A high school production of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that had a black student play the part of Huck, and a white student play the part of Jim has sparked a controversy in suburban Maryland. As an Associated Press wire story explains, the ruckus erupted when a taped version of the Glenelg Country School performance was edited out of a C-SPAN program because the company that owns the rights to the play, the Rogers & Hammerstein organization, would not give their permission to the broadcast. A spokesman for R&H said the company does not normally object to cross-casting, but “In the books, Jim is a runaway slave. He is clearly in the novel an African-American man. And Huck is a free white man — that is central to the story. To ignore that component or to comment on it by switching is not faithful to the story.” But the father of Jay Frisby, the black student who played Huck, says he is “appalled by the decision.” Russel Frisby, a Washington attorney, says, “The only rationale for it is that someone in New York believes Huck Finn can’t be played by an African-American. I thought we were past the days of ‘whites only’ clauses.”