Pioneer Theatre Company

PTC Content Advisory PTC wants the theatre-going experience to be enjoyable and entertaining. Because of our commitment to our patrons, we annually post a review of potentially discomforting or offensive material in our shows. What follows is a detailed list of items that have been found offensive by some in the past. If you have concerns about content, feel free to look over this page. As you do so, please keep in mind that the words listed, taken out of context, may seem more offensive than they would in the context of the play. Below, we provide you the Content Advisory for the upcoming 2008-2009 Season.

Season Ticket Exchanges for Content

As is PTC's policy, season ticket patrons who do not wish to attend a performance because of strong language or subject matter may exchange their tickets for that production for additional tickets to another production. Tickets to non-musicals may only be exchanged for non-musicals. Tickets for Miss Saigon may be exchanged for another musical, or for a non-musical. Season ticket holders may take advantage of this offer up to 48 hours before their scheduled performances. Please contact the Box Office for more information.

MY FAIR LADY
Book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Adapted from George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion.
September 19 to October 4, 2008

SYNOPSIS: Professor Henry Higgins is a confirmed old bachelor and likely to remain so. On a whim, he makes a bet with his friend, Colonel Pickering, that he can turn a poor Cockney flower girl into a lady simply by teaching her to speak her native tongue more properly. Eliza Doolittle is the flower
girl with dreams of being more who agrees to be tutored. As Higgins strives to train Eliza, he himself is changed in unexpected ways by the "heartless guttersnipe" he has taken in. My Fair Lady is adapted from Shaw's play Pygmalion, and includes some of Lerner and Loewe's most memorable songs: "Could Have Dance All Night," "I'm Getting Married in the Morning," "With A Little Bit of Luck," and "Wouldn¹t It Be Lover-ly."

LANGUAGE: None. Professor Higgins says "damn" once or twice, and Eliza famously exhorts a race horse at Ascot to "move your bloomin' arse," but there is no strong language in the play.

SMOKING AND DRINKING: No smoking. Higgins and Pickering take an occasional glass of port to quiet their nerves.

SEX: None.

VIOLENCE: None.

FOR WHICH AUDIENCES?: My Fair Lady is suitable for all audiences, including children aged 5 and older.

RATING: This stage version would be rated "G" if it were a movie.

NOISES OFF
by Michael Frayn
October 31 through November 15, 2008

SYNOPSIS: A group of actors under the guidance of a world-weary director are rehearsing a British farce, Nothing On, which is due to open the next day. Surreptitious love affairs among cast members, vexing props which must be moved on and offstage, doors that won't open and doors that won't close make for a frustrating, but extremely funny, rehearsal. In the second act, we see a performance of Nothing On backstage, which is even funnier. Finally, we see another performance of Nothing On, and the laughs continue as we watch the cast try to cope with one outrageous miscue after another.

LANGUAGE: There is a small amount of strong language, including one whispered use of the four letter Anglo-Saxon obscenity.

Beyond the one use of "fuck," the other language is much milder and includes the frequent use of "Oh God," as well as the occasional use of "bloody," "hell," "damned," "Christ," "Jesus," "bullocks," and "bastard."

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 08: The author, Michael Frayn, has revised the script for Noises Off since we last produced it, and this is the script which we are licensed to produce in 2008. The revisions primarily affect the strong language used in the play, reducing or eliminating the profanities ("Oh God," "Jesus," "Christ") but adding two additional uses of the word "fuck." Please read our Director's Notes for this production for a further discussion of the revisions to the script.

SMOKING AND DRINKING: Under duress, several of the characters take a drink.

SEX: Several of the characters are having affairs, but those are referred to and not seen. In the farce-within-a-farce being performed, one of the actresses appears in her lingerie.

VIOLENCE: None.

FOR WHICH AUDIENCES?: Noises Off is suitable for most audiences and teenaged children. Conservative audience members might be put off by the occasional strong language, and pre-teen children should attend at a parent¹s discretion.

RATING: If it were a movie, Noises Off would be rated "PG-13."

THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA
Book by Craig Lucas. Music and lyrics by Adam Guettel. Based on the novel by Elizabeth Spencer

December 5 through December 20, 2008

SYNOPSIS: Clara Johnson, a beautiful but extremely innocent young woman of 26, is traveling in post-war Italy with her mother Margaret. In a Florentine piazza, she meets Fabrizio, a handsome young Italian man, and the two fall instantly in love with each other. Clara's mother seems overly protective of her, and we learn that there is a secret in Clara's past that has always made the possibility of love a remote one for her. As Clara and Margaret meet Fabrizio's family, and as the two families realize that Clara and Fabrizio are truly in love, Margaret Johnson must make a decision which could ensure her daughter's happiness.

LANGUAGE: None.

SMOKING AND DRINKING: None.

SEX: None to speak of. Clara and Fabrizio kiss passionately in her hotel room, but are interrupted by her mother before things progress too far. As is the case in Italy, the piazza has several statues of nude men, and Clara, who has never seen a naked man before, touches one of the statues in curiosity.

VIOLENCE: None.

FOR WHICH AUDIENCES?: The Light in the Piazza is suitable for all audiences, including children aged 10 and older. Younger children might be bored by it.

RATING: If it were a movie, The Light in the Piazza would be rated "PG."

THE YELLOW LEAF
By Charles Morey
January 9 through January 24, 2009

SYNOPSIS: In flight from personal scandal, the most famous poet of his age, Lord Byron, moves to a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva in the Swiss alps in the summer of 1816. He is accompanied by his physician, his former mistress Claire and her half-sister Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin, and Mary's
future husband, Percy Shelley, also driven from England by scandal. To pass the time, Byron challenges each of them to write a story of the supernatural, which they are to read to each other at summer's end. Hopelessly tangled love affairs, tragic events from the past and future, and the creation of Mary Shelley's immortal novel Frankenstein all take place during the course of the play, which takes an imaginative leap into the lives of some of the most important literary figures of the nineteenth century.

