Heh. Yeah, that would happen. My high school actually did a performance of just the first act that went quite swimmingly. Convinced me to check out the whole thing - before that, Sondheim was a name to me, not a god.

ETA Re: Sweeney

I intend to see the new production of Sweeney (which has been getting some seriously RAVE reviews) early next year. I'm very, very excited.

I don't really get just doing Act 1. It does kinda seem to be missing the point...

Sure, it misses the point of the musical, but it could be a complete story in and of itself--just a less complex one.

True.

What's even funnier is my sister's high school doing Pippen , but taking all the sex and drugs out.

It was 15 minutes long.

I know a HS that is doing Footloose.

I've never seen the musical. Does it leave in the "I'm not even a VIRGIN, Daddy" thing?

I think if a play was going to require editing, my highschool just didn't do it.

I do remember some of us students re-writing some of the play version of The Hobbit. There's a whole lot that's unfaithful to the original, but we petitioned the director into at least letting Thorin die at the end (at the hand, so to speak, of Smaug, but it's better than nothing.) The play, as a whole is pretty lame, between the wand-wielding elves rescuing the dwarves from the goblins, no giant spiders, no imprisonment by the elves, no Laketown, no Bard, no Battle of Five Armies, and Bilbo killing Smaug by stabbing him with Sting (which isn't even named in the play.) To add to the lunacy, I played Bofur the dwarf (which will be really funny to the dozen or so Buffistas that have met me in face space.)

ETA: Of course, the director added to the silliness with Fili and Kili not having beards since they were "the youngest" and combined with their costuming making them seem to be two very all out of place mallrat girls, replacing the dwarves' song about the Lonely Mountain with the poem about the One Ring because she liked it better and a bunch of other random oddities here and there.

Doing the first act of Into the Woods is a fairly common practice, from what I've seen. It turns it sort of into a kid-friendly version. Or maybe kid-safe.

I think it might also be easier to sing (and stage) for high schools.

Also, I always felt that the end of Buffy:

Xander: We saved the world.....(dialogue omitted)

Dawn: Yeah, Buffy. What are we going to do now?

(Buffy just smiles)

Parallells (or at least reminds me of) the end of Into the Woods

Then out of the woods--

And happy ever after!

Cinderella: I wish...

Damn, I love Miller's Crossing.

That is all.

Doing the first act of Into the Woods is a fairly common practice, from what I've seen. It turns it sort of into a kid-friendly version. Or maybe kid-safe.

This. Yes, it misses the point of Sondheim's original intent somewhat, makes it less cerebral and ironic and all, but it's still a bunch of really good music, a fun story, and provides lots of important but not-incredibly-difficult roles, which is good for a high school musical. Also, it's conveniently shorter. There aren't too many musicals where you can actually get a more reasonably long, entire story just by lopping off the second half.

And the wolf and "discovery" songs (Cinderella's, Jack's, Red's) still make the show much more of a thinker than most shows a high school cast could do, even with the happy ending left happy.

As to Footloose: I don't know about the "Daddy, I'm not a virgin" line specifically, but the song "The Girl Gets Around" pretty much makes the same point. When my high school did it, that song was left in, and I'm from Mississippi. I think most drama teachers know that kids are aware of the existence of sex. The fact that I missed this performance by a couple of years has always made me sad, because I would've taken drama that year just to try out for the preacher's role.