Stuck in the Middle - School Daze

Drama Club is the happy, safe space for Lee and Parker until their school play becomes a homophobic middle school meltdown. The lights get turned up to 10, the adults are in a media frenzy, and the kids are just trying to figure it all out. STORIES Don’t Say Gay Dads Drama Club is the happy, safe space for Lee and Parker until their school play becomes a homophobic middle school meltdown. The lights get turned up to 10, the adults are in a media frenzy, and the kids are just trying to figure it all out. This story contains descriptions of abuse directed at gay persons. Please take care while listening. A very big thank you to Lee and Parker—who are best friends to this day. Thanks as well to Jamie McGonnigal. Produced by Mark Betancourt, original score by Dirk Schwarzhoff. Artwork by Teo Ducot. Playground Bullies and Dark Secrets In middle school, Mike has a secret. But no one has ever seen “it.” This was performed at Snap LIVE https://youtu.be/xr0CioyLFqgin Los Angeles. “Mighty” Mike McGee is an international spoken word artist, writer, performer, speaker, slam poet and comic. McGee is the first slam poet to win both the American National Poetry Slam Individual Grand Championship and the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship. Original score composed and performed by Alex Mandel, Tim Frick, and David Brandt. Season 16 – Episode 45 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

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• 2:35Glynn Washington?

  Growing up, there's a kid in my school, in my grade, that attends my church. And we go to our church like four or five times a week. So I know this kid. Well, our families hang out, spend time in each other's houses. We're both farm boys. Sometimes we'll even help out each other with chores. And back then, I couldn't have told you that our church was a crazy, wacky cult led by a madman. I don't yet have this understanding. I just know somehow that what we do, running around, preparing for the end of days and all that,

• 3:20Glynn Washington?

  is probably not something you want to talk about in school. And I've got enough trouble as it is trying to avoid any hint of crazy. And this kid, he independently comes to the same understanding. So at school, we do not hang out. We do not speak to each other. And it's amazing to look back now, after all the insanity that eventually does go down from that cult in both of our lives, that the only other person that could possibly have understood,

• 4:03Glynn Washington?

  really understood in all of the world, I pushed away. Hoping that if maybe they didn't see us together, maybe they wouldn't see me at all.

• 4:24Glynn Washington?

  Wow. Thank you, Snap Judgment. We're proud to bring you a completely different tale of trying to get along in one of the most challenging stages of life. You've likely been there before. We're calling it Stuck in the Middle School. My name is Lynn Washington. The next best thing to a real invisibility cloak in middle school is listening. The Snap Judgment.

• 5:09Glynn Washington?

  We begin in a small suburb right outside of DC. Some might say it's a crunchy, granol-y type of place, where the biggest news is usually the offerings at the farmer's market. But that doesn't mean things don't go down. A listener should note that this story does contain descriptions of abuse directed at gay persons, because in 2019, something happened at the local middle school that riled up the whole community. Mark Betancourt has a story.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  The theater room at Hyattsville Middle School had a special feel to it. There was a stage, and the desks were all grouped together. The walls were painted black, and there was a big orange couch on one side. It was the day of auditions for the big school musical. The theater teacher, Miss G, was doing her best to wrangle the kids who had started pouring into the room.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Everyone's singing, everyone's talking, everyone's doing their monologues and stuff.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Lee was 12 years old, tall and gangly, high-top fade haircut, always wearing green shoes and glasses.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  I had a very high-pitched voice. I was very, very loud, especially when I was in a room full of other theater kids. It just went, it went crazy.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  The musical would be a performance of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, but everyone just called it Spelling Bee. It's a play about a ragtag bunch of middle schoolers who are competing in a spelling bee while also dealing with the trials of prepubescence, crushes, awkwardness, expectations from parents. It was pretty much what the kids in Miss G's class were living through every day.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  I think I went over my song, my monologue, once. The teachers were kind of looking at me and they're like, ooh, like, this is, it's pretty good. I felt really, really good about myself. I remember I did my monologue, my friends clapped, and I was like, oh, thanks. It was a very, very good, like, it was a very good vibe.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Which was a big deal for Lee. Being at school hadn't been easy. Other kids beat them up and made fun of their skinny arms or their squeaky voice.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  They would call me into the bathroom. They would, like, one of them would, like, be behind the stall. They would grab my arms, they'd punch me in the stomach. They'd call me gay. They would, oh my god, people would do this a lot to me because I was really, really skinny. They would come up to me and they would put their fingers around my wrist and be like, "Look how much space there is, oh my gosh." They used to take my stuff, too. Like, they would, like, take my backpack and, like, open it up and take stuff out. Think about it now, all I think about from middle school is how much I was bullied. Like, not even, like, my homework or projects that I had to do, just at the theater or being bullied, like, it's all I remember.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  The theater class waited for a whole week for Ms. G to announce the cast list for the musical. When she finally taped it to the door of her room, the kids could barely contain themselves. Lee was hoping for the lead role, playing a nerdy kid with a peanut allergy named William Barfay.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  And I remember me and my friend Kai running to the room and be like, oh my gosh, like, did I get it? And I was like, I'm William, yay! And I was so excited and I was so happy.

