Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Student actors and the stage crew at Clarion University arrived Tuesday evening for one of the final rehearsals before next week’s campus opening of “Jesus in India” only to learn the off-Broadway production they had spent months on had been canceled.
The reason they were given was race: theirs.
Three of the five characters in the production are Indian, but on the mostly white state university campus, two of those characters were to be played by white student actors and a third was being portrayed by a mixed-race student.
13 comments:
Most of the time I would agree that the playwright should have a voice in the race of the actors in their plays, but in this case I think that they were in the wrong. Springing this cancellation at the last second was completely unnecessary as they had months and months that they could have brought up this issue. I can't even imagine how crushed I would be if a show I had been preparing for a long time was cancelled in one of the final rehearsals. Before letting Clarion have the rights to the show they should have looked at the demographics. However, I think it's important to talk about how race impacts this decision. White-washing parts meant for people of color is all to common in the entertainment industry, so I can definitely see why the playwright was angry about the casting decision. The director should have chosen a piece more appropriate for the student actors, but ultimately if they were given the rights they should have been able to do the show.
The timing was no doubt untimely, but I don’t feel any pity for the university. Race in casting does depend on the relevancy of it in the show, but it is the creator, the playwright, that decides how relevant it is to their creation. The playwright has a huge point in saying that the title of the script is called “Jesus in India,” and while I believe colorblind casting is an incredible thing, if the playwrights intentions were so voiced that India was part of the title of the show, you don’t get to act ignorant. You also don’t get to use the demographic of your surrounding area as an excuse. So if you knew you didn’t have the cast to effectively put on this show, why put it on? Sure, we can act like these people didn’t understand that they didn’t have the means to put on the show, but ignorance, though not a crime, is not an excuse in this day and age. Communicate with the playwright. Think about the production you’re putting on.
I actually happened to read a post by the playwright on Facebook earlier today before I read this article. In his post, the playwright explained that he had not given Clarion University the rights to perform his play as a production, especially not an adaptation into a musical. He had sent Ms. Michel the play when she asked if he would be interested in collaborating with the university, because he had other engagements, but was open to her and her students working on his play in what he believed to be a classroom setting.
If the playwright was telling the truth, then I think he was absolutely in his right to require that they pull the production. He also said in his post that he inquired about casting when he started wondering if they were actually putting on a production, and that he never got a response.
I understand that Clarion University doesn't have the ethnic student population needed to put this play on as written, but I absolutely believe that that should be taken into account when choosing the play, especially because of the playwright's stipulation.
It's unfortunate that the students who were working hard on this production won't be able to bring the play to the stage, but I understand and support the playwright's position.
I hope that this starts a dialogue at Clarion about the importance of casting and the issues of race in theater, and that the students and faculty are able to derive some learning from this, despite the less-than-ideal circumstances.
This is an interesting situation. I understand why the playwright was so upset that his play, which specifically says it is in India, did not have any Indian or Asian cast members. The subject matter is clearly very close to his heart and there is a big difference in having Indian cast members versus Caucasian cast members playing Indian characters. The university should have thought about their population before choosing a show. There are certain shows that specific universities or theatre companies cannot do because of the people they have in their casting pool. Color blind casting is sometimes okay, but not in shows where having a different race playing a part would turn out to be offensive. I do feel bad for the students that were working on this production because it is not their fault at all. I am sure they worked very hard to make it the best production they could do. I would be very upset if I was working on a show and it got cancelled the week before opening.
I think everything about this whole situation is actually amazing! It really sickens me how often people are like “oh its only a school play so we can change this thing” or “oh this thing is really cool lets put it in our show even though it completely does not go with the play”. How about let’s not. Playwrights work extremely hard to craft a script that tells a story in a very specific way. By making changes and additions and what not only are you violating your license agreement, but you are also changing a story that is not yours. It is almost like if you cooked dinner for a customer at your restaurant and than after serving them they pour their own sauce all over it completely changing the dish’s taste. This article brings this all of these issues to light in a very public manner which is what I think needed to happen. Playwrights are people too, and thus we also need to respect their work.
This is an ethical debate that has been going since forever. And it is a good question to ask when staging any production, how to cast the actors. There are articles that pop up every now and then and every time I ask myself what would I do if I were the institution. I remember when a version of Peter Pan was being done (I think it was the NBC special) and there was a huge debate as to who would play Tiger Lily, a Caucasian actress got the job, but a lot of potential viewers were upset that a Native American woman was not playing a Native American character. But other shows that are period specific can be scrutinized for sticking to racial casting. I think that show business can be cruel and race cannot always be taken into consideration. The important thing is (in part) that the show is tasteful and respectful. But I don’t know how I would handle canceling a show for this reason at an institutional level.
