursday night’s show because they were picking up her oldest sister, who wanted to come home from college in San Jose for Friday’s alumni night performance. Without the extra Saturday show, none of them would have seen “Be More Chill” at all.
While she still has two more years left of high school shows, Mazuelos felt bad for the seniors and just generally everyone who worked hard the last few months.
“You build it all up and then you don’t even get to show it,” Mazuelos said.
For Mazuelos, the show was more about the message than any mature parts. But even those adult topics were important to discuss and show openly.
“I think that if parents are uncomfortable seeing it, they just don’t want to acknowledge the reality that their teenagers face,” she said.
This story was originally published April 12, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