• 8:15Speaker 03

  I was really a quiet person in middle school, and I was very excited to be kind of like, behind the scenes, running things.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Parker was new to this whole theater thing. She had always been more of a wallflower poet type. But now that she was in middle school, she was ready to branch out, and she was excited to get the role of assistant stage manager.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  Ms. G always said it was like trying to herd cats, you know? She was like, I just need more people to be around me to help, like, keep everyone in the same place, you know?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Lee and Parker didn't know each other that well yet. But soon after auditions for the musical, they had a conversation that gave them an instant connection.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  There's nothing like getting real deep, real quick with someone to make you really bond.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  During auditions, Lee had started to notice two of their classmates. One was a girl and one was a guy. Lee thought they were both kind of cute. Lee didn't know what to do with that. What did it mean?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  I think I remember like, almost like a light bulb going on top of my head and I was like, I could just ask Parker. Like Parker would know.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  7th grade was right when I had cut my hair real short, which I feel like is a very gay experience. I had my hair real short, it was dyed, I would wear all these colorful sweaters.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Parker had come out as queer the year before, to her parents and her friends.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  The colored hair, the dyed hair, the nails, the rings, you know, all the jewelry. I was like, they're probably gay. I mean, I wasn't wrong. I felt safe when I saw them.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  So on the bus home after auditions, Lee texted Parker.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  I think it would just help. And then I think you asked what was wrong and I was like, I like this guy and I like this girl and what do I do? And I think I'm gay, but then I also like this girl and I think, I'm definitely not straight. But I remember your answer was very, very simple, very, very just, you can, you can, you can, you can like both. And I was like, you're like bisexual, and I was like, oh, okay. Cool.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  I was already kind of aware of my own sexuality, so I could, we kind of had that like, let's figure out together. And I'll tell you kind of how I knew and then I guess we helped each other out.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  Looking back, I didn't know as much as I thought I did, probably.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  There are moments in childhood when you realize you're not who you thought you were and the world isn't what you thought it was. For Parker and Lee, the musical, Spelling Bee, would become one of those moments. On the first day of rehearsal, everyone gathered around in a big circle to read the script out loud. Right away, Lee jumped into the role of William, adding little touches like sneezing in the middle of a line to show that William had allergies. But as the story unfolded, the kids couldn't help but sneak glances at each other.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  I mean, there is a whole song about the kids' erection.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  The song is called "My Unfortunate Erection." Miss G decided to use a version called "My Unfortunate Distraction," but it's still about the same thing.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  All the jokes, I had no idea what they were talking about. One of the characters say like, "And I heard that she's pro-choice, though still a virgin." And I remember reading that and being like, "What does that mean?"

• 11:32Speaker 03

  A lot of that show was just saying the lines as they were written.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  I remember like being onstage with script in hand and then she was like, "Okay, we're gonna do this scene."

• 11:41Speaker 01

  And that's when Miss G asked Lee and another boy to read the parts of two gay men, the dads of one of the characters.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  You're gonna be with the gay dads, gay dads. Go, let's go. And I was like, huh? Like, what? What? Hello?

• 11:55Speaker 01

  It was a bit part, so Miss G said Lee could play both William and the gay dad. There's really only one scene in the play where the dads appear, and it's super brief, but it's punctuated by another joke Lee didn't get. One of the dads is drilling the kid on her spelling, and the other one interrupts for a snack break.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  And then the other dad's like, "Well, if you, if you, if you worry about the snacks, and she's not gonna say the words correctly, and stamina or whatever." And he's like, "Don't talk to me about stamina, Carl. That's one of the lines." And then he says, "Daddy conference right now." And then that ends the entire thing. And I had to like look through it. I was like, "What? Like, hello?" And there's like sexual nuances and stuff.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Miss G seemed to sense that playing the gay dad in particular might be a big deal for Lee.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  She was very like, "Are you, are you okay? Like, are you sure? You sure you wanna do this?" And I was like, "No, I'm fine." Like, I was very like, "I can do this." Like, I was like, you know, I definitely treated my entire middle school theater career very professionally. And I was like, "I can do this. Like, it's whatever. It's just gay. It's just acting. You know, just acting." And honestly, at first, I didn't have a problem with it. At first, I was like, "Okay, cool. I can do this. I can..." It's, you know, it's a, it's a excuse to show who I want to be, at least. Show, show who I can be, you know?

