Stevie Ray Dallimore, an actor and teacher, had been running the theater program for a private boys’ school in Chattanooga for a decade, but he never faced a school year like this one. A proposed production of “She Kills Monsters” at a neighboring girls’ school that would have included his students was rejected for gay content, he said. A “Shakespeare in Love” at the girls’ school that would have featured his boys was rejected because of cross-dressing. His school’s production of “Three Sisters,” the Chekhov classic, was rejected because it deals with adultery and there were concerns that some boys might play women, as they had in the past, he said. School plays — long an important element of arts education and a formative experience for creative adolescents — have become the latest battleground at a moment when America’s political and cultural divisions have led to a spike in book bans, conflicts over how race and sexuality are taught in schools, and efforts by some politicians to restrict drag performances and transgender health care for children and teenagers.

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Persons: Stevie Ray Dallimore, Love, ”, Chekhov, — Locations: Chattanooga