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DC Theatre Scene: “This project has changed me completely,” Laura Kaminsky told me, “as an artist and as a composer. It’s been an amazing experience so far. For months, I was taking Hannah’s spirit everywhere with me. She was haunting our household.”
3 comments:
Brennan Felbinger
said...
Absolute yikes. I clicked on this article for fear that they were going to have cisgendered people playsing a trans person, and of course, my fears were absolutely true. Great, contemporary opera is moving in the right direction. This play however, is not. To be educated on trans issues at all would IMMEDIATELY inform the author that trans people DO NOT under any circumstances want to be portrayed by cis people. It is absolutely infuriating to have someone of extreme privilege speak for an incredibly repressed minority. Not to mention the opportunity they had/have to hire trans actors who need work in the first place. If you want to tell a story right, especially with such a sensitive topic that is in a major development stage, you need to be casting those minority actors in the first place. Great, be as self-righteous as you want for hiring singers of hispanic origin! Fantastic! THIS IS A PLAY ABOUT A TRANS WOMAN. HIRE A TRANS WOMAN.
This article was disheartening to say the least. Before reading, it never even passed my mind that they might not be hiring trans actors. As I read it slowly dawned on me how horrible this play is. It may be hailed as a "good thing" for contemporary opera, but it is anything but. Similar to the Mikado, a play that was very well mentioned on this blog a few weeks ago, theater is suppressing a minority. It seems like the industry is revolving around this issue. Hamilton purposely hosts a mostly non-white cast and is hailed as "revolutionary". At the same time, shows that are proud of casting two Hispanic singers (when the original plan was to not cast any) are going up. Ignoring the rant, I was hopeful before reading this article. Trans men and women are in constant need of representation in film and theater. Excluding them from shows about their own sub-culture and history does nothing but harm the people the same shows are trying to help.
While it's incredibly important to tell stories of transgender people, I'm not sure how I feel about the way this play is handling it. It's great that they hired a trans filmmaker to help with writing the story, but the fact that the cis lyricist who decided she "just had to write a story about transgender people" takes center focus in this article is a little uncomfortable. And of course, the casting. I absolutely disagree with the idea of casting two cisgender actors to play one trans character, especially when trans characters are only just beginning to be represented in the media. It is incredibly hard for transgender actors to find work in the industry already, and casting two cis people to play one trans character feels like adding insult to injury. It's certainly great that they hired Hispanic singers, but the way the production team commended themselves on this and how it shows their casting diversity is downright insulting. Brennan said it directly: this is a play about a trans woman. You should be hiring a trans woman to play a character who is a trans woman.
3 comments:
Absolute yikes. I clicked on this article for fear that they were going to have cisgendered people playsing a trans person, and of course, my fears were absolutely true. Great, contemporary opera is moving in the right direction. This play however, is not. To be educated on trans issues at all would IMMEDIATELY inform the author that trans people DO NOT under any circumstances want to be portrayed by cis people. It is absolutely infuriating to have someone of extreme privilege speak for an incredibly repressed minority. Not to mention the opportunity they had/have to hire trans actors who need work in the first place. If you want to tell a story right, especially with such a sensitive topic that is in a major development stage, you need to be casting those minority actors in the first place. Great, be as self-righteous as you want for hiring singers of hispanic origin! Fantastic! THIS IS A PLAY ABOUT A TRANS WOMAN. HIRE A TRANS WOMAN.
This article was disheartening to say the least. Before reading, it never even passed my mind that they might not be hiring trans actors. As I read it slowly dawned on me how horrible this play is. It may be hailed as a "good thing" for contemporary opera, but it is anything but. Similar to the Mikado, a play that was very well mentioned on this blog a few weeks ago, theater is suppressing a minority. It seems like the industry is revolving around this issue. Hamilton purposely hosts a mostly non-white cast and is hailed as "revolutionary". At the same time, shows that are proud of casting two Hispanic singers (when the original plan was to not cast any) are going up.
Ignoring the rant, I was hopeful before reading this article. Trans men and women are in constant need of representation in film and theater. Excluding them from shows about their own sub-culture and history does nothing but harm the people the same shows are trying to help.
While it's incredibly important to tell stories of transgender people, I'm not sure how I feel about the way this play is handling it. It's great that they hired a trans filmmaker to help with writing the story, but the fact that the cis lyricist who decided she "just had to write a story about transgender people" takes center focus in this article is a little uncomfortable. And of course, the casting. I absolutely disagree with the idea of casting two cisgender actors to play one trans character, especially when trans characters are only just beginning to be represented in the media. It is incredibly hard for transgender actors to find work in the industry already, and casting two cis people to play one trans character feels like adding insult to injury. It's certainly great that they hired Hispanic singers, but the way the production team commended themselves on this and how it shows their casting diversity is downright insulting. Brennan said it directly: this is a play about a trans woman. You should be hiring a trans woman to play a character who is a trans woman.
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