• 13:15Speaker 01

  If anything, Lee, Parker, and the rest of the kids liked the fact that the play was for an older audience.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  I was like, this is really different than anything we'd ever done. Because like, before, we had done, like, The Lion King. And it's so fun, but it's so theatrical, and it's so made for kids, that it doesn't feel as real, you know? And the spelling bee felt very, like, interesting and adult.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Maybe even more appealing was that Miss G trusted them with the material.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  She would be real with us, and she would kind of talk to us like we were human, which felt really different and nice.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  But then, one day, Lee was in the middle of rehearsing a scene, when some students came into the auditorium.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  And I remember looking out during rehearsals and seeing one of my bullies there, looking at me, and I was like, that's gonna suck.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  The next day, those same students started taunting Lee nonstop.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  They would say it so loudly in class, and so like, everybody would hear, and they're like, "You're in a musical, you're in a musical, musical, but..." I mean, I was singing and dancing on a stage, and so they were like, "That's also gay, too." Like, I don't know if you know that, but that's also gay. Like, we thought you were, because, you know, you have a high voice, and you talk with your hands and stuff, but now you're in theater, and now we see the characters are playing, go like, "You're definitely one of them." And they did not like that at all.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Being called gay, this wasn't new. But now, as Lee was starting to explore their own identity, it felt different.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Being in that moment, per se, figuring out who I was, being bullied, before I even could figure out who I was, it's like, I didn't even know what I am. Having a wave of emotions and a wave of experiences being like, crushed onto me, before I could even figure out what the word gay meant, you know? Or different sexualities at that, was a lot, was a lot. And it didn't help that I felt like I didn't have time to figure out who I was, that I couldn't breathe, I couldn't exhale.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  But Lee still loved theater class.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  I was like, OK, cool, I'm being bullied in school. But rehearsal, I'm free, I'm happy, I can do whatever I want. You know, let all that wash off me and like be someone who wasn't the words that they told me that I was, you know, like I could be myself, I could be people who, you know, loved me and actually cared about me and be with them.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  As the weeks went by, the kids learned their lines and started to put together costumes. Lee's was a dress shirt and tie with baggy shorts and sneakers. Parker channeled her inner boss and learned how to keep the rowdy middle schoolers on task.

• 15:55Speaker 03

  The whole time, people were so excited to be doing this. Like, you know, every time we would learn a new dance, we would learn a new song, like people would talk about it, they would sing the songs like outside of rehearsal, they would do the dance. Like, I would see people in the hallways, like, doing the things and practicing, and it was just, it was really fun.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Then one day, only three weeks before performance time, Ms. G took Parker and the other stage manager aside. She looked upset.

• 16:29Speaker 03

  I think we went out into the hallway, and it was very like, you know, like, don't tell people, I don't want to cause a panic, but I feel like you guys should know this. And she was like, "It's not happening." They canceled it.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Lee heard the news and just started sobbing. It felt like they had lost their refuge.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  My paradise was gone, you know?

• 16:55Speaker 03

  My initial reaction was definitely anger. I mean, I was angry and upset and frustrated that we had put all that work into it and it was getting just swept away and it didn't matter.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  But I think it kind of quickly became disappointment. And then figuring out the, like, why it was canceled.

• 17:22Glynn Washington?

  When we return, Parker and Lee find out why the play they've worked so hard on got canceled by the school. Snap judgment.

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• 19:41Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the stuck-in-the-middle episode. When last we left, Lee, Parker, and the rest of the theater kids were busy and excited to put on their big play, till the teacher broke the news that this play was not happening. Snap Judgment.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Ms. G said the school had concerns about a bunch of things in the play. She also, in Parker's words, "heavily implied" the cancellation had something to do with the gay dad scene. Whatever she may have said, the kids came away with that impression. That spread quickly among the other kids, and eventually, it got back to their parents.

• 20:20Speaker 03

  I remember my mom being like, "We have to protest. We have to get it back on. We don't want people to think that this school board, or like, this group of parents that have children in this school would be the kind of people to, like, think this way, or to cancel play just because it has a scene with two gay people in it."

• 20:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Like, she was like, "We can't be homophobic. Like, that's wrong. I'm gonna write to your principal, and like, I'm gonna write to the school board." And she was like, she would ask me like, "Oh, do you know, like, who the superintendent was?" And I'd be like, "No, I'm in 7th grade."

• 20:58Speaker 01

  And it wasn't just the middle school parents who were upset.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  I remember Jamie McGonagall was in our living room, like, "This is awful, and this is terrible, and I can't do that." And him and my mom were talking.

• 21:12Speaker 04

  The first piece of information we got was that it was canceled because there's gay characters in it, so all my gay antenna went off. And I put on my cape, and...

• 21:24Speaker 01

  That's Jamie. He's Parker's neighbor. He didn't even have a kid in the play, or the school, but...

• 21:30Speaker 04

  I know the play very well. I've had a history with it in New York. I had a lot of friends who were in it on Broadway initially, and I just went right into action. It's a thing I do. When I get mad about a thing, I tend to, um, the social justice warrior, real, real fast. And especially when it's something gay, I was like, putting my shoes on. I'm like, "I'm out, let's go."

• 21:56Speaker 03

  I didn't really understand who he was, or like, why he was here, or why he was talking about the play.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  It was odd to have this random guy be so, so worked up about this, like, my school play.

