SIDEBAR: Too Much Information

Forum Managing Editor Skye Pournazari sent a list of questions to Principal Thom Alvarez on Nov. 30 after being told all inquiries concerning “Legally Blonde The Musical” should now go through him.

In the weeks following the postponement of “Legally Blonde The Musical,” district administrators worked to control the flow of information, including by censoring emails sent to The Forum in an attempt to keep details about the reasoning from getting out to the public.

Following a Nov. 21 directive sent by Albrecht to board members in which she said she would not respond to any further requests for information or comment, she and high school principal Thom Alvarez actively edited employees’ proposed email responses in order to remove information they thought described too specifically the reasons behind the musical’s postponement, email records indicate.

Theoretically, those reasons had already been enumerated in an unannounced but technically open session of the school board on Nov. 17, the night the musical was postponed. Still, since no one from the public was present at the time to hear those reasons, school district officials continued to keep them close to the vest.

On Nov. 30, The Forum’s Managing Editor, Skye Pournazari, sent a list of five questions to Alvarez, whom she had been directed to by director Jacqui Conn as the new point of contact for all questions related to the musical.

Alvarez quickly wrote up a proposed response and sent it to his boss, Albrecht.

“Let me know what you think,” he said. “Hard to write. Not sure if this is vanilla enough while answering her questions.”

Albrecht stripped out the only specific reference in Alvarez’s proposed answer that would have given some clue about what the administration had found particularly objectionable.

“The main concern with the original production has been corrected; it had to do with choreography,” Alvarez had proposed to say.

Albrecht evidently thought that was too specific.

“Some changes have already been made,” she said instead, using the wording that went into the final email response to Pournazari. “Others we’d like, ones that require MTI approval, have been submitted.”

She also removed Alvarez’s pronouncement that “we are all excited for our students to perform the musical Legally Blonde.”

Albrecht offered no reasoning for the changes.

On Dec. 1, Alvarez forwarded a follow-up inquiry from Pournazari to Conn. Conn’s proposed answers evidently didn’t pass muster as administrators appear to have removed most of her explanations for what might be changed in the musical, though one of those administrators, Assistant Superintendent Steve Klotz, said he was fine with it.

“Works for me,” he said.

Nonetheless, gone were any detailed references to costumes and choreography, as well as an explanation for why Conn did not want to share the precise language of proposed script changes.

“Here is what Jacqui came up with, not bad but not what I was thinking,” Alvarez had told Albrecht and Klotz in an email with Conn’s initial proposed response. “Maybe to(sic) much info.”

Shortly after receiving Pournazari’s email, Alvarez sent a proposed response to Superintendent Becky Albrecht.

Albrecht removed any substantive references to what the school district may have wanted to change about the musical, including details as vague as “choreography.”

The final response sent back to Pournazari was identical to Albrecht’s draft.

Shortly after receiving the response from Alvarez, Pournazari sent another list of questions, including inquiring about the details of what changes the district had requested of Music Theatre International, the musical’s license holder. She also repeats an offer to print a Letter to the Editor from someone at the school district to explain the situation. Alvarez forwarded Pournazari’s newest set of questions to director Jacqui Conn.

The next day, Conn sends a proposed response to Alvarez and her co-director, Vanessa Parsons.

Alvarez forwards Conn’s proposal further up the chain, to Superintendent Becky Albrecht and Assistant Superintendent Steve Klotz. Klotz replies, “Works for me.” Albrecht does not respond over email.

The final email responding to Pournazari has been drastically edited to remove details about what changes were made to the musical and why Conn did not want to give more information on script change requests.