Response provided on 7 June: Here are responses to your questions and comments from this morning. They should be read in association with the response provided yesterday. The Department of Education and Communities (not the Department of Education and Training) stand by the statement provided as a response to you yesterday. That response is repeated at the conclusion of today’s response. · The revue-style musical Don’t Stop Believing, which will be staged at Leeton High School, was inspired by the television show, Glee, but was never intended to be a production of Glee or to replicate it in entirety.· The idea of Don’t Stop Believing began last year after students from Leeton High performed songs, also included in Glee, at KROP and the Schools Spectacular. This triggered the idea of compiling a list of songs, many, but not all, of which were used in some way in the Glee series to show off students’ singing and dancing talents. A limited script was then built to offer a narrative to run through the show.· It should not be surprising that songs from Glee are also used to showcase singing and dancing talents of high school students. More than 100 Leeton High students are involved in Don’t Stop Believing. At times, 40 students are singing and dancing on stage and the songs chosen from popular music for Glee and other similar songs are ideal for large groups of singers.· The lead characters represent a diverse group of personality traits and come from different groups – jocks, cheerleaders and gleeks – but by the end of the show are friends and work together which is why it is called Don’t Stop Believing and the song of the same name was adopted from Glee.· While the name of the television show lends itself to the obvious play on words: “gLeeton”, the school show has always been referred to as Don’t Stop Believing or “gLeeton High School presents Don’t Stop Believing”.· Auditions had been completed – more than a term and a half into the shows development – before anyone observed the absence of a number of characters from the television show, including Kurt.· A number of other characters were written into the show to reflect the differences between Leeton High and the American school where the television show, Glee is situated.· Even when the same name is used, not all characteristics are transplanted. For instance, no Asian, Afro-American, Jewish, obese, anorexic or wheel-chair-bound students appear in the musical even though they are prominent in the television show. A white rapping student in the show is played by a talented Islander student rapper in Leeton High’s Don’t Stop Believing.· Of the comments published today in the Irrigator, the vast majority were not written by people associated with the production and are at best opinions, hearsay and assumption. None accurately account for the development of Don’t Stop Believing, the choice of characters or the audition process. They do, however, reflect the distress that circulation of misinformation has caused among students and staff, particularly those who have dedicated countless hours to preparing for the production. Response provided 6 June 2011:· Leeton High School is not staging a production of Glee.· To showcase students’ musical and dancing talents a revue-style musical, Don’t Stop Believing was locally developed loosely based on the television show, Glee. There is limited development of any character as the show focuses on singing and dancing rather than dialogue.· Don’t Stop Believing involves around 100 students. Of the dozen lead characters only two-thirds use names from the television show and even those do not necessarily follow their characteristics.· Not all characters from the television show were written into the school’s musical, but there was no conscious thought by the authors about which names or characters to exclude. The primary objective of Don’t Stop Believing was to give local students the chance to sing and dance in three groups: “jocks”, “cheerleaders” and “gleeks”.· Rehearsal for Don’t Stop Believing had progressed for a considerable time with the students before anyone involved in the production realised that “Kurt” was one of the names from the television show that had not been used. It was never considered that this would be labelled as “homophobic” and misrepresenting the intentions of the authors has been disappointing and tarnished the extraordinary efforts that they and others have put into fostering the talents of so many Leeton High School students.· The Department of Education and Communities and its public schools do not tolerate any form of discrimination, and would not accept dropping a character from a script because of sexual preference.