In response to the controversy, it was announced today that Matt Ward Entertainment has canceled their upcoming production of In the Heights. They have also deleted their Facebook account.
Friday, September 29, 2017
Australian Whitewashed Production of 'In the Heights' is Cancelled
In response to the controversy, it was announced today that Matt Ward Entertainment has canceled their upcoming production of In the Heights. They have also deleted their Facebook account.
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9 comments:
I agree with the author of the article: it does absolutely no one good to cancel the show rather than recast it. Does the story of Latinx people making their way back home not deserve to be told unless we can cast non Latinx white people in it? This specific story has been improperly casted everywhere and I, for one, can not wrap my head around it. After my class did "In the Heights" my junior year a theatre in the suburbs of Chicago called Porchlight did it as well. Now my class obviously wasn't all Latinx, I myself am not, but the majority of us were Latinx or black or both. A lot of the Latinx people in my class scrambled to get their book ready to audition for this show.
When the casting came out and we all found out that the Usnavi would be Italian the LAtinx people in my class were devastated. This was their story, a writer who wrote for them and their families and the story was being coopted by whiteness as can be seen so often.
It is in support of my former classmates that I write this comment. Latinx people deserve for people to portray their stories, and to portray them right.
I could literally roll my eyes into oblivion but I wont, I'll rise above because I guess thats what we have to do now, but god I don't understand how people are still doing this. Even if you don't want to cast a show about Latinx people with Latinx people which is idiotic from a purely financial standpoint it is so irresponsible to not cast correctly for the show that you are producing. It has been scientifically and statistically proven that diverse art, and movies and theater sells better than white washed art because it represents every culture and doesn't ostracize an entire section of our culture. But obviously that would be too easy so instead we will continue to deny perfectly amazing actors opportunity to tell their own stories and then cancel great shows because we don't want to diversify our casting. Theater has so much work to do in not being so terrible at following their own advice. We claim to be so loving and caring and inclusive but we are obviously still working on that and have a lot of work to do. So I will just keep rolling my eyes into oblivion until I go blind or someone does something to make e stop.
I agree that canceling the production was the wrong call. “In the Heights” is a fantastic show about being Latinx in America, and I think putting on productions about characters of color is important. Especially given that Latinx performers auditioned, it seems like they should’ve been able to recast it with a cast that was more appropriate for the show. I understand why their instinct was the cancel it given the backlash, especially if they understand that people are upset but don’t fully understand why. I do think canceling it is better than just continuing to produce it without any Latinx actors, but it is still disappointing that they aren’t producing the show at all. I really hope that in the future the theater’s take-away from this situation is to make sure to have the ethnicities of the cast make sense given the ethnicities of the characters rather than to just avoid shows with characters of color all together.
I think it was very problematic that this theatre company did not cast a Latinx as the lead. In The Heights is a show about the Latinx community and cannot be done without the proper representation. The fact that they needed to hear all of the backlash and arguments in order for them to make a change is an issue. I agree with the article that they did not solve the problem by cancelling the show all together. They should have just recast the show to have the proper representation. By cancelling the show they are saying that they are not that determined to give representation to minorities because it is too difficult to get talented enough people. I am sure that there are at least enough Latinx people that are talented enough to be in their show. By cancelling the show and deleting their Facebook page they are not erasing the problem because people will not forget especially now with all of the articles on the internet that have been shared about this issue.
I have to say, this was unexpected. I don’t recall if I commented on this initial article last week but I know I read it. It is unfortunate that this theater group felt the need to cancel their production. As the article states, there are other ways of handling this solution. Obviously I do not know the intricacies of this theater group and what was at stake, but it seems as though canceling a show late enough in the process that there are already promo pictures means that contracts are going to have to be voided and other monetary stakes could worsen. I wonder who in the theater company made a decision. Cancelling a show is no small task. How long did it take for them to realize something had to be done and then how much longer to make the decision to cancel the production. I feel bad for the company since this PR fiasco causes irreparable harm, but at the same time, maybe this example will help the wide ranging white washing we see on TV, movies, and in theaters.
Anyone who works in theatre on a regular basis, rather they be professional, semi-professional, or amateur should know by the very nature of the body of work that exists that there are certain plays or musicals that you just cannot do without a very specific cast. Unless they have been living under a rock, no one would ever think about doing Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun with anything other than an African-American cast. The play is very specific in terms of what its message is, the storyline, struggles and so forth. In the Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda is the same way. It is a very specific story about a very specific group of people, in this case, Latinx. Why would anyone who has any common sense ever cast the show differently? Who are they trying to please? What backer wanted an all-white cast? For a company that calls themselves semi-professional, they failed, big time. To echo Julian’s comment, yes it is a shame that they just couldn’t recast it, but more so, it’s a shame that they didn’t cast it right from the beginning. Certain musicals and plays can be color blind cast, this is not one of them. I think in this case, the company needs to cancel its entire season, refund its patrons and do a major mea culpa. They also need to learn how to read a play again.
My immediate reaction to the title is why cancel not recast. And my confusion has been echoed and articulated by the author very well in the last paragraph of this article. One of the major nonsense argument about non casting people of color in productions is there just aren’t many talented actors of color out there. And this is a false statement that makes me sick to hear it. The article also mentioned in the beginning that there were a number of Latinx performers in audition. I appreciate producing companies to have realized the issue in whitewashing. However, cancelling seems far too rash a decision that it almost reeks punishment to the audience and the cast. It feels like these people are saying, okay since you don’t want me to whitewash this production about the Hispanic-American neighborhood of NYC Washing Heights, we will just cancel it.
Cancelling does not help promote diversity, or reflection of the casting decision, nor does it show the general public the determination to take actual action to change. It may result in the future that people will not produce these productions that are based on the story of people of color or from minority backgrounds because they don’t want to cast the actual people who are from this community.
I just don't understand why they didn't recast? Was it so important to this company that the actors be white? are they that off the mark? The letter they produced in apology was rather weak and didn't fully explain their actions or really justify them in any way. The author states that plenty of Latinx performers were there, so why did they choose to go against the very heart of the musical. its about Latinx in the city. How do you expect to do that with people who don't know the heritage or culture? Its really disappointing that the company cancelled it because they could make such better statement by recasting and redirecting the play back to where it should be. This solution just says if they can't have white actors they don't want to do it at all. How pathetic. Liz sums it up very well: that the diversity, and apology, and righting of the action are not being shown here. They had such a good opportunity to make things right. I wish they would have grasped on to that.
This is so unfortunate and real, disrespectful. I feel like there is a strong break down in leadership for this company. It sounds like, besides the apology letter, they have no one in charge in public relations, or at least no one competent enough to see the ramifications of these decisions. I think its Important to admit that I personally do not know the racial dynamic politic environment. I guess it is possible for Australia to have a cohesive integration of Latinax and Caucasian cultures and there is not animosity between the two. These it would be plausible to understand why caucasians would think its ok tell the latino story with out them. But then i think so my self, No. No, that is not how white people in America would handle this situation. Well not so openly. But its still have a hard time believing that in Australia the idea that putting an a show out of context, more so destroying the purpose and its context, would be a good idea. I am baffled that they did not see this reaction coming.
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