Variety: "Are they Broadway stages or Benetton ads?
In the coming weeks, three shows will open with casts that are entirely or nearly all nonwhite. Two furthur productions feature African-American stars in roles that are traditionally played by white thesps."
4 comments:
I like the last sentence of this article because I think it makes a good point that encouraging diversity in the theatre can't just be about encouraging minority audiences to see Broadway productions, but it must start with the "non-diverse" existing audiences. If the aim of a show really is to make the audience think about diversity and tolerance, then its important that this message reach the "majority" that has a say in what productions are performed, etc. I also feel that in promoting "diversity", people are often so caught up with gaining the interest of a particular minority community, that it becomes easy to alienate other ethnic or social groups, only encouraging divides along these lines. Its difficult to find ways of making something accessible to everyone in order to truly achieve "diversity," and I like the approaches mentioned in this article, especially the idea of promoting a show as "universal" in the way of family or other common experience.
The producers of course are trying to sell tickets, but a show who's aim is to celebrate diversity cant just be about getting a more diverse audience. A show about diversity should be about diversity and should be made to the widest audience possible.
As far as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is concerned, people are going to see that for the highly impressive cast (Jones, Rashad, Howard, Rose) rather than simply because the roles are taken by black actors. I don't think that this is a new issue to look at for Broadway, for shows like this have been around for quite a while (look at Rent, which has a fairly large amount of non-white roles). That's why this article surprises me more than anything. They cite the new hip-hop musical "In the Heights", but wasn't "Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk" somewhat similar?
I think that showing both races on Broadway is important. Instead of color-blind casting though I think that the white community and black community as communities can create their own plays. Blacks have their culture and whites have their cultures. Many plays by black and white playwrites have blacks and whites in one play also. Instead of fighting over whether you can put a black person in for a white person each race should be represented equally. I think this is also interesting and that CMU has jumped on this train by doing the Piano Lesson with an all white cast. August Wilson is one example that shows instead of color blind casting each race can have its representation and culture portrayed on stage.
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