Arts Integrity Initiative: It’s a bit hard to follow the thinking of Bill Hanney, the owner and producer at North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Massachusetts. Initially, it was hard because Hanney was silent, not responding to complaints – initiated by Lauren Villegas of Project Am I Right? – over the lack of Latinx casting in the company’s production Evita, which has no Latinx performers in principal roles and seemingly few in the entire cast.
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I am probably going to get some blowback from this, but I agree with Haney on this matter and I think this article is more about attacking a theatre company and it’s leadership than it is about opening meaningful dialogue regarding the casting of race specific individuals. As a person who has, for community theatre, directed shows, it comes down to who will best fit the role out of those who auditioned. For a musical, they have to be able to sing the part, dance, and have a measurable amount of acting skill. They also have to blend with the other actors on stage and in other roles to make a cohesion that allows for the dramatics of the work come out and be understood by the audience. Eva and Che have to have a relationship that connects the one to other. In Driving Miss Daisy written by Alfred Urhy, it is the relationship between Daisy and Hoke. Driving Miss Daisy is also an example where race is a key factor in the casting. The same relationship would not work and the text of the play would make no sense if the person playing Hoke were a white, young, male. In terms of Evita, yes, her ethnicity is Argentinian, but that does not mean that it can not be played by someone who is not Latinx. Latin is a cultural understanding, not a race. I am honestly of the opinion that too many people want too much from Directors and casting agents to meet their own biased views. Let a director cast whom they feel is the best for role based on the ability to fit the needs of the show, in this case, Singing, Dance, and acting.
First off, I raise strong objections to both Bill Hanney's rhetoric as well as Joshua's comment. I am of the opinion that if you can't do justice to the show and cast accordingly, then either hold more auditions or pick another show.
Josh's comment: "I am honestly of the opinion that too many people want too much from Directors and casting agents to meet their own biased views. Let a director cast whom they feel is the best for role based on the ability to fit the needs of the show, in this case, Singing, Dance, and acting" is so very limited in understanding of why diversity and inclusion and representation is important.
In order to help move our community forward and help fight some of the prejudiced and discriminatory practices that have long plagued us, we need to expect the world of our casting agents and directors. We cannot let anyone off easily who thinks that 'Latin is a cultural understanding' (what does that even mean), or those who flaccidly try and defend themselves with this pisspoor rhetoric: "If a Latino person came in and they were the best, they’d be in my show,’’ he asserted. “We found the right people. Our focus was not to find a Latino. It was to find the right Eva, Che, Peron, etc.”" Check your privilege and examine why you are in theatre in the first place.
Playwrights just don't include details for shits and giggles. The character descriptions, yes including race, are to be listened too. Colorblind casting doesn't mean you can cast all white people and then claim you didn't look at race. That s a cop out that is ridiculous and should not be tolerated any longer.
There are so so so so so many things wrong with the statements made in both this article and in its first comment, so I’m going to address them one by one. First, “Color-Blind” casting doesn’t exist. There is no possible way for someone to ‘ignore’ race. There are hundreds of papers written about it, and almost all of them come to the conclusion that it doesn’t work. Secondly, of course Eva’s Argentinian identity is important to the story. Clearly these people have never opened a history book, but Argentina (like most of South America) has a very important racial history which serves as a large part of the country’s identity. And those unique struggles can only really be understood by those who have lived it (ie Latinx people). Third, the idea that “the role went to the best actor” is total bullshit. You’re telling me there isn’t a single Latinx person in the entirety of Massachusetts who can sing, dance, and act? Yeah right. Fourth, if you (for whatever reason, and there aren’t many good ones) can’t find a Latinx person to play YOUR LEAD ROLE, then maybe you should consider, oh, I don’t know, DOING ANOTHER SHOW. There are hundreds if not thousands of lively musicals featuring white people. In fact, it’s the majority of the canon, which is why it’s so important to produce shows for people of color with people of color. Fifth, this whole “too many people want too much from Directors and casting agents to meet their own biased views” thing is arguably the most insensitive sentence I’ve seen in a comment. It is not ‘too much’ for PoC to ask for representation. It is not a ‘biased view’ to expect the professional theatre industry to meet basic standards of diversity and inclusion. And who are we, as white people, to tell Latinx people what is or isn’t ok for them to expect in terms of representation. That’s an incredibly colonialist line of thinking, and it shouldn’t be welcome in the Theatre Industry, or at in this educational environment.
