Racially Charged Casting Controversy Rocks Historic Theater

International Business Times: Do casting directors have an obligation to match actors with their characters' ethnicities? La Jolla Playhouse, a nonprofit theater based in San Diego, is about to find out. The theater on Thursday set off a social-media firestorm over the casting of its upcoming production of "The Nightingale." Although the Hans Christian Andersen tale is set in Feudal China, the cast contains few Asian actors. When news of the casting broke, negative comments began to trickle in on the theater's Facebook page -- so much so that La Jolla's artistic director, Christopher Ashley, posted an update defending the theater's casting choices.