Amid the wave of theatres losing funding as the federal government cuts National Endowment for the Arts grants, UC San Diego threatened the Department of Theatre and Dance with a complete shutdown unless it agreed to only perform “non-woke shows” that promoted “wholesome family values.” After several days of negotiation, the department announced their agreement to these terms and cancelled their planned season.
Fourth-year Theatre major Stefani Sondh was reportedly flabbergasted by this new announcement. “I mean, I knew the situation in this country was dire, but I never thought it would reach California,” she said. “You know what shows we’re doing next year now? Oleanna and Our Town in the fall, and then an original musical called Concepts of a Plan: How Trump Saved America in the winter.”
An anonymous faculty member later confirmed student fears that the university will cancel the Wagner New Play Festival, an annual festival centered around producing MFA-written work in the spring. “We were told that everything these students are writing is ‘woke DEI trash,’ and that we were henceforth forbidden from producing student-written work,” the faculty member said. “To ‘remedy’ this, all students admitted after Spring Quarter of 2025 will have to take a new class called TDPW 47: Writing the Future of America.”
