By Ben Joravsky
Unfortunately, Bates no longer teaches creative writing and drama (though he remains at Lane as an English teacher). In the spring principal David Schlichting relieved Bates of his position as the drama teacher (Neighborhood News, June 2); this fall he gave Bates’s creative writing class to another teacher. “The man wins awards and gets fired–it’s outrageous and it breaks my heart,” says Crewdson. “The real losers are the students.”
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All in all, the case adds a little extra drama to this year’s Pegasus festival, which opened for previews on January 3. “I hope the whole theater community rallies around this issue,” says Crewdson. “I don’t think we can be silent.”
The entries, submitted in June, are read by actors, directors, writers, and stagehands; the best of the bunch are selected for a public reading over the summer. The four finalists have their one-act plays staged this month.
Shahbaz says he sees some parallels between the fate of Bates and that of his play’s protagonist. “It’s not right what they’re doing to Mr. Bates; he’s a good guy who gives it all to the students,” says Shahbaz. “He’s the guy in society who’s too radical for everyone else, so that’s the guy you do it to. That’s the guy you put the blame on.”
In September Schlichting again called Bates to his office, this time to tell him creative writing would be taught by another teacher. “He read a statement telling me about the reassignment,” says Bates. “When I asked why he was doing this, he read the statement again.”
But Bates is still not teaching creative writing, and the students still can’t stage Anne Frank.
