Banned Books Onstage goes online!

Since 2011, the Libraries has celebrated Banned Books Week (Sept. 27–Oct. 3) with “Banned Books Onstage,” a staged reading of scenes and monologues from banned and challenged books co-presented with University Theatre. This year, because of the campus coronavirus response, the event has been moved online.

“Banned Books on (the Virtual) Stage” takes place on two nights. Current NC State students perform on Monday, Sept. 28 from 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. over Zoom. Then, alumni of previous “Banned Books Onstage” events perform Thursday, Oct. 1 from 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., with NC State alumni Nico Peaks guest-directing.

Both events are free and open to the public. Pre-registration is required here (September 28 performance); and here (October 1 performance): you will receive a link to attend prior to the event.

Expect to experience scenes from a variety of books including children's books such as Jill Twiss’ A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, to young adult novels like Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass from the His Dark Materials trilogy, to classics such as Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

“Think of the connections that are being taken away for the people who like and identify with these books,” Peaks says. “It's just another equivalent of being told that the way you think, feel, or live is not okay and that there's something wrong with you. What's great about the diversity of content in this event is being able to make others aware of what kinds of books are out there and need help just staying in our schools, but also being able to create new connections with each other as that is the true nature of literature.”

Annually, the American Library Association (ALA) sponsors Banned Books Week, a national celebration of and focus upon literature facing censorship, as well as the intellectual freedom issues around it. While many current NC State students might associate book-banning with bygone eras, it routinely continues throughout the United States. In what became a high-profile battle in 2013, the Randolph County (NC) School Board ordered Ralph Ellison’s classic Invisible Man removed from school libraries after a parent found its language and sexual content objectionable. Only after public outcry from teachers and parents, and national attention online, did the board reverse its decision and restore the book to libraries and the county’s summer reading list. This is a common pattern for many of the books highlighted in this event.

To Peaks, censorship issues are deeply personal and individual. “For some, this isn't just a book they like; it's a reflection of what their reality actually is,” he says. “Some of these books are needed for awareness and education, or to serve as a cautionary tale for what certain behaviors could lead to, or to give hope that there's a happy ending possible, or to give a reader an ‘I get this’ or ‘I feel that’ or ‘They're just like me’ feeling that they can identify with.”

“It should be up to the individual to pick what it is they read, not someone else to arbitrarily decide what is okay for an entire generation to be exposed to.”

Banned Books Week is sponsored by a coalition of organizations dedicated to free expression, including American Booksellers Association; American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of University Presses; Authors Guild; Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE); Freedom to Read Foundation; Index on Censorship; National Coalition Against Censorship; National Council of Teachers of English; PEN America; People For the American Way Foundation; and Project Censored. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Banned Books Week also receives generous support from DKT Liberty Project and Penguin Random House.