College drama performance goes on despite nudity
Posted on Sat, Feb. 26, 2005
Associated Press
DAYTON, Ohio - The clothes came off and the show went on for Wright State University's production of "Quills," which features extended scenes of full nudity.
After threatening to shut down the play, school officials relented and allowed the unfettered performance of the show about the Marquis de Sade's efforts to express himself despite being imprisoned for obscenity.
"There were some lines that refer specifically to censorship where I raised my voice a little more," said senior Adam Rihacek, who portrays de Sade and is stripped in the first act.
On Thursday, the school's lawyer warned Stuart McDowell, the head of the theater department, that nudity in a public play on campus was illegal, McDowell said.
So after dress rehearsal wrapped up that night, McDowell broke the news to Rihacek and sophomore director Matt Neal.
The news spread to playwright Doug Wright, who won a freedom of speech award from the Writers Guild in 2001 for the script. Neal said Wright tracked him down on his cell phone Friday and later had his attorney send a statement by e-mail on his behalf.
"The play is about to open in Bucharest," Wright said, according to a copy of the message that Neal forwarded Saturday to The Associated Press. "I find it ironic that even as free expression flourishes in Romania, it is ever-imperiled on our nation's college campuses."
The standing-room crowd of about 150 applauded at length when the statement was read at the top of the show, Neal said Saturday.
David Hopkins, Wright State's provost, had stepped in on behalf of the cast and the students got late word that the play could go on as planned, Neal said.
Rihacek said that when his clothes were taken from him during the play Friday, "There were no titters, no gasps."
"Quills" added a Sunday performance to its scheduled Friday and Saturday shows.
McDowell said university attorney Gwen Mattison initially told him Rihacek would be guilty of indecent exposure if he went totally nude. Students and faculty collected money to bail out Neal and Rihacek in the event they were arrested.
Neal said a group of students waited in Mattison's office for two hours Friday before being told she wouldn't speak with them.
A woman who identified herself as Mattison hung up the phone on an Associated Press reporter Saturday.
The University of Cincinnati produced "Quills" in November, complete with the nude scenes, and no one complained, said R. Terrell Finney Jr., a drama professor there.
"We don't do it gratuitously," he said.
