Shakespeare's problem play, Measure for Measure, is presenting a problem for a local high school district planning on seeing the play.

To expose students in Clearfield, Clinton and Centre counties to the arts, the Arts and Education Council schedules trips to University Resident Theatre Company productions, said Carrol Horrocks, assistant superintendent of the Philipsburg-Osceola school district.

However, a few weeks ago, Horrocks said the council was notified about the prologue added to URTC's Measure for Measure.

Horrocks said the production effectively depicts the moral depravity of Vienna, referring to the prologue, in which its citizens engage in a type of orgy. But while the production is very professional, the sexual content is a little too explicit for high school students, Horrocks said.

After the council notified administrators, Horrocks said, "a red flag went up to be cautious." In efforts to balance responsibility to parents and children, Horrocks went to a rehearsal when the University's theatre department invited school districts in the three counties.

Horrocks said she saw approximately one hour of the play rehearsal and decided the play was neither "age-appropriate nor curriculum-appropriate," due to its content.

Measure for Measure is about a duke who recognizes the society he governs has fallen into corruption and vice. To remedythe situation, he puts a rigid official, Angelo, in charge. Angelo orders the death of Claudio for getting his girlfriend pregnant. Isabella, Claudio's sister, pleads for his life, and Angelo agrees to spare Claudio only if Isabella will grant him sexual favors.

Director Lucien Douglas said administrators assumed the children will take away only the sexual aspects of the play instead of the bigger themes of justice and virtue.

"I feel the kids get cheated," Douglas said, pointing out that the play has lasted for 391 years, but Philipsburg-0sceola students won't get to see it live.

"Theater was meant to be performed, not read," he added.

The play will not be read by students, either. Horrocks said it was taken out of the curriculum, but other Shakespearean plays with more appropriate subject matters will be studied. "The play would not enhance the study the kids do now," she said.

Virginia Queen, (graduate-acting) said she was "very, very upset" that the high school was not coming to see the play because when she was a child, the plays she saw affected her future. The extremity in the prologue is a small part of the larger play, which is about finding balance within extremes, she added.

Queen said the play deals with issues that are happening today. Actor Andrew Heffernan agreed. "It could've been a very effective launching pad for a discussion on sexual harassment," he said.

Other themes in the play hover around women's rights, and the government and its regulation of personal affairs, Heffernan said. By staying for only the first three scenes, he said the administrators "had a complete misconception of the show."

Because of the trip's cancellation, URTC will give any parent who brings a high-school student a free ticket for the show.