CMU School of Drama


Thursday, July 05, 2018

Theater professionals of color decry the Muny's casting, unwelcoming culture

St. Louis Public Radio: The boos launched by a group of protesters mid-show at the Muny two weeks ago are continuing to reverberate. Actors and directors of color in St. Louis say it’s time for theaters to stop casting white actors to portray people of color.

1 comment:

Kaylie C. said...

I remember when this happened and the Muny claimed that it was due to not having enough actors of color show up to auditions. Being at CMU and seeing a whole chunk of the actors here drive the 9 ½ hours to my hometown to audition, I find that incredibly hard to believe. I love that this article mentions another prominent theater in St. Louis, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, which manages to handle these situations much better. You can’t claim that the problem is the audition pool when another theater in the suburbs does not have those casting issues despite having a significantly smaller pool of performers to pull from due to being an opera theater. I love Opera Theatre of St. Louis and all it does for the community in Webster Groves. They do amazing outreach and have programs for young people that are much more accessible than the Muny’s are known to be.