a texas school canceled little shop of horrors because a girl was cast as seymour. the man-eating plant was never the problem.

via the Dallas Morning News, FOX 4 and Downstage Center

In the version of Little Shop of Horrors that South Grand Prairie High School planned to stage, Seymour and Audrey were never going to kiss. The school's adaptation had already cut it "regardless of who got the leading roles," the Dallas Morning News reported. The district canceled the show anyway.

The reason is Ana Mota, a 17-year-old senior who auditioned for Seymour and got the part. She has played boys before, including Jack in Into the Woods and Pinocchio, with no problems, the paper reported. "I was upset," she told the News. "This isn't drag at all."

what the district said

Grand Prairie ISD first said the part would go to a boy, Mota and her mother, Nancy Jimenez, told the News. When Mota declined a different role, the district pulled the whole production. In a statement carried in full by FOX 4, the district said that "a casting decision was made to place a female student in the role of a male character," that "a romantic relationship develops between the two main characters," and that, "in consideration of themes in the musical involving an abusive relationship," it decided to "find something more appropriate." It said the move was part of an effort "to ensure its programs remain consistent with Senate Bill 12 and all applicable law."

The abusive relationship in Little Shop is between Audrey and her sadistic dentist boyfriend. It has been in the show all along, including, according to theater writer Howard Sherman's Downstage Center, when the same school staged it four years ago.

which senate bill 12

Texas has two laws with that number, and the district's statement does not say which one it meant. The Morning News, FOX 4 and Sherman all describe the district's reasoning in terms of the 2023 law aimed at drag and other "sexually oriented" performances. On Aug. 25, US District Judge David Hittner declared that law unconstitutional for a second time and blocked the attorney general from enforcing it, the ACLU of Texas announced. NBC 5 instead identified it as the 2025 law barring schools from "instruction, guidance or programming on sexual orientation or gender identity." Neither law says anything about which teenager gets to sing Suddenly Seymour.

"The law in itself doesn't even apply to this situation," Jimenez told NBC 5. "Our rights are being trampled," she told the News. "People are making decisions based on nothing but fear."

what happens next

Mota and her mother plan to speak to the Grand Prairie ISD school board next week and told FOX 4 they are prepared to take legal action if the musical is not reinstated. "I think the last thing the district wants is a lawsuit," Mota told Sherman. "It's really saddening just to see that this is what the district is focused on," she told FOX 4. "When there's so many more issues that can be addressed."

"They are silencing an artistic voice in the community," Sherman told the News. "That is the very nature of censorship."

To recap: a musical about a plant that eats people survived the review. The girl did not.