Given the disastrous reduction in live theatre that has marked the pandemic since March of 2020, one might assume that incidences of high school shows canceled over content concerns would have been curtailed as well. But as lockdowns have been lifted and as theatre educators have devised creative means to produce safely, production shutdowns have followed. However, the reason for the cancelations that have risen to public awareness is not typical of what has come before.
Over the past decade, when school theatre productions have been shut down, it is typically because of parents or community members who object to the content of the shows, with particular sensitivity to the representation of LGBTQ lives (Rent, The Laramie Project), the slightest hint of sexual activity (Almost, Maine), violence (Sweeney Todd), or the occasional profanity. The object has ostensibly been to “protect” the students – those in the show, their classmates, and even their younger siblings from engaging in such topics. The intent has been suppression of subjects and themes, all of which the students are most assuredly aware.
What of the recent cancelations?
In late February, McCaskey High School in the Lancaster PA school district canceled the spring production of Hairspray because of students who were troubled by language they found offensive regarding Black and Hispanic characters and people with disabilities. An email from a group of students to their principal was forwarded on to the superintendent, who made the decision to cancel the show.
In March, The Chadwick School, a private school in Palos Verdes Peninsula CA, shut down a planned production of the school edition of Avenue Q. A message from the administration to parents said that while “the musical had the full support of the administration…elements of our community felt uncomfortable, based on principle, with some of the tone, timing and content of the show.” The message went on to say, “The original work has been praised for its irreverent and provocative approach to themes such as race and sexuality,” but that while “theater is an effective forum to explore important topics such as these, we also believe it is important to respect the perspectives of the individuals who raised concerns.”
This week, the Hunterdon Central Regional High School canceled plans to produce South Pacific because staff and students were concerned about the show’s treatment of race. According to NJ.com, citing the district superintendent, “the district believed [South Pacific] was ‘important and relevant,” but also that “the district was aware the musical featured stereotyped characters and dialogue, and originally intended to offer a concert version that ‘significantly reduced the dialogue’.” There is no indication whether or not Concord Theatricals, which licenses the Rodgers & Hammerstein catalogue, had approved of the concert-style cutting of the show.
While the specifics at The Chadwick School are somewhat vague in the administration’s statement, and it’s unclear where the objections originated, at McCaskey and Hunterdon the source is apparent: it’s students who wanted to see the shows shut down or replaced, specifically because they felt that portrayals and dialogue were insensitive and offensive to often marginalized communities. These incidents echo what transpired at Ithaca High School in 2018, when students pushed for the shut down of a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame after a white student was cast in a role that had been played in prominent professional productions by a BIPOC actor.
In the wake of the heightened awareness surrounding discussions of race engendered by the Black Lives Matter movement, and perhaps influenced by the advocacy of such groups as We See You White American Theatre and the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, it should not be surprising that high school students are not simply aware of, but motivated by, such concerns. Given that the racial reckoning of the past couple of years mirrors the societal upheaval around civil rights and, on its heels, youth culture in the 1960s, activism by high school students is far from surprising, especially when one considers the greater sophistication of teens in comparison with those over 50 years ago.
When the Ithaca students spoke out in 2018, their efforts yielded death threats over their fight for representation, spurred on by right-wing sites like The Daily Caller. This week, Fox News, already deeply engaged in spreading the canard of cancel culture in relation to Dr. Seuss and the Warner Brothers characters Speedy Gonzales and Pepe le Pew, have embraced the South Pacific situation as merely another example of what they decry, namely the ostensible disappearing of material that they consumed in the days before distinct communities (women, BIPOC, disability) communities were afforded a voice to express the offense given by certain portrayals and the increasing willingness of both individuals and corporations to avoid slurs.
Adults of a certain age may not even understand where the offense lies in the Dr. Seuss books withdrawn, or appreciate how an aggressively romantic skunk might echo sexual harassment or worse. Some of that comes from being brought up in an era with different mores or only remembering the barest outlines of material they consumed decades ago. They may further be confused by the weaponization of these stories being treated as examples of yet more “political correctness,” another catch-all term, like “cancel culture,” both applied to denigrate present-day sensitivity to and concern about works which once punched down at certain people with impunity.
There is no question that given only a cursory glance, the suspension of certain high school productions looks like censorship – it is, in the case of public schools at least, government officials ending a form of expression. When it rises to that level, it is very difficult to countenance, even when done in order to avoid perpetuating harm through uncritical representations of misogyny, racial bias and the like.
