WILMETTE, Ill. -- Ty Perry, who was to have directed a Wilmette Park District production of "Ragtime," said fears over the use of racial epithets in the show are misguided.

The concerns about the language, including the highly charged "n-word," led the north suburban district to cancel the show. On Tuesday, however, the owner of the Wilmette Theatre announced plans to stage the show inside at 1122 Central Ave. if licensing and other details can be worked out.

The "n-word" comes into play in the telling of a story involving the experiences of an African-American man in the early 1900s, when blatant and often violent racism was a daily reality in the United States.

Perry said the controversy began several weeks into the rehearsals when the District's performing arts supervisors began discussing how to word a disclaimer explaining the use of the language to the audience. As that discussion went up the chain of command at the district, it became clear that upper-level administrators were unaware of the script's language and were growing increasingly uncomfortable with it.

The show was canceled after attempts to revise the language were refused by the show's licensing agency. Perry said he and the cast opposed the idea of trying to rewrite the musical.

"I'm saddened that the Park District made the decision to pull the show. I understand their position," Perry said. "I don't think that they did this out of malice or anything like that, but I think it's unfortunate that they didn't give the people of Wilmette enough credit. I really wish they had trusted their community a little more.

"They know the difference. They get it. They understand what hate speech is and they know the difference."

In the week and a half when the Park District was trying to decide what to do with the show, Perry found himself arguing for the use of a word that he, as an African-American, would find to be a vicious insult in almost any other context.

"That irony was not lost on me in that situation, but I felt strongly that this is where we've been and how can we see where we're going if we don't look back to see where we've been?" Perry said. "To take those words out is to sanitize history.

"It's all about context. Those words are meant to empower the script. They're not there gratuitously and they're not in there for shock value."

Frank Galati, the Tony Award-winning director who led the original 1998 Broadway production of "Ragtime," was shocked to hear of the show's cancellation last week. Galati, who grew up in Northbrook and lived for many years in Evanston while teaching at Northwestern, said the show could have been used as point of reflection and as a teaching moment, as it was in a performance he directed early in the show's run in Washington, D.C., when President Bill Clinton praised the show and spoke of the need to fight racism.

In "Ragtime," the "n-word" is used against the lead character Coalhouse Walker Jr. by bigoted firefighters. The attitudes behind the word, and Walker's refusal to accept them, ultimately cost him his life, but lead other characters to a more hopeful vision of unity.

"It's not even that the word is not gratuitous. It's that it is the point. It is the whole point of the show. It's the point around which the show turns," Galati said.

"I'm stricken to hear that the place that I come from would be so myopic, dull-witted and stupid as to prevent our fellow citizens from experiencing this extraordinarily beautiful and moving and pure story of American life."

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