• 22:12Speaker 04

  I had, at the point, I had a year old's child that was probably going to be going to that middle school someday. And so I was coming at it from a perspective of also, in addition to like, yeah, I need to stand up to bullies, also, like, I want my kid growing up in a place where a school play is not going to get canceled because there happen to be gay dads in it.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  As a teenager, Jamie had been called a lot of the same things Lee was being called. He saw this as an opportunity to be the adult he wishes he'd had when he was a kid, someone to stand up for him.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  He was like, I'm so, you know, I'm so sorry. Like, you shouldn't, you shouldn't have to feel like the community doesn't accept you. I definitely did feel a little, feel a little too seen at that moment. I don't think, like, I understood, you know, why I was kind of uncomfortable with that at the time.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Within days after the musical was canceled, Jamie joined other parents who were protesting in front of the school, trying to pressure the principal to reverse the decision.

• 23:12Speaker 04

  I think it was like three or four of us by the, the city bus stop outside, just holding signs and waving at people.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Then he took to the internet. He created an online petition that talked about how hard the kids had worked, how their parents had driven them to rehearsals on nights and weekends, and how the kids had found a supportive community where they could make art. He also said it was important for families like his to be represented, and frankly, abhorrent to remove them from the play.

• 23:40Speaker 04

  I publicized the petition. I still have a lot of friends in the Broadway community, so I reached out to, like, the Broadway websites and things like that. They put it up there. And then, I think, I know, I know that Jesse Tyler Ferguson shared it.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Dan Levy from Schitt's Creek also shared Jamie's post on X, back when it was Twitter.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  I remember being surprised how quickly and far it went.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Jamie had set up the petition so that the principal would get an email every time someone signed it. The petition gathered more than 60,000 signatures, three times the population of Hyattsville. People all over the world signed it.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  School administrators aren't used to getting thousands of emails about a particular situation.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  As a kid, you kind of feel powerless to that kind of stuff. Because it's the system and the county and the school board. You're like, I'm not going to make a difference. So it was really surprising when the community rose up like that.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Still, Parker was not excited about this movement. In fact, the whole uproar about the cancellation was starting to bother her in a way that she had trouble putting her finger on at the time.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  Canceling the play is one thing. And making the whole conversation be about like the community's views on like homosexuals and pride and all that is it's such a different thing to experience. And in middle school, like, I definitely wasn't ready for that kind of spotlight on us as kids. Because I wasn't ready to talk about it. I wasn't ready at the time. I wasn't ready to be out. So many people were like, we see you. And I just, I did not want to be seen in the moment, like, in the transition period that I was in.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  Like, I wanted time to reflect personally and individually before I allowed people to see like that part of me. And they were just not, they were looking too hard at me.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, Lee was miserable.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Even when the play was canceled, I still had school. I still was bullied during school. You know, I couldn't like go to rehearsal afterwards. I just had to go straight home. You know? People would make fun of me and stuff on the bus, like on the school bus way home. And so like, I, yeah, I never, I never caught a break. It was just constant, constant, constant, constant, constant.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  A week after the cancellation was announced, the school held a public meeting about the play. Parents would finally get the chance to ask questions about why it was canceled. Lee wanted to be there. If not to change the administration's mind, at least to speak up about how all of this was affecting them. So they and their mom hopped in an Uber and rode the 20 minutes to Hyattsville Middle School.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  We saw like news outlets. We saw people with like the big, like, the cameras and the microphones and people like, like, speaking and stuff. And I was like, this is, this all feels so surreal and like movie-like. It looks just so confusing.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  The meeting was in the school cafeteria, where the play would have taken place, and it was packed.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  We walked in, it was very, very loud. Everyone was speaking, and we had to find a seat somewhere.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  People were holding signs with messages like, "The show must go on" in rainbow lettering. Lee saw Ms. G across the room, and she looked like she'd been crying. The principal and other administrators from the district were there. So was Jamie.

• 26:59Speaker 04

  I sat with some other parents initially. I surreptitiously took out my phone so I could record the principal speaking.

• 27:06Speaker 05

  First, I want to say thank you for everyone for coming out this evening to our parents, students.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  The principal read a prepared statement, basically.

• 27:16Speaker 05

  The Department of Creative and Form and Arts encourages teachers in each discipline to provide students with the very best instructional materials possible in an atmosphere of freedom and creativity.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  The principal said the problem was that the play was not appropriate for middle schoolers. It was only officially cleared for high school students. It had been a mistake to let the kids do this production. The parents in the room were not buying it. Anytime they directly asked the administrators what exactly in the play was inappropriate, they refused to answer. That evasiveness led people to believe it really did have something to do with the gay dads.

• 27:52Speaker 04

  People just wanted an explanation of what happened, and they weren't giving it.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  They were passing around mics, and everyone was speaking in the mic. Gay people need to be alive and real. And it's like, aha, but that has nothing to do with the show.

