Concerned North Carolina parents and pastors held a prayer meeting after a play was deemed inappropriate for students at Mitchell High School, ABC 13 WLOS reports.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged, a comedy parodying the plays of Shakespeare, was performed earlier this month at the Bakersville school by a visiting group from Parkway Playhouse.

Mitchell County school superintendent Chad Calhoun, who did not see the play, said it was stopped immediately when a staffer realized it included inappropriate language and portrayals of drinking and suicide.

Calhoun said that after he started receiving texts about the play's content from teachers and students during the performance, he sent an executive director to shut it down.

"We realize that there was inappropriate content in the original script of the play which we were told was to be edited to make it appropriate for high school audiences," reads an official statement from Toe River Arts Council, which helps organizes the student performances.

"The intention was for it to be funny as well as to show how plays were actually performed in Shakespeare's day. Also, because the director is an experienced high school drama teacher, we believed that she would review the content and conduct to make it fun, educational, and appropriate."

Mitchell High's principal had approved the play in advance for the 9th, 11th, and 12th grade students but did not have any advance discussions about its content.

“It's all rooted in parody and hilarity about condensing all of Shakespeare's works in about 99 minutes," Parkway Playhouse executive director Jeff Bachar explained. "Three actors play many, many characters. It’s presented similar to how it was in Shakespeare’s time, with men playing all roles, including those of female characters."

Bachar said that while the company "toned down some of the language and that kind of thing” for the students, violence, drinking, and suicide are part of Shakespeare's works.

"You're taking about Shakespeare," Bachar continued. "Shakespeare is required reading as part of the North Carolina state curriculum, and Shakespeare wrote about a lot of the things reflecting the world he lived in and, honestly, the world we live in.”

"We didn’t set out to be controversial. I think it’s encouraging some dialogue that’s really healthy about some different topics, and that’s our purpose as a theater."

The prayer circle was held on campus the following afternoon. “There were students that walked out yesterday and teachers that were offended by what was said and done," said pastor Nathan Silver, "and, because of that, we want them to know we’re behind them.”

Friendly Atheist reports that the "inappropriate content" considered most offensive by parents and faculty was perceived homosexuality.

A Mitchell County resident tells the site that while the school board officially complained about the play's “drinking and suicide” to the media, “What people were actually upset about was the all-male cast and that two men shared a stage kiss.” The post notes that "stage kiss" means the kiss between the actors was fake.

A petition is also reportedly circulating in Mitchell County calling for the school board to ban any theater group promoting "homosexuality."