Our talent show is actually school sponsored - not PTA. Our Principal and a couple of administrators screen the acts. One thing that helped with the "talent" was to not allow Karaoke, they had to actually sing a song and not just mouth the words and dance around.

I live in a very conservitive area, but fearing inapproriateness could be a problem we stated that contestants must follow school guidelines. We have a dress code and no music was allowed that had foul or suggestive lyrics. Since it was held on school grounds our principal backed this idea.

Our PTO sponsors an annual talent show, but until now we have had no official "appropriateness" policy. Acts have been approved or refused based only on the chairperson's idea of what is acceptable for elementary aged students. I probably don't need to elaborate much on the fact that this has caused a ridiculous amount of anger and resentment among our parents! We are trying to create simple written guidelines that can be applied fairly and equally to all acts, to hopefully eliminate the appearance that some acts may be scrutinized more harshly than others. Does anyone have a policy or set of guidelines that worked well for their show? We've already been accused of censorship and violating first amendment rights. Aye carumba, we need some guidelines and FAST!!