What Is the Story of The Metal Children?
As this new play begins, young-adult novelist Tobin Falmouth (Billy Crudup) is being pressured to appear at a town meeting “in the American heartland” on behalf of his book The Metal Children. Because of complaints from a local church, the novel has been removed from the classroom and all copies placed in a locked vault. This act of censorship comes at a bad time for Tobin, who has recently separated from his wife and is clearly depressed. When he arrives in the small town, he’s faced with a fawning English teacher, a teen girl “groupie,” up-in-arms church members, potentially violent protestors and an unsympathetic school-board head. Can a single book really generate this much heat?