I think it's great that this playwright stood up for what he believed in. With that said, I wish he would have done it sooner. It seems like he knew about the production at this school for quite some time. Why didn't he look into the casting earlier if that was such a concern of his? I also think this situation differs from the situation Simone brings up in her comment. In the case of the casting of Tiger Lily, NBC literally had a giant casting pool. They could have chosen anyone they wanted to be Tiger Lily, and they chose a non-Native American actress. However, in this case, the casting pool is only as large as the University it is being performed at. Even further, that casting pool shrinks significantly when you consider who would actually be interested in performing in a play. While I understand this playwright's concerns, and think it is noble that he stood up for them, I also sympathize with the people who were producing this production. Based on their response, it seems like they would have cast the correct race if they had the opportunity to. After all, over half of their cast was Indian. However, I do understand that they are a small University in the middle of Pennsylvania with pathetic diversity. This, to me, is the real issue here. Perhaps this playwright's actions will make the University itself rethink its campus wide diversity.
This whole situation seems like it could very easily have been avoided with good communication between the playwright and the director. While I completely understand the playwright's feelings about having white actors cast for Indian parts, I believe the timing of his demand to shut down the show came far too late in the process. It would have been much more appropriate to stop the show when the original students were being cast so that unnecessary work was not put into this production. At the same time, however, the directors are absolutely at fault for ignoring the original character descriptions and simply casting the play with white actors. Like Jasmine said, if you don't have the appropriate actors to put on this particular production, why would you put it on in the first place? I believe it would have smoothed the process significantly if the directors and the playwright had communicated more effectively with each other and worked together to ensure that the production was appropriate and still a quality performance.
It's sucks that the play was cancelled so close to opening, but I think I'm just more confused than anything. My main questions are: Why did the university decide to do a show about South Asian people, fully knowing that they would not be able to find enough Asian actors? Second: Did they read the play and just decide India was not important? And thirdly, did the playwright know about the casting early on? I am just unsure that I am getting the full picture. I do believe the director and people in charge were simply ignorant to a point, probably at first, but seriously, how could you think that this was a good idea? And I do feel bad for the actors and stage crew to a point as well, but someone must have realized "hey, this isn't a great idea." and spoken up.
Race in theatre is always a sensitive subject. I fully believe in equal casting opportunities for people of color, and I also feel that if a part is written for a person of color, then a person of color should receive that role. This is especially true in a professional setting when the casting pool is large enough to find qualified actors of every descent. ‘Color-blind’ casting is great… when the role itself is color-blind. But I think in this situation things are a little different. In any given theatre department, the casting pool is limited. And while I think it is important to find shows for your casting pool, I can respect the university’s decision to go with “Jesus in India”. The real issue is that the playwright revoked the rights so late in the process. There was no need to wait until a week before it opened after months of rehearsal. If he decided he wanted the play to include Asian actors only, then he should not have given the university the rights in the first place. It was irresponsible for him to wait so long. At such a late point in the process he should have accepted the program note and stage speech and cut his losses.
I agree with a great deal of the commenters. I feel really no pity for the university. The cancellation was last minute, and that is unfortunate, but the administration or whoever was in charge should have had some idea of their casting pool before doing the show. It has been very stressed that doing productions written by people of color about people of color is so important and should be happening more, but if you are unable to provide enough actors who can properly portray these characters, it is probably worse than not doing it at all. The university should have noticed this. At my high school, we did a production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. The show requires two asian actors to play asian characters. In our production, one was asian and one was a white guy wearing makeup and attempting to pronounce all of his Chinese lines. At a regional theater company, I worked on a production of Fiddler on the Roof where none of the cast members were jewish, nor did they have any understanding or knowledge of jewish culture, and Tevye was portrayed by a blonde haired, blue eyed eighth grader. All of these examples are simply not okay, and I'm glad that this production was stopped because people need to start noticing that they are doing something wrong.
This whole situation is a real bummer, but it could have (and should have) been avoided completely. First off, the Clarion University theatre dept. should not have chosen to produce a show knowing that they did not have enough Indian (or Asian-descent actors, which apparently the playwright would have been OK with) to cast the show. There are certain things you just shouldn’t really do, like a production of The Wiz with an all-white cast. Just don’t. And the reason any and’s, if’s, or butt’s are irrelevant in this situation is that there are so. Many. Other. Plays. You. Can. Produce. Produce something else!
Okay, so maybe the school didn’t think it’d be a problem to have a partially white cast. Some plays, this actually works. I don’t know enough about this particular play to comment on that aspect though. But sometimes having characters portrayed by an actor of a different race can be an intentional decision with a deeper meaning.
In this case, the communication between the playwright and the school should have happened sooner – I’m not going to blame one party or the other, but cancelling a show at such last notice is just really crappy and there’s no reason that it should have happened.
This article is making someone like me feel torn, I am so desperate to look at both sides. I love that Lloyd Suh stood up for the parts of this show that are important to him. It was great that he did not just remain silent but instead involved himself in a production of his work. That level of engagement is the level that all living playwrights should be operating at during this period of contemporary theatre. On the other hand, I know what it is like to devote that much time to a production. Working for weeks and weeks on something means that it is very important to you, I’m sure the students felt very connected to Mr. Suh’s words and I’m sure they were prepared to give the production everything they had. I’m glad Mr. Suh spoke up and made sure the play was what he wanted, but I wish he had informed the school when they originally bought the rights.
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