NORTH KINGSTOWN — Students in North Kingstown High School’s coming musical will be singing a slightly different tune next month than they had hoped.

The school’s production of Fame, a musical about students at a performing arts high school, has been censored. A cheeky song about masturbation sung by a class clown is out, and an alternate version is in.

“I think it’s adults trying to protect their kids, which is understandable,” said 16-year-old Devon Morin, who plays one of the lead roles in the musical. But it wasn’t the right decision, he said during a break from rehearsal yesterday. The play was created, he said “so that people can understand what it is like to be a performing major in high school. Or what Carmen has to deal with, with drugs, or Joe” — the character that would sing “Can’t Keep it Down,” the song that was cut — “the point of his song is about seeing pretty girls. Everything in that play is there for a reason.”

That was the sentiment Norma Caiazza, the musical’s director, expressed two weeks ago after receiving a letter, allegedly sent by a pastor, asking her to change several parts of the play. “All of the characters in this show are dealing with struggles that every high school kid deals with,” she said in a phone interview at the time. And she thought the message, about a student who didn’t work hard, blew off school and didn’t graduate, was more than appropriate for high school students.

The letter, signed by Rob LaRocco, a pastor at XL Ministries in East Greenwich, said some students had tried to approach Caiazza about their concerns but were afraid of being singled out. It suggested making the script more “family friendly” and came with an edited version of the original script.

LaRocco met with high school principal Gerald Foley last week, but has declined to comment on his involvement.

Caiazza said the play had been approved months ago by the administration, as is, with a mature rating. Students got a chance to read it before auditioning, and then, she said, she told them to show it to their parents.

“It was made very clear at the outset to all who expressed an interest in the production that it contained some coarse language, talk of drug use and sexual innuendo,” Barbara Greene, who has a son in the play, said in an e-mail.

“The usage of this language and these references is far less frequent in Fame than what you hear in any public high school parking lot, hallway or cafeteria in an average hour.”

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, also heard complaints from parents.

“One was the whole issue of censoring the play,” he said, “Second was censoring the play based on a complaint from a pastor in another community. Third was just a concern about the process by which it appeared the initial decision was made.”

He said school districts have policies that govern similar situations, for example, if a parent is concerned about a book in the school library, there’s a detailed procedure to follow. Nothing like that guided this process, he said.

Caiazza said that Foley had asked her to refrain from further interviews, and Foley was unavailable for comment this week.

Brown said the parents he spoke with decided not to push the issue legally after the administration decided to ignore the other changes suggested in the letter and simply substitute “Can’t Keep it Cool” for “Can’t Keep it Down.”

“I do think compromise is a good thing,” Devon’s mother, Donna Russo Morin said, “so in that aspect, OK, we are teaching the lesson of compromise.”

She made clear, however, that she didn’t think the lesson outweighed the offense.

“Censorship, I feel very strongly, on any level just cannot be tolerated,” Russo Morin said. “And that it should come from outside the community makes it even more egregious. It really is none of [the pastor’s] business.

“They’re not just a bunch of kids that got together and decided to do something offensive,” she said. “There’s real talent. There’s real commitment to the class, and it should be respected.”

North Kingstown’s production of Fame will run March 9, 10, and 11

bjeffers@projo.com