Students gathered in the Kennedy-Mcllwee Theatre to watch N.C. State theatre students bring books to life Sept. 24. University Theatre and NCSU Libraries worked together to host Red, White and Banned, an event celebrating the third National Banned Books week on NCSU’s campus.
Diana Quetti, junior majoring in Communication Media, coordinated the event with Marian Fragola, coordinator of NCSU libraries. Quetti performed in the first event three years ago and was recruited to coordinate when Jill Varner, the original coordinator, graduated.
“My first year, I performed a monologue from the outsiders and I loved it,” Quetti said. “It was such a great event, it was really exciting to be involved.”
Eight students, including Quetti, performed either a monologue or a song from a banned or challenged book of their choosing.
“Typically we get to pick our own, I sent a huge email out to all of the University Theatre students,” Quetti said. “I sent out a list of banned books and allowed them to pick anything that has been banned in the past or currently or by a specific location.”
Quetti performed the song, “Naughty,” from Matilda.
“I was looking at Matilda because I thought it would be really neat to incorporate music into the scene and for the fun of it because Matilda just became a musical,” Quetti said. “It was banned [for] a couple areas like child neglect and themes of mental abuse, which is so shocking because it’s so classic and so many people read it.”
Quetti said a lot of important pieces of literature have been banned for various reasons. Performers did their best to base their presentations about these topics, which included violence, language and sexual content.
“People want to ban [books] because they find [them] too harsh for students specifically to read,” Quetti said. “But I think a lot of the pieces are really important to our literature experience.”
Quetti said she hoped people attending the event and those who will attend future installments gain a sense of appreciation for all types of writing.
“I think [the event] is just really to let people know how important it is to expand your literature experience,” Quetti said. “I think that literature in general is so important and such a great experience. I think this event teaches us not to limit ourselves and really appreciate all aspects of writing.”
Olivia Harvard, freshman in First Year College, attended the event and said she thinks that banning books limits our view about the world.
“The banning of books only allows people to learn and experience what the government views as right and appropriate,” Harvard said.
On the other hand, Greg Song, sophomore in business management, said banning books doesn’t prevent anything.
“I don’t think that banning books limits our view on the world because there are always ways for people to spread knowledge or pretty much anything,” Song said. “Banning books won’t actually limit or prevent anything.”
According to Quetti, if it weren’t for University Theatre she would never have had the opportunity to be a part of the event.
“I feel so fortunate to be a part of it,” Quetti said. “The program itself is so wonderful and there are so many great members of it and so once I got involved in my first show I knew I wanted to be involved even more.”
