ORANGETOWN, N.Y. – School officials at Tappan Zee High School sucked the sarcasm out of an upcoming student production of “The Producers” by banning swastikas from the stage.

“It’s satire, not supposed to be taken seriously,” Jewish theater student Tyler Lowe told CBS New York.

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South Orangetown superintendent Bob Prichard decided to ban students from displaying swastikas during the Friday student debut of “The Producers” after a picture of the stage posted to Facebook sparked controversy and parents complained, the news site reports.

The satirical comedy is based on the Academy Award winning screenplay by Mel Brooks that makes fun of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. A segment of the show – an obtuse homage to the dictator called “Springtime for Hitler” – features Nazi flags and armbands.

Complaints from parents prompted Prichard to look in on the student production, and he told CBS New York he found the stage obscene.

“The optic, the visual, to me was very disturbing,” Prichard said. “I consider it to be an obscenity like any obscenity.”

“There is no context in a public high school where a swastika is appropriate,” he said, adding that he made the call to ban the symbol after consultation with the Rockland Holocaust Study Center and local rabbis.

Libertarian blog Reason.com weighed in on the controversy, and argued that context in school is critically important.

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“It’s not surprising that teens understand the play better than the district does. The plot concerns a pair of producers who put together a deliberately bad, patently offensive pro-Hitler play in order to profit from its commercial failure. They are thwarted when the play is a hit – the audience assumes it’s satire,” according to the site.

“Contrary to what the district thinks, context does matter. If a swastika appears on a Jewish student’s locker, it’s a hate crime. If it appears in a history textbook, it’s not.

“The danger comes when authority figures try to shelter kids from offensive ideas and symbols,” the blog continues. “It’s better to let them behold the swastika, and laugh at it, then live in fear of it.”

Some locals also seem to think district officials are missing the point of the play.

“I personally think bel Brooks would be honored that the controversy is going on,” Orangetown resident Lenora Mesibov told CBS New York, “but I think he would be disappointed by the censorship.”

A 2001 interview cited by Reason, Mel Brooks discussed his thoughts on Hitler and his approach in “The Producers.”

“I was never crazy about Hitler … If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you will never win … That’s what they do so well: they seduce people,” Brooks said. “But if you ridicule them, bring them down with laughter, they can’t win. You show how crazy they are.”

Virtually all of the commenters on the CBS New York cite believe Prichard is overly sensitive in censoring the student play.

“Folks, this is what happens when you limit free speech. Eventually everything will be considered offensive to someone and your cherished artistic freedom (and eventually your job) will die a horrible, suffocating death,” Bob Lauder wrote.

“These children should be learning a lesson on the dangers of political correctness,” he added. “However I fear they will undoubtedly be told that they are evil and wrong if they support keeping the show intact.”

“’There is no context in a public high school where a swastika is appropriate,’ South Orangetown Superintendent Bob Prichard told CBS2’s Tony Aiello’ How stupid is this? No context? What about your textbooks?” John Rudisill posted. “What about the context of learning history? Idiots.”

“Censorship. Historical revisionism. What’s next, taking the word Negro out of the speeches of Martin Luther King?” Jason Jay posted.