• 28:05Speaker 04

  I do remember kids being very upset about it, obviously, because they'd put so much work into this.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  And I remember raising my hand like two times, and they did not give me the mic. And then they-- and I was crying. I remember crying.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Finally, Lee did get a hold of a mic. Through tears, they tried to tell the room what they were feeling.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  You guys are all worried about the wrong thing. Like, that has nothing to do with what the actual problem is.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Lee talked about finding something they love to do, then losing that safe space where they could be themselves, and just being confused about why everyone was now arguing about gay rights and censorship.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  I think I was just allowing things to just come out, you know, because I felt so emotional. I think I was trying to put up a front that like, hey, like, I'm also an adult. Like, I also have feelings, too. I'm also trying to prove a point here. Like, I'm also trying to stand up for myself, basically.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  The mic was passed to someone else.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  I was like, very, very like, just upset that they weren't, that no one was asking me anything. Like, no, no one cared to ask me about anything.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Lee felt like their words fell on deaf ears. And then the meeting ended.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Talking to at least a couple of the kids who are involved in the play, they were totally blindsided by the focus on the gay characters. Like, why are you guys taking this and making this about this big political issue when we're just sort of sad that our play got taken away? And they kind of felt somewhat left behind by that. But they also felt put on the spot. Like, the kids who were, had sort of emerging sexualities, were sort of like, the last thing I want is for...

• 29:52Speaker 04

  For a spotlight on my...

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, I hadn't, I hadn't considered that in that, from that perspective, so much. I can see that. I can see that, that, you know, wanting, still wanting that private part of you when you're at a pretty tender moment in a tender age.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Anything that might possibly shine a spotlight on that can be kind of terrifying. And I should have considered that. But I didn't. I think in my blind rage at the time.

• 30:23Speaker 04

  You don't always consider all the, you know, every perspective of every person involved when you're trying to accomplish a big task like that. I also go back, though, to the idea that maybe it wouldn't have felt like such a sharp intrusion if there weren't still a lot of societal pressure and prejudice against gay queer people. That stigma is still very much there for these kids. Otherwise, they wouldn't have had these same kind of issues with anyone shining a spotlight on who they are and them and having to hide, right?

• 30:59Speaker 01

  On the day of the meeting, Jamie, who was at this point kind of a rogue spearhead of the parent movement, stepped up the protest.

• 31:07Speaker 04

  We reached out to someone at the local ABC affiliate and we're like, hey, they're canceling this show.

• 31:13Speaker 06

  Tonight, questions are swirling over the sudden cancellation of a middle school musical in Maryland.

• 31:18Speaker 07

  Was it profanity in the script that caused concern, sexual innuendo, or was it the play's portrayal of a same-sex couple?

• 31:26Speaker 01

  The ABC News crew showed up at the school, and Jamie gave an interview.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  I'm a gay dad. I have a background in theater. I have no doubt in my mind that the fact that there's gay parents in the show is one of the primary reasons for the cancellation. When we asked pointedly if that was one of the reasons, they said they could not say.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  The next day, Ms. G called Parker and the other stage manager up to her desk during class. She had breaking news of her own.

• 31:54Speaker 03

  She was like, guys, the play is back on. Like, it's uncanceled. They took that back. I almost didn't believe it for a second. I was really surprised and confused and excited, but almost like hesitantly excited.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  The pressure from the protesters had worked. The school reversed its decision to cancel the play. There was one compromise, though. There would have to be a disclaimer before the performance about the mature content.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  I don't think I was like, hooray, like... Gave him for the win, like, we made it, you know, and another, another stonewall. I was still on the show, so I still got bullied because of that. So like, nothing really changed, really. There was no like, I didn't walk down the hallways and people were praising me. I didn't like, and there was no like, roses on the way to my class, you know? I think, I think I was happy that, one, the show was back on, but, two, I could be myself again.

• 32:47Speaker 03

  The feelings were complicated, definitely, when it got put back on. Like, it was hard to be as excited as I was before. Like, how long is this gonna last? This new, this new acceptance of the play, like? Now it's a bigger deal because it's not just a play that we're doing. It's like a statement, almost, that we, you know, overcame this, like, adversity. Everybody, like, is expecting some kind of, like, triumph story from us, when really, it was just a thing that we were doing. It was just a play that we were doing for fun.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  The kids had only three weeks to get the play back on its feet.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  I remember thinking, like, oh, we don't have all the blocking down, you know? People don't know their lines still. We have to really get this perfect because now that it's become such a big deal, we have to be good.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Before they knew it, it was tech week. Theater kids call it hell week. It's when everything has to come together. All the moving parts, the sets, the lighting, the costumes. The rowdy middle schoolers have to actually put on a play.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  I was making sure everyone hit the tech keys right. I was, like, on the headset. Like, I was doing last-minute crafts for the, for the big props. And then I was making the blocking for the two dads.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Right, the dads.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  We were not worrying about that last, that small part. You know, we had, we had to get through songs and dances and lines and montages. Like, it was a lot, like, that was the least of our problems.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  When it came time to rehearse the scene, one of the actors who was supposed to play a gay dad, Lee's scene partner, dropped one final bombshell. He wasn't gonna play the role. Miss G asked the other theater boys if they could do it. Even one of the tech crew. No one was up for playing a gay dad. Not even Lee.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  I didn't have a problem with playing the two gay dads at first.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  After the bullying, of course, and after it was like, oh, so you do theater and you're gay, and now you're playing a gay dad. And I was like, OK, I don't think I want to do it anymore.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Then Ms. G had an idea. Did anyone in the class think their dads might be willing to play the characters?

