On opening night last Thursday, Cape Fear Community College theatre staff and students were informed that some of their set design for Euripides’ The Bacchae had to be changed.
The set floor was decorated with a host of protest slogans, including "Say Her Name," "We The People," "No Gods" "No Justice No Peace," "And Justice for All." "Silence = Violence," "Liberty for All," and "No Kings."
According to students who spoke with WHQR, the college administration initially ordered students to remove most of those slogans from the set, just a few hours before the curtain went up. But, after staff and students advocated for keeping the set intact, the administration decided that most slogans could stay — but "No Kings" had to be removed.
According to three CFCC theatre students who spoke to WHQR, President Jim Morton had sent the instructions to remove the slogans, which he viewed as political. CFCC spokesperson Christina Hallingse said that wasn't true, and that the decision was made on the “division level.” We asked which division, and she didn’t respond.
"No Kings" was replaced with "They need your courage" (some of the letters were black, others, in red, spelled out "our rage"), and the show went on.
CFCC theatre students say the messaging was an attempt to relate the play's thematic elements to struggles over power as seen in protest movements, both past and present.
CFCC's Bacchae
The first line of the description of the play on the Wilson Center’s site reads, “What happens when a city denies a god his due?”
The Bacchae, a Greek tragedy written over 2,000 years ago, depicts Pentheus's struggle to break free from the power of the god Dionysus. Dionysus has captivated the attention of some women in society, including Pentheus’ mother, Agave. They are whipped into a frenzy and engage in animalistic behavior. Pentheus is upset by this and other devotions to Dionysus. The god himself, disguised, is then captured by Pentheus’s men and is mistreated, but in turn, he convinces Pentheus to disguise himself to approach the women in the mountains. When Pentheus travels to the mountaintops, Dionysus tells the women, in particular Agave, to kill Pentheus for his disrespect. Then the people of Thebes start to question their allegiance to Dionysus after the horrific orders he gave.
There are many themes throughout the play — among them are the struggle against tradition and power, Dionysus’s religious hold over society, and the ever-present desire to be right and protect one’s ego.
CFCC presented its version this month, styled as just Bacchae. Cast member John Holohan is a CFCC theater student and plays both a soldier and a messenger.
“There is a king in the play who delights in control and power. And then there's also Dionysus, the god, who could be interpreted as a king, but who also delights in control. And basically starts with the whole fight because he doesn't like the way they're talking about him. He wants to control the narrative around his name. And so, either one of them could be the king who is trying to censor and control the people,” he said.
As for the ‘No Kings’ slogan on the set, “It's not like it's the highlight or the main focus of the play, but it does relate to it,” he said.
Calls to change the set
CFCC’s administration apparently learned of the slogans on the Bacchae set through a social media post on Instagram on Thursday, April 16, by Holohan, who is also a member of CFCC’s social media team. He was allowed to take over CFCC’s main account for the evening to promote the opening of Bacchae, which he had done previously for other productions.
According to Holohan, administration had broader complaints about the slogans, but honed in on the "No Kings" messaging. His direct supervisor, Julianne Martin, social media and communications manager, told him to take it down because it was political messaging. He claims that in other posts he made about the play were also "altered," saying that those photos with the "No Kings" slogans were deleted.
He said the administration has the right to do what they please, but “it's unfair. They didn't take our experience, our voices, into account. It was kind of just like an ultimatum.”
Greyson Hartsell is a CFCC theatre student who served in the Marines. He supported the set design of Bacchae.
“Well, as an American, first I feel like the ‘No Kings’ message is more of a kind of like a rite of passage, since that's how America was founded, getting away from kings, from the King of England, whatnot,” he said.
Holohan said the cast and crew were devastated by the ‘No Kings’ slogan removal, which built a lot of resentment after having worked on the production since the start of the semester. He added that they’ve never seen Morton attend any of their plays or support their work. It was also upsetting to the students that the administration, including Morton, did not take the time to talk to them directly about the issue.
He also said Philip Singleton, CFCC’s department chair of commercials, fine and performing arts, delivered the administration's messages to the cast and crew. He apologized to them, according to Holohan.
