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Austyn Myers, Ian Littleworth and Cristina Gerla (left to right) in La Jolla Playhouse's "Kingdom City."

In "Kingdom City," the world-premiere drama by Sheri Wilner that's now running at La Jolla Playhouse, a small Missouri town is in an uproar over a high-school theater production.

The seemingly unlikely touchstone of that controversy: Arthur Miller's masterly "The Crucible," a play that's been taught to high school students for decades.

In real life, as it happens, it's hardly rare for school productions of even seemingly inoffensive plays to be protested or shut down or quashed before they ever get going. In fact, "Kingdom City" is based on an actual incident in which a staging of (yes) "The Crucible" was banned, although on somewhat different grounds than in Wilner's play.

Howard Sherman can tell you all about the many forms such censorship can take. And lately, that's exactly what he's been doing.

The arts administrator turned fierce advocate for scholastic theater has been documenting threats to student productions across the country via his blog (hesherman.com), his Twitter feed (@hesherman) and his talks to schools, theater companies and other interested parties.

That mission brings the former executive director of the American Theatre Wing (the organization that founded and sponsors Broadway's Tony Awards) to San Diego on Sunday for a moderated chat at La Jolla Playhouse on the topic of censorship.

The event, part of the Playhouse's "Discovery Sunday" series, takes place after the 2 p.m. performance of "Kingdom City." (The talk is free but you'll need to buy a ticket if you'd like to see the show first: (858) 550-1010 or lajollaplayhouse.org.)

"I never consciously decided this was a cause I was taking up," says Sherman, a longtime arts administrator and producer whose resume also includes a stint as executive director of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in his home state of Connecticut.

But the seed was planted in 2011 when he became involved in the debate over a threatened school production of August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone." The issue at hand: Wilson's multiple uses of the "n" word in dialogue.

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Shining a light on stage censorship