[SWTXBelle]

Having been in the position of having to chose plays for middle schoolers I totally understand the demands of having to worry about budget, parents, and a small pool of actors. Guess what? There are plays your kids may want to do that you JUST CAN'T. The drama teacher before me had told my kids they could do Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella" - apparently not aware of the difficulty and expense of getting the rights, and forgetting that she was teaching at a middle school of 40 students so even casting the thing (never mind the musical aspect) would be impossible. Yes, they were disappointed. Welcome to theater - heck, welcome to the real world - where you don't always get what you want.

Every year I would get the play catalogue and teasingly tell my headmaster the plays we would not be doing: "The Vagina Monologues", plays about sex (and you would be amazed at how many of those are in a catalogue directed to middle school and high school directors), etc. Sometimes race blind casting is good. In this case, um, no. If you have a known group of actors, as in this case, you pick a play that plays to your strengths. If you know you have a lily-white cast, pick accordingly.