Parents Call For Catholic School To Bring Curtain Down On 'Cabaret'

PANORAMA CITY (CBSLA.com) — A San Fernando Valley high school faced calls Tuesday from conservative activists to reconsider its performance of an award-winning Broadway play.

KNX 1070's Jon Baird reports some parents and critics say "Cabaret" — and its racy content — has no place at St. Genevieve Catholic High School.

A group of conservative Catholics have started a Facebook page as well as an online petition to stop the school from staging a performance of "Cabaret" from April 25 through 27 on St. Genevieve Church property.

The petition claims the play, which is set at the seedy Kit Kat Club in 1930s Berlin amid the Nazis rise to power, "endangers the souls of the children participating, who will be performing grave acts of indecency, immodesty, immorality, and homosexual behavior on stage, contrary to Catholic faith and moral teaching."

In a letter (PDF) sent out to parents on March 19, St. Genevieve principal Daniel Horn denied the performance would promote "frivolous lifestyles and immoral choices".

"We are using the characters' lives to teach our students to respect life, to value above all their own God-given lives," Horn wrote. "'Cabaret' does not celebrate immorality; it is a cautionary tale about the dangers of immorality."

Some students, including ninth-grader Phoebe Phillips, seem to agree.

"We're not endorsing the things that go on in the play, but more, like, educating us," Phillips said.

Neither Horn nor Pastor Alden J. Sison responded to requests by parents hoping to "discuss the propriety" of performing the show, according to Catholic Online.