As he walked out of his theater director’s office last month, Max Hightower tried to keep his cool.
“I’m Ali Hakim,” he whispered to his friends, who erupted in screams and cheered him on for so long that Max had to ask his theater director for a late pass to his next class.
But the next week, the role was no longer his.
An administrator told the Hightower family Nov. 3 that Max would have to be recast because of a new policy that required Sherman High School students to portray characters that align with their sex assigned at birth, his parents told The Washington Post. The sudden change meant that Max and several others — transgender and cisgender students alike — were cut from the production, the Hightowers said. Since Friday, they and other families with students in Sherman High’s theater program have been pushing for the roles to be restored and for the show to proceed as planned.
On Monday, the Sherman Independent School District sent a letter to families and staff that said the production would be postponed until 2024.
“It was brought to the District’s attention that the current production contained mature adult themes, profane language, and sexual content,” the letter said. “Unfortunately, all aspects of the production need to be reviewed, including content, stage production/props, and casting to ensure that the production is appropriate for the high school stage.”
The letter clarified that there is no blanket policy affecting how students are assigned roles. But for “this particular production,” administrators wrote, “the sex of the role as identified in the script will be used when casting.” Those same criteria won’t necessarily apply to all future theater productions, the letter added.
Meghan Cone, a spokeswoman for the district, did not directly respond to questions from The Post about what prompted the casting changes and production delay, saying that the administration hoped to share more information later this week. The district did not respond to requests for interviews with the Sherman High principal or the district’s superintendent. The school board president and the high school’s theater teacher both directed The Post back to the district’s communications office.
The production pause at Sherman High comes amid a nationwide surge in efforts to ban or limit LGBTQ+ content in schools. Such policies have affected a number of high school musical productions, including in Florida, Indiana and New Jersey, The Post has previously reported.
But Max said he had never faced rules or restrictions about who could be cast for which roles since he got involved in Sherman High’s theater program his freshman year. After transitioning, Max said he found community by performing with the school’s choir and in its musical productions.
“It’s where most of the people that are like me are,” said Max, who has always auditioned for male roles at Sherman High.
Last year, Max said he was cast as a “street urchin” in the school’s production of “Little Shop of Horrors,” a musical about a florist who finds a plant that feeds on blood and flesh. In its original script, the three street urchins are female characters who sing in the background throughout the musical, typically wearing skirts or dresses. After Max was cast, he created his own street urchin character — a boy who wore brown trousers, a bow tie and a flat cap. Max and his castmates named the character “Ronnie.”
“I didn’t even mind that I didn’t get, like, a set character,” Max said. “They just let me work with what they gave me.”
After auditioning for a male lead in “Oklahoma!” a few months ago, he was originally cast in a male background role. Then, on Oct. 24, after another student dropped out, Max’s theater director told him he’d been recast as Ali Hakim, a wealthy peddler who wanders into the farm town where the musical is set. He’d get to end his high school theater career with a main role.
“I was so over the moon,” Max told The Post. “I can’t even describe it.”
But on Friday afternoon, Max’s father, Phillip Hightower, said he got a call from the principal with news that Max could no longer star in the role because of the new policy. Max would have to be recast in a female role to remain in the production, Hightower recalled being told.
Max’s father felt gutted and said he struggled to react.
“Well, please give Max as good a role as you can,” Hightower recalled saying.
In the roughly minute-long phone call, his son’s years-long dream of landing a lead role had been taken away.
Later that day when Sherman High theater students learned that some of their roles would be changing, many of them stood in the hallway crying, Max recalled. Another transgender student whose role was cut hugged Max, resting his head on Max’s shoulder.
“It’s not fair,” he said.
After spending weeks in rehearsals, memorizing scripts, practicing songs and building the set, the decision left the students feeling distraught and confused, Max said.
“I had only seen stuff like this on the news, and I didn’t think it would happen in our school because nothing had happened before,” he said.
Though the district has said there is no permanent, ongoing policy about assigning roles, parents such as Christina Shelton are still worried that the “Oklahoma!” decision sets a precedent for the future.
Shelton’s child, 18-year-old Emirson, who is nonbinary, is set to play a male character in Sherman High’s production of “Children of a Lesser God” later this year at a theater competition.
“You don’t get to have a policy that you can willy nilly decide what’s going on without it looking like you’re bullying,” Shelton said.
On Monday, Emirson asked their theater teacher whether they still had their role in “Children of a Lesser God.” The cast list for the play is currently being reviewed, Emirson recalled being told.
“I’m hoping that things can go back to the way they had been,” they said.
Since last week, students and their families have been putting pressure on the district to reverse its decisions on castings and the show’s scheduling. As of Thursday evening, the district had not responded to those requests, the Hightowers told The Post. They hope the school board will address the decision in its next meeting on Monday.
“I told Max the other day, I said, ‘Sometimes, you have to fight the losing battle so that can be used to help add fuel to the fire for the winning one that will come eventually,’” Hightower said.