WHQR reached out to Singleton to confirm this, and he didn’t respond. WHQR also requested text messages between Singleton and any CFCC administrators on that day. CFCC quickly filled the request, sending three photos of the set from Singleton to Lucinda McNamara, the dean of university transfer and partnerships. There was no writing with the texts, just the three images of the slogans.
CFCC theatre students also told WHQR that the administration instructed staff not to respond directly to press inquiries.
Hallingse wrote on the gag order, “Consistent with many large organizations, the CFCC employee handbook states, 'To assure the accuracy and consistency of news and information concerning Cape Fear Community College, all news releases must be coordinated and/or released by the Community Relations Office. All media interviews with college personnel must be approved by the Community Relations Office ahead of time. When contacted by members of the news media, employees should notify the Community Relations Office first and respond to questions only when they have sufficient information to give factual, accurate responses.'”
Ultimately, the cast and crew decided that the “show must go on” last weekend and said they used their discontent as motivation for their performances.
College’s reasoning via a student email
Hartsell wrote an email to Morton the day of opening night, decrying the decision and using some terse language before this statement:
He wrote, “Coming from a background where I served in the UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS and took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, I take the First Amendment seriously. That includes the right to free expression even when that expression may be uncomfortable for your feeling,” adding, “Community colleges are publicly funded institutions, and students should not feel that their voices are being restricted without clear and justifiable reasoning. Decisions like this raise concerns about where the line is drawn regarding student expression.”
Morton didn't respond, Hartsell said, but CFCC Vice President Brandon Guthrie emailed him the following day, outlining the college’s position.
“The decision to remove the image from the production was not made to limit student expression or diminish the importance of free speech. As a publicly funded institution, the college has an obligation to maintain political neutrality in its official activities, including academic and theatrical productions presented under the college’s name,” Guthrie wrote.
He added, “Additionally, this particular production of Bacchae is intended to allow audiences to engage with its themes through their own interpretation. While connecting classical works to contemporary issues can be valuable, overt references to current political messaging risk narrowing that interpretative space and shifting focus away from the broader, more enduring themes of the work.”
Hartsell told WHQR that while Guthrie was “very professional and kind in his response,” he said, “[CFCC’s] policies don't just give you the right to silence our expression, especially since we're the ones who do all the work. And, we did pay to go to that class, and we did pay a studio fee just to be in there.”
Hartsell told WHQR, “I was told that Jim [Morton] had the problem with it, so I'd rather I was talking to Jim, not the VP.”
He mentioned this in his email response to Guthrie, which was fairly dismissive of the VP, and noted that Morton could respond himself, stating that he had a salary of over $400,000. As of last June, Morton's salary is $416,796, which doesn’t include his retirement contributions and other benefits.
In both CFCC's employee and student handbooks, the only time ‘neutral’ is mentioned is within the context of funding of student organizations, that they will be made in “a viewpoint neutral manner.” Otherwise, there is no policy within those outlining ‘neutrality.’ State statutes regarding community colleges do not include the phrase ‘neutrality’ either. While the UNC System Board of Governors did implement an institutional neutrality policy, it doesn’t seem that the North Carolina Community College Board followed suit.
Hallingse acknowledged that the ‘neutrality’ policies at CFCC, as implied by Guthrie, are not codified or written down.
Curtain call
The ending description of the play on CFCC’s Wilson Center site reads, “Bacchae remains a hauntingly relevant tale about the devastation that happens when those in power attempt to control and manipulate the very people they are meant to protect.”
Holohan said there could have been another way that the college handled this, for example, “We just want to say that as a school, as a brand, or whatever they may say, that it's not representative of our beliefs as a whole, or something along those lines.”
For Hartsell, for the cast and crew, for the coming weekend, he said, “I think we're just going to finish out our last performances, and then it's just kind of nothing's really going to be said or done about it.”
Though he still said he encourages the administration to come and see it for themselves.
The play reopens this Thursday through Saturday at 7:00 P.M at the Wilson Center Studio Theatre. Tickets start at $5 for students and around $15 for the general public.
Note: WHQR told Hallingse that we welcome any interviews with staff or administrations, but acknowledges that CFCC has declined interviews since 2021.
