‘Flashdance’ Was the Wrong Choice for a High School — But This Was the Wrong Way to Cancel It

by Chris Peterson

Watertown High School in Wisconsin will no longer be performing Flashdance: The Musical this spring.

Interim Superintendent James Feil ordered the school to choose another production after concerns were raised about the material. In explaining his decision, Feil acknowledged that he had never seen the 1983 movie, which he described as an “X-rated movie.”

Let’s clear some things up: Flashdance isn't X-rated. The movie was rated R. More importantly, the stage musical isn't the movie. If you're going to overrule a theatre educator and cancel a production that students were already excited about, you should probably read the actual script first.

According to Wisconsin Public Radio, Feil met with director Ryan Moldenhauer and Watertown High School Principal Jason Widiker after concerns were raised. Feil later said he found “no wrongdoing” by either man and made his decision after hearing from them and considering the production they proposed, including the modifications they had contemplated.

For the record, I have seen the movie. I have not seen the stage musical performed, but I have researched the changes made in adapting it for the stage, and none of what I've found changes my opinion here.

I don’t agree with how the superintendent handled it. But I also don't think Flashdance should have been approved in the first place.

The stage version still tells the story of Alex Owens, an 18-year-old steelworker who spends her nights dancing at Harry's Bar while dreaming of getting into a prestigious dance academy. Theatrical Rights Worldwide’s (TRW) own casting information also includes dancers at Harry's and Chameleon dancers in the show's ensemble.

And the adult material goes considerably deeper than that.

A major subplot involves the character Gloria being recruited to work at the Chameleon, a more sexually explicit rival club. Her storyline eventually involves drugs and alcohol, and Alex tries to pull her out of that world. Alex also begins a relationship with Nick, her boss at the steel mill, and that romance is a major part of the story.

That's not material sitting around the edges of Flashdance. You can't just cut one questionable scene and suddenly have a high school musical. You would have to start removing or significantly rewriting entire storylines.

And that's really my issue with the show being approved in the first place.

I have not been able to find a documented American high school production of the full licensed Flashdance musical that actually made it to the stage. I did find a production at Launceston College in Australia, a senior secondary college, but that's a different educational setting than the American high school we're talking about here.

Maybe there's a high school production somewhere I haven’t found yet. But considering how many schools produce musicals every year, the lack of obvious examples should at least tell us something.

And it raises another question. How much responsibility belongs to the people licensing the show?

TRW currently offers Flashdance as the regular full-length musical. There isn't a separate Flashdance: School Edition listed alongside it. TRW does offer specially adapted school editions of other shows, explicitly describing those versions as having been edited to make them more suitable and producible for high school groups.

So if a high school applies for the rights to Flashdance, maybe somebody on the licensing side should be asking some questions too.

Should a high school be granted the rights to a show when so much of the material would likely need to be altered for that environment?

I'm not saying the licensing company should make every artistic decision for a school. But rights holders already control who receives permission to perform their work. Maybe there should be some responsibility there to recognize when a title simply isn't designed for that age group, especially when no school edition exists.

Because the alternative creates exactly the problem Watertown found itself in.

Could Moldenhauer have made enough changes to make Flashdance more appropriate for his students? Maybe. Feil's own statement indicates modifications were being contemplated.

But at that point, we're talking about substantial edits to material that is central to the show. And a school can't simply rewrite licensed musical however it wants without authorization.

That's why I think two things can be true here.

Superintendent Feil handled this badly. But Ryan Moldenhauer and Jason Widiker also had a responsibility to examine what they were putting onstage before students became attached to it.

There were multiple opportunities for someone to catch this before it became a controversy. It should never have gotten this far.