Changing words in "Big River" (a musical) your opinion??

Question

My school is doing "Big River", a musical based on 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. As such, the word n*gger appears several times in the play. (It's also in the book, written by Mark Twain). The director decided to change each occurence of it to '*****'. Agree/disagee??????
It's a Christian school, in Minnesota, and there are very few african people who live in the area. Mostly scandinavians and germans.

Answer 1

Aaahh...political correctness. Where would we be without it? As a general rule, I am opposed to changing the words of any author's work. Who among us dares to presume to be a better writer, and thus qualified to alter the work of the original author? If people of that era and locality SAID "*****", Twain would have WRITTEN "*****".
That said, I fully understand the delicate balance that must be maintained between art and real life when presenting high school (christian or otherwise) productions.
I think if anyone involved with the selection of material to be presented by students finds any part of that material objectionable, they should have chosen another show to do. The message they are sending is that it is perfectly acceptable to change any artist's work to meet their own personal standards.
Now will someone PLEASE go get some clothes for DaVinci's statue of David?!?