Political correctness at high schools...

Everybody knows how dangerous a play can be.

A high school rendition of the musical "Big River," based on Mark Twain's incomparable treatise on the injustice of slavery, Huckleberry Finn, featured a black student as Huck and a white one as the runaway Jim, apparently using political correctness to once again distort the meaning of what many scholars believe is the greatest of American novels.

In the Washington suburb of Loudon County, Va., a female student's one-act play about a gay football player brought instant response from high school authorities and has kicked off a nationwide debate about what is appropriate for high school drama production. The county's school board has taken up the matter of the play, "Offsides," amid cries for banning any drama that not only mentions that there is homosexuality abroad but also touches on any subject considered unhealthy for teenagers to consider.

Since then a production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" at the same school was edited to eliminate what the drama teacher regarded as potentially offensive. Instead of singing about a dress being "tres sexy," as written, the actress was instructed to say "tres lovely," and the boss's nephew no longer stepped outside for a "smoke" but for a "soda." Apparently several lines in the play that portrayed sexual tension in the workplace also were eliminated.