LANGUAGE: In a climactic confrontation, one of the characters uses the four letter Anglo-Saxon obscenity. There is otherwise a very small amount of mild strong language in the play.

The language includes the use of "fucked," (once) "damned," (a number of times), "son-of-a-bitch," "bastard," "arse," "Good Lord" and "God," "bitch," and "Christ-on-a-cross."

SMOKING AND DRINKING: No smoking. Several characters drink.

SEX: None, although several of the characters are carrying on, or have carried on, liaisons with each other that are referenced in the play. In the climactic scene mentioned above, one of the characters accuses Byron of having had an affair with his half-sister, which is the alleged scandal that has driven him from England.

VIOLENCE: None.

FOR WHICH AUDIENCES?: The Yellow Leaf is suitable for most general audiences. The single use of a strong obscenity may make it inappropriate for some audience members. High school students would probably enjoy the historical look at famous writers they have studied in school, but should attend at a parent's discretion. The play is above the heads of pre-teens.

RATING: If it were a movie, The Yellow Leaf would be rated "PG-13."

ROMEO & JULIET
by William Shakespeare
February 13 through February 28, 2009

SYNOPSIS: Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers meet a tragic end when their love affair runs afoul of an ancient Italian blood feud between their families, and they receive some very bad advice from a well-meaning friar.

LANGUAGE: Shakespeare's usual puns and double-entendres, and a few exclamatory oaths.

SMOKING AND DRINKING: None.

VIOLENCE: In a swordfight, Mercutio is slain by Tybalt, and Tybalt is slain by Romeo. Romeo, thinking Juliet dead, kills himself over her body. Juliet wakes and, finding Romeo dead, kills herself.

SEX: The play is about the two most famous lovers in literature, but there is no explicit sexual activity in the play.

FOR WHICH AUDIENCES?: Romeo & Juliet is suitable for all general audiences, including children aged 10 and older. Younger children might be bored by it.

RATING: If it were a movie, Romeo & Juliet would be rated "PG."

DIAL “M” FOR MURDER
by Frederick Knott
March 20 through April 4, 2009

SYNOPSIS: Margot Wendice, a young woman with money, is married to Tony Wendice, a former tennis star. Some years before, she had an affair, and unbeknownst to her Tony has discovered that fact. Tony blackmails a former classmate into murdering Margot, which would allow him to inherit her money. The perfect murder goes awry when Margot turns the tables on her assailant, and a cat-and-mouse game ensues between Tony, Margot and a dogged police inspector to catch the real killer.

LANGUAGE: None.

SMOKING AND DRINKING: As is the case with plays set in the 1950's, the characters in the play both drink and smoke.

SEX: None.

VIOLENCE: Margot is attacked by the killer, who attempts to strangle her. She fights back and kills him with a pair of scissors.

FOR WHICH AUDIENCES?: Dial "M" For Murder is suitable for all audiences, including children 10 and older. It might be too frightening for children under the age of ten.

RATING: If it were a movie, Dial "M" For Murder would be rated "PG."

MISS SAIGON
A musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg. Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg. Lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Alain Boublil.
May 1 through May 16, 2009

SYNOPSIS: The creators of Les Misérables have taken the plot of the opera Madame Butterfly and set it in the closing days of the Vietnam War. The star-crossed lovers are Chris, an American serviceman, and Kim, a Vietnamese girl with whom Chris falls in love. The brief love affair is torn apart by the war, leaving Kim with a son by Chris. Chris, thinking Kim dead, returns to America and marries Ellen. When he learns that Kim is alive and has a son by him, he and Ellen return to Vietnam as the war reaches its final calamitous days. Chris and Kim find each other, but they are helpless to prevent the inevitable tragedy that the war and circumstances bring down on them.

LANGUAGE: Miss Saigon includes a significant amount of vulgar language, including one use of the four letter Anglo Saxon obscenity and a fair amount of sexual and racial invective.

The language includes "fuck," (once), "screw" (several times), "ass," "son-of-a-bitch," "bullshit," "chinks," "Jesus," "shit," (several times), "whore," (several times), "crap," "hell," "bastard," "prick," and "bitch."

SMOKING AND DRINKING: Scenes occur in Saigon bars in which smoking and drinking occur.

SEX: The Engineer, one of the plays' major characters, is a pimp. Kim has been brought to Saigon from her village to become a prostitute, but meets and falls in love with Chris on her first night there. Several major scenes, including the opening scene, take place in a Saigon strip club. In the
Broadway and London productions, the prostitutes at the strip club were in g-strings and pasties. For this production, the girls will be in bikinis or similar clothing, but there will be no mistaking the girl's occupations as prostitutes servicing American soldiers or the Engineer's role as their pimp.

VIOLENCE: The Vietnam war is everywhere evident in the play's atmosphere. The evacuation by helicopter of the American embassy is one of the play's climactic scenes. In despair over her situation, Kim (like Madame Butterfly) ultimately kills herself.

FOR WHICH AUDIENCES?: Miss Saigon is suitable for adult audience members who will not be offended by the play's setting or its strong language. Conservative audience members will likely be discomforted by these elements, although the play does achieve the tragic grandeur of the opera upon which it is based. Teenagers should attend at a parent's discretion. The play is not suitable for pre-teens.

RATING: If it were a movie, Miss Saigon would receive a strong "PG-13" rating for language and strong thematic elements.

Banner picture is PTC's 2006 production of Chicago. Kelly Sullivan as Roxie Hart.