Steve Martin Offers to Back Banned Production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile

Steve Martin may be starting a new career as a producer: According to the Associated Press, the actor-comedian-playwright has offered to finance a non-profit production of his play Picasso at the Lapin Agile after the work was banned from a high school in La Grande, Oregon,for its adult content. In a letter published March 13 in La Grande’s newspaper, The Observer, Martin proposed to pay for an off-campus production in order “to prevent the play from acquiring a reputation it does not deserve.”

Picasso at the Lapin Agile takes place in an actual bar in Paris, one which Picasso visited often, and imagines a meeting between the great artist and Albert Einstein, just as each are on the verge of breakthroughs in painting and physics. A production was initiated by La Grande High School teacher Kevin Cahill, but then halted by the school board last month after a parent presented a petition signed by 137 people.

Martin disagreed with locals who pegged his play as being about “people drinking in bars, and treating women as sex objects.” “I could understand how some parents might object to certain lines if they were to be delivered by a 16- or 17-year-old," he stated in his letter. "Yet I do believe that the spirit of the play and its endorsement of the arts and sciences are appropriate for young eyes and minds.”

Before Martin’s letter was published, plans were already underway to present the play at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande from May 16 through 18, with student-raised money. Cahill told The Observer that money from Martin would be added to the funds raised locally, and any left over would go for acting scholarships at the college.

An off-Broadway production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile opened on October 6, 1995, at the Promenade Theatre with Tim Hopper as Picasso and Mark Nelson as Einstein. The play ran for 249 performances.