• 35:02Speaker 03

  I went home and talked to him about it. He was like, absolutely. He was so excited.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  So Parker's dad and another dad started coming to rehearsals to work on the scene.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  My dad was so excited to be acting again. Like, he did plays in theater in high school. And I had to tell him a lot of the time, like, you're overreacting to things and you're acting very loud. And he was acting really flamboyant. He kind of pitched his voice a little higher and was like, talking with his hands a little, like, moving a little more, like, different than he would. I had to pull my dad aside. I was like, you're not going to want to hear this from your daughter, but you're acting a little too gay. I was like, you're acting very stereotypical. I was like, you have to dial it down a little.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Even though Parker's dad was overdoing it, Lee felt comforted that the adults were stepping in to play the gay dads.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Now, I don't have to get the backlash from everybody else, you know, like, because after the show, I was gonna have to go to school. And there would have been people talking about it and stuff. And I was just glad that I could have just been William, and that was it, you know?

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Finally, it was opening night. Lee's hyperactivity went up a few notches as they got into their costume. Parker was in tech kid mode, wearing all black with a headset. She had butterflies, but not in a good way.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  I was so intensely nervous. If we do go through with this, is it going to be worse now that this scandal has been brought up? Are people going to see this play and, like, yell bad things? Like, I thought, should I be, like, looking out the curtain windows and, like, watching for people?

• 36:48Speaker 04

  I was all excited to go because I felt like I had some tiny, tiny part in helping to make it happen. So we got dressed up, we went, we sat in the front row.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  And Jamie had one last little show of support for the cast.

• 37:03Speaker 08

  Hi, guys. This is Jose Lana, original Chip Tolentino, sending a big shout out to the kids and drama teachers at Hyattsville Middle School over in Maryland.

• 37:14Speaker 04

  I reached out to a lot of the original cast members who were in it on Broadway and asked them to put together messages for the kids. They all knew the story. They'd all passed around the petition that I made.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Toward the end of the video, there was Jesse Tyler Ferguson. He went on to play a gay dad on Modern Family.

• 37:31Speaker 09

  And I just want you to know, there's gonna be lots of kids out there who see themselves in all those characters. Gay, straight, white, black, skinny, chubby, ones with mucus membrane problems, ones who just slept to read the dictionary on the toilet. And that's the great thing about the arts is it can really bring people closer together and it can change hearts and minds. And I think spelling bee does just that. So best of luck and I'm sending all my good vibes your way.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Backstage, Ms. G gathered the kids and played them the video.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  And everyone was like, oh, my God, that's the actual original spelling bee cast. That was a big deal. It was like, this is a huge deal.

• 38:11Speaker 09

  Yeah, after that, I was like, whoa, like, whoa, yeah.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  It was a full house. Backstage, as the kids scrambled to their spots, Ms. G rushed in with a new plan.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  For the longest time during rehearsal, we couldn't say like cuss words. We had to like bleep them out or whatever. Opening night, Ms. G was like, you guys can say them now. It's like, just say them, you know, like, don't be afraid to say them. I was like, OK, but like, nobody got it. So there's one line where it's like, like, god damn it or whatever, right? And we've changed like, gosh darn it or whatever. But it's like, one person saying god damn it, the other person saying gosh darn it. And it's like a mix of it. And like, I remember like doing it and looking at them and be like, what do we do? Like, this is going horribly. Like, what do we do, you know?

• 38:55Speaker 03

  That kind of fit, though, because wasn't that in the song called Pandemonium? So it kind of worked.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  That's true, yeah.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  As soon as the curtain went up, the stage lights wouldn't turn on.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  From there, it was a cascade of unfortunate events. Lee's mic kept cutting out. A rat had chewed through the wires in the sound system. People kept missing lines.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  It was a very like, the show must go on, even though people are forgetting their cues and doing stuff wrong onstage and the lights won't turn on and everything's going crazy.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  The kids stumbled through the rest of the play and then came to the scene, the one with the gay dads. Did your dad tone it down by the time?

• 39:54Speaker 03

  Um, no.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  It came back?

• 39:57Speaker 03

  He did not. He was really dramatic the whole time. It was good, though. It was entertaining, I'm sure.