Lash back like this is always a difficult thing to handle, especially when apologies are not immediately given and defenses are put up. Firstly, I have been working on a production when social media backlash abruptly had us cancel the show because of less-than-diverse casting options. Frankly, it’s the best thing to do in a situation like that, it doesn’t matter if you extended offers to the right racial profile, it matters if you held the integrity of the production over circumstantial casting. At Bay Street, when we got some bad publicity over our casting release of The Prince of Egypt premiere, the company and artistic director originally said some of the same things North Shore Music Theatre and Hanney said, things like auditions were not as diverse as we may have wanted and we extended contracts to people of color but they didn’t accept etc. but no one was happy until we just pulled out and said we hoped the casting opportunities go better next time.
The way of thinking that Hanney has shown through this article is archaic and I only hope that this backlash will make him rethink his actions. The author writes that "Unless a show calls for a specific ethnicity as in “Miss Saigon” or “Dreamgirls,” Hanney says, he doesn’t consider ethnicity at all. 'If it’s a dance show, which ‘Evita’ is, they have to dance it, they have to sing it, they act it'". Evita does in fact call for performers of a specific ethnic background, and ignoring this is just making him look more discriminatory. I truly do not believe that weren't Latinx performers who could fill these roles, I just think that he didn't care while casting. In the article it also said that only 6.5% of the actors hired for their season were people of color. That is completely unacceptable, regardless of the shows that they picked for their season. It is the responsibility of a theatre company to make sure that their season is inclusive of people from all backgrounds, and that their casting process reflects these principals.
I think it is interesting how white people will use the term "colorblind casting" when they are actually talking about whitewashing. I am continually amazed at how oblivious and ignorant some people can be about how few significant roles there are in theatre that are specifically meant for people of color. Apart from Hamilton, there are very very shows that have a nonwhite actor playing a role that is not described in the script as being nonwhite. People of color are cast in shows either because it is required by where the show is set, or because the director is trying to make a statement. Very rarely does legitimately colorblind casting occur. This makes it all the more infuriating when white people try to justify things like what is described in this article. Evita takes place in Argentina. Shockingly, most of the people in Argentina are Latinx people, so to create a realistic Argentina onstage, you should have Latinx actors. Even if you want to argue about whether or not have white actors is inherently racist, you cannot argue with the fact that you are automatically creating a less realistic piece of theatre by whitewashing a production that is set in another country. I find it very hard to believe that there were no talented Latinx people that auditioned for this show, but if there truly were not, then maybe you shouldn't be doing Evita anyway.
So theres a lot happening here. First of all, we need to define race and ethnicity cause the article was not using it correctly the whole time. Race is the color of one's skin because it is a binary and a construct. Ethnicity is based on where your family line comes from.
That being established, if we look up images of Eva Peron, Che Guevara, and Juan Peron we see that these are all real people from a real place who had real faces that we should stay true to. Eva and Juan were white. There is no other way around it. HOWEVER they were white Latinx people as distinguished by their lack of privilege in this world. To erase the ethnic identities of Eva and Juan is to erase the context of the story. No white people who belong to the monolith and are not Argentinian can understand their lives. And for the case of Che, he is very clearly indigenous man. To erase that is to erase his whole philosophy.
Now lets get into the man who plays Che with the ridiculously long name. He equated the xenophobic people in his childhood to racists. And don't get me wrong, they're both hard things to endure. However, Greek is not a race. It just isn't. Greek people are white most of the time. And he needs to own up to the fact that he is just white with a more prominent culture.
Overall, Haney is just a mess. He is a racist and a white supremacist. He believes that white people are more talented than people of color which is evidenced by his casting habits. I need this kind of person to not have any space whatsoever in theatre.
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