Sex sells, and at NIU, sex sold.

The sex-bomb, student-run production of “Selling Sex for Cash” sold out two of its three shows.

However, after the curtain went down on the final night, the drama began that would lead to the destruction of the student-run theater program, the Third Onion.

“Que l’ognion pourisee,” or translated from French, as it was written, “how the onion rots.”

Rob Schneider, associate professor of theater and the volunteer supervisor of the Third Onion, posted a note on the theater community bulletin board stating “The Onion is no more,” and it was so – the program is no more.

Why?

From the same, poetic note: “The 3rd Onion wishes to thank / if that is the right word, Ashley Dallman and Elek Hutchinson / for producing the last-ever / Onion show.”

“Will you join our cause?” says Doug Kwiecinski to a fellow theater major in a darkened stairwell. “We want to keep the Third Onion alive.”

He might as well be calling for “Liberty, equality, fraternity” with a guillotine in tow, but the theater department is awash in French Revolution-kind of conflict between bachelors students and faculty.

Later, during a dark rendezvous with the directors and a cast member in the empty Corner’s Theater – where “Selling Sex For Cash” ran just days before – Kwiecinksi said, “In the BA theater program, we have select few privileges. So with the Third Onion, we can run our entire show. If the Third Onion goes away, where is our voice?”

If this sounds a little heavy, take note of director Ashley Dallman’s insight, “We are theater students, after all.”

Perhaps the ending of Third Onion is just a natural change in an artistic environment.

“The Third Onion lasted five years,” said Schneider. “It took the Titanic five years to hit the iceberg. I don’t think that it’s a conflict. One ship has gone down, and somewhere, another one is taking shape.”

Perhaps students are learning that artistic freedom is something you have to earn.

When asked ‘What will you do if the student-run theater program is really gone?’ Kwiecenski said forcefully, “Make another.”

Maybe that’s what Schneider wanted: “I’m glad that they’ll miss it, I’m sure someone will come up with a replacement.”

However, the debate is defining theater, and more broadly, art’s goals.

For some, watching two girls dry-hump in a kiddie pool is not art. But somewhere, some theater student will say, “Rub-a-dub-dub.”

Dallman said, “The point is for the audience to ask, ‘What do I think of this?'”