School to perform play NAACP had opposed

Section: Education

Lisa Cornwell, Associated Press Writer

A high school that canceled an upcoming performance of a play over complaints that the original title of the Agatha Christie novel on which it is based is racially offensive has decided the show will go on, with some changes.

The play will be performed next month with additional materials, conversations and other activities to honor diversity, said Superintendent Mike Taylor of the Lakota Public Schools District in suburban Cincinnati.

"I believe the best way forward is to allow the performance of the play to occur while using it as a learning vehicle," Taylor said Thursday.

The play, based on a 1939 novel called "Ten Little Niggers" and billed at the school as "Ten Little Indians," will now be performed as "And Then There Were None" — the officially licensed name of the play.

The play has been produced in the United States and elsewhere as "Ten Little Indians" and "And Then There Were None."

In the play, strangers are trapped on an island with a murderer who kills them one by one. The characters in the mystery are killed by methods resembling those in a nursery rhyme that has appeared at times under both the "Indians" title and the title containing the slur.

Gary Hines, a branch president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in southwest Ohio, had said the history around the book's original title made it inappropriate. Hines would not comment Thursday on whether his group would oppose the play as it is now planned.

"We were not involved in the discussion of what's going to happen, and all I know is that it's back on again," Hines said. "If they want to be inclusive, why wouldn't they include the group that brought the issue to their attention?"

Taylor said the school had canceled the play when school officials learned of the history of the play's title. He said that school officials have asked for the community's help to stage the play, and that he appreciates Hines bringing the issue is to the district's attention.

Students at Lakota East High School had initially been set to perform the play this weekend.