• 40:06Speaker 10

  Maybe it's time for work. Dad, Dad, where's the little work here? Yeah, but you know she doesn't smell well and her blood sugar is low, Carl. We need to build her stamina to peak the last three hours. Don't talk to me about stamina, Carl. Dad, Dad.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  You know, after that, everyone goes, "Yeah, yeah, woo!" And like, all, it's like, like, a bunch of people in one corner, because there are probably people who like, were invested in this and who went to the meetings. And they're like, "Yeah, like, yeah!" They're just clapping and stuff.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Lee was onstage during the scene, outside the spotlight.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  And I remember being like, rolling my eyes, being like, "Come on, guys, like, come on, like, come on, like, come on." You know, "You got what you wanted type thing. Can we keep the show going?"

• 40:51Speaker 03

  When everyone is like, clapping and cheering so much for the one scene that like, isn't kids and the one scene that's just the two adults, you're kind of like, "Oh, are they really here for me?"

• 41:19Speaker 01

  The play ended. The cast took their curtain call. Jamie and his husband joined in a standing ovation.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Because it was such a big deal, even though I didn't like that it was such a big deal, it was a little sad to just have to go back to like normal life after that because I liked hanging out with those people.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Even though they both felt like the protests had passed them by, during this ordeal, Lee and Parker had gotten closer.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Meeting someone and becoming friends with them and then realizing, oh, we're kind of the same person, we're kind of going through the same things, you know, at the same time, that, yeah, I think that's, we kind of listened to each other. And that's, we kind of found what we needed in a way.

• 42:12Speaker 03

  I had never had a friend like that before, like not specifically like that, someone I could get really close to and to talk about like this important journey.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  On closing night, after they all got out of their costumes and wiped the makeup off their faces, Lee and a bunch of other kids from the play hung out together in a friend's basement. They played Minecraft and ate candy and reminisced about the year.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  I was very, very certain in that moment that these people were like my kin. Like, I have friends and they, like, these friends love me and I actually love them and we're cool and we get to hang out and stuff, you know? Yeah, I think that was like a, not a somber moment, but like a good moment to, oh, this is, this is pretty good. Like, I can actually have friends and this is, this is, this is good.

• 43:17Glynn Washington?

  A very, very, very big thank you to Lee and Parker, who are best friends to this day. They graduated from high school this very month. Also, thanks as well to Jamie McGonigal. His son will be attending Hyattsville Middle School, starting in 2029. The original score for this piece was by Dirk Swartzoff. It was produced by Mark Betancourt.

• 43:48Glynn Washington?

  Now, after the break, the secret to magic reveals. Stay tuned.

• 44:04Glynn Washington?

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• 44:46Glynn Washington?

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• 45:12Glynn Washington?

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• 45:56Glynn Washington?

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• 46:34Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. The stuck in the middle episode. You are in for a treat. Because I saved a seat for you, right? Front and center with the full house. Snap Judgment, live.

• 46:53Speaker 07

  A haiku to start. I am Mike McGee. I love women and free food. Running makes me sad.

• 47:09Speaker 07

  It's true.

• 47:12Speaker 07

  Now, I have the luxury of not enjoying running. But I was born with spina bifida. And those of you who don't know what that is, it is a neural tube defect. It's a birth defect that, you know, it's a spinal deformation. And most people with it can't run. Usually in wheelchairs. They need help with mobility. I don't. I can, you know, karate chop. I can't kick very highly.

• 47:39Speaker 07

  Now, because of spina bifida, I do have a certain amount of nerve damage, basically, between my nipples and my knees. And that nerve damage affects my bladder. It doesn't work at all. I have no bladder control whatsoever. Not a drop of it. I wear diapers. I've worn diapers my whole life. Thirty-seven years of diaper changing, I'm pretty good at it.

• 48:01Speaker 07

  Now, I'm pretty comfortable now with wearing diapers, but I wasn't as a kid. As a kid, it was tough because kids could hear them. Whenever I'd walk through school, they'd hear my diapers. And they'd find out about it, and I was Catholic, so I couldn't lie about it, you know?

• 48:17Speaker 07

  So I would explain to them what spina bifida was, and they just weren't having it. And they thought I was a freak, and they would tease me. "Diaper boy!"

• 48:26Speaker 07

  Really original. We moved a lot. And everyone came up with "Diaper boy."

• 48:33Speaker 07

  Times were tough. I mean, not too tough with my family, you know? I've been chubby my whole life. My mouth has been high-fiving food since 1985.

• 48:43Speaker 07

  But being teased so mercilessly through school made it really tough. And one day, I came home crying. One time, one time only, I came home crying. And my mom grabbed me, and she said, "Michael, if you're gonna survive this life, you gotta make them laugh with you and not at you." She was right. Right then and there, she gave me permission to be hilarious. But I was still pretty bad at it. I got into 8th grade and I was just as mean and ruthless as everyone else. I avoided public swimming pools, locker rooms. The idea of being seen in my diaper was like, foreign. It was impossible and unacceptable. I couldn't do it.

