Last year, I heard my classmates go ballistic about the spring play not being accurate: Taylor wasn’t black, Gabriella wasn’t Latina, and Sharpay had brown hair. Now my favorite critics come around with a new batch of complaints focused on the fact that a Catholic school is doing Fiddler on the Roof, which is mainly centered around Jewish culture.

This is what I don’t understand: is it okay for us to learn about different cultures in history or religion, yet when a Catholic school performs a play that involves Judaism, religious variety is not accepted?

I think just the opposite. Schools, public and private, are not involved enough with different cultures. Our society is stuck in little bubbles that prevent us from branching out to new ideas and where playing a different gender, race or age appears funny or strange.

For those who think it is a bad idea for women to play men because it takes parts away from men, I urge you to think back to the days of Shakespeare, when all theater roles were performed by male actors. If actors were only allowed to play parts that they actually are (such as gender or race), then we couldn’t possibly put on any show because teenagers would be forced to only play teenagers, and that would be a boring show.

And above all else, it is just a show. A high school show. I highly doubt that any of my peers are going to deny everything they’ve learned in Bible study because of one show that they won’t remember seeing come next fall. For the rest of us, we should be able to just enjoy the performances of our friends without any judgements.