So the first question to be asked of the faculty and administration is, “What was the rationale for selecting this show?” “How were its dialogue and themes considered in light of present-day viewpoints on how some works may have grown dated?” “Does this material still say what it intended back in its original era?” While some of these questions may seem absurd with such modern material as Avenue Q or Hairspray, it’s worth remembering that both are around 20 years old. South Pacific is considerably older.
The next question is whether, in recognizing what some may view as problematic material, any effort was made to contextualize it for students and even the larger community. Some may object to the use of the n-word in certain texts, but does that mean the works of August Wilson shouldn’t be studied or performed in a high school setting? How, and by whom, students are led to understand certain material can have a significant impact or the repertoire open to schools. While Wilson’s estate will not permit the alteration of his texts, that is not always the case for all works in high school settings. If a handful of words render a work ostensibly unperformable, the author(s) or their estate(s) may grant dispensation for certain changes.
That it was the student version of Avenue Q that raised objections in California is interesting in that the text and lyrics had already been altered to render it more fit by some for school performances. Perhaps it is due for another review. Yet at the same time, it may reach a point where the bowdlerization of the material renders it so unrecognizable that it becomes a different work altogether. The degree to which that does or does not occur is entirely at the discretion of its creators.
It is important to note that unlike some high school shows that were shuttered specifically to suppress ideas like racial, gender and sexual equality, the decision in Lancaster over Hairspray was not shrouded in short, blunt statements. Instead, the superintendent, Dr. Damaris Rau, wrote a blog post fully explaining her decision. She wrote in part:
I also believe context matters. Our country has gone through some horrific events, including the murder of George Floyd. I know many of our students participated in the social justice marches this summer. We know mental health issues of adolescents have grown and intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. The language and portrayals in the show risked further discomfort—and potentially trauma—for students facing the harsh reality of racism in our country. In addition, many families bring their younger children to see our musical.
In light of this current environment, the calls for social justice, and the written concerns of the students, I believe this is the best decision at this time.
In emails with Arts Integrity, Dr. Rau elaborated that in addition to specific dialogue in the show, the students had expressed concern that Hairspray is a white savior narrative. She went on to talk about the in-school training around implicit bias, equity, and diversity, which began two years ago.
The objections to South Pacific may prove most surprising because it was written specifically to decry racism – witness “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught.” But in its portray of Bloody Mary and Liat weren’t they also deploying stereotypes that have become more and more obvious as racial awareness has evolved over the past 70 plus years? Those who believe vintage anti-racism texts can’t possibly become problematic need only look to another musical from roughly the same era, Finian’s Rainbow, which used blackface in order to fight racism.
Nothing herein should be considered to advocate for the alteration of texts to avoid any and all offense; we will not benefit from the homogenization of culture. The state of copyrighted texts is the sole purview of creators or their estates, and even if changes are authorized individually or enshrined globally, it is vital that the original versions are retained and preserved, since we should never be comfortable with the permanent erasure of history. But if the Seuss estate decides that it’s works no longer are fit for purpose and withdrawn from commercial circulation, that is their absolute right and represents an understanding of societal change, not cancelation but consideration.
Consideration of texts for school theatre is essential as well. Just because educators have always loved a show from their youth doesn’t necessarily make it the best choice for today or for their target audience. By the same token, a flight to safety will not serve either, because theatre is indeed a place where hard issues should be on the table, but only when properly contextualized for those putting on the performance and those who are intended to see it.
It serves no one to have shows shut down. Before a show is announced or auditions held, work must be chosen in the very best interest of the students, with the goal of a fair and equal society, work which does not demean but educates and even lifts up. When it comes to how works of prior eras are perceived today by their students, even teachers may have to be carefully taught.
If you’re under 50, you likely aren’t familiar with the work of comedian Bill Dana. His most famous creation, a character seen on an array of television shows in the 1960s – Jose Jimenez – has been largely forgotten, especially since Dana stopped playing the character (save for one exception) in 1970. But the Jimenez character was a comedy phenomenon, appearing on Dana’s comedy albums in addition to his many sitcom and variety show appearances. Fans of the movie The Right Stuff may remember one of the Mercury astronauts repeating his catchphrase – “My name Jose Jimenez” – while in the flight capsule, a detail straight out of Tom Wolfe’s non-fiction book, prompted by sketches in which Jimenez was a reluctant astronaut.
Dana stopped performing the character 47 years before he