• 49:29Speaker 07

  But the meanest people in school were these rich kids in 8th grade at Hoover Middle School in San Jose. They would sit on this grassy knoll near the cafeteria and they would just bestow insults upon everyone. Especially the poor kids. I was considered a poor kid. So, I thought, "Well, I need a team. If I'm gonna take down these kids, I'm gonna need a team to help me out." So I rounded up all the funniest kids in school and we sat at the bench between the cafeteria and the grassy knoll. And we aimed all of our insults at the rich kids. Every once in a while, kids would come out of cafeteria and they'd get hit too. Sort of a little "sit by" shooting, you know?

• 50:12Speaker 07

  But it was working! And it made the rich kids hate me even more. And I was fine with that. These John Hughes bastards.

• 50:23Speaker 07

  And we would mess with everything about them as much as we could. The gel in their hair and their "New Kids on the Block" conversations. 1989, right? So...

• 50:35Speaker 07

  All of a sudden, the spring of 1990, "pantsing" became the thing. Pantsing.

• 50:44Speaker 07

  And my crew, we were the clowning crew, all got pantsed. And we were trying to figure out how was it that everyone I liked was getting pantsed? And it turns out that the rich kids loved the idea of pantsing. But there was no way they were ever gonna touch the clothing that was bought at Kmart. So, they had a hired gun. And his name was Cory.

• 51:09Speaker 07

  Cory was the fastest kid at Hoover Middle School.

• 51:14Speaker 07

  And the reason he was the fastest kid was because he was the skinniest kid. The reason he was the skinniest kid is because he was easily the poorest kid at school. He got free lunch like us in the cafeteria. We couldn't understand how the rich kids lured him in. He had principles. And then one day, we figured it out. The rich kids lured him onto the grassy knoll and made him pants people by raiding their cupboards and pantries at home. Food they knew no one would miss, and they'd fill his backpack with groceries to take home to his family. It was the only way to get him to do it. And, and he did, with efficiency. He was of the wind. He could pants anyone. By the time you knew your pants were around your ankles, he was gone.

• 51:57Speaker 07

  And he probably had your wallet, too. He was so good. And there's no way I could outrun him. And that occurred to me one day. I was like, "I'm going to be a target." There is no way the rich kids aren't gonna make sure that I get pantsed. My clowning crew grew nervous. So for days, we tried figuring out a way to avoid me getting pantsed. Because if I get seen in a diaper, it will be the end of my life from here on out. I'd still be alive, but it would just be dull. So, we tried figuring this out, and there was just no way around it. Because my wardrobe consisted, literally, of three t-shirts and four pairs of sweatpants.

• 52:40Speaker 07

  Sweatpants. A cloth made of the finest dryer lint and hope. Pants made for pantsing. I was so scared. It was going to happen. There was no way around it. I couldn't outrun Cory. He, a tiny, very hungry cheetah, waiting for a buffet. And me, a fat, lazy zebra, really just ready to be a buffet.

• 53:21Speaker 07

  The day came. I woke up one warm June morning, knowing it was going to happen. I went to school like nothing was going on. I got my free lunch. I stood outside the cafeteria and I kept my eye on Cory. The whole school kept their eye on us. They knew it was coming down. My clowning crew was nervous. They knew it was gonna happen that day. I stood there, kept my eye on him, thinking, "If I can see where Cory is, I'm safe. There's no way it's gonna happen. And if it's not gonna happen, then that means I've won. Maybe I've already won." And by the time that thought hit my brain,

• 54:02Speaker 07

  I felt two bony handfuls of sweatpants being tugged down by Cory. Behind me, the ninja panzer. I looked down to see the elastic of my sweatpants around my ankles. I had been pantsed. Cory and the rest of the lunch crowd looked up, expecting to see me in a diaper. But instead, what they saw was a second pair of sweatpants.

• 54:44Speaker 07

  It didn't work. I couldn't believe it. Cory couldn't believe it. I looked back at him. We just smiled, knowing that we had both won. He rose to his feet, shook my hand, walked up the knoll, claimed his groceries one last time. I eyed the rich kids. They knew we had won. There was nothing they could do about it. I returned to my seat, claimed my spot on the bench with my clowning crew, knowing that Cory and I were the winningest losers at Hoover Middle School, class of 1990.

• 55:25Glynn Washington?

  Big, big love. It's Mighty Mike McGee for the hilarity Mighty Mike McGee. See the full video of this performance in all of its technicolor glory. It's all on our website, snapjudgment.org.

• 55:40Glynn Washington?

  If you missed even a moment, no, the Snap Judgment Storytelling Podcast is available right now, wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by the team that never caused the mommas trouble in middle school, except for the uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristich. Now there's Nancy Lopez, Pat McSally Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Gorio, John Facio, Shana Shealy, Tad DeCott, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exame, and Regina Badiaco. On Team Snap, the union represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO Local 51.

• 56:25Glynn Washington?

  And this is now the news. Nobody says the news. In fact, you could show up at your kid's middle school, dressed in blazing pink, sparkly wig, just so they understand what you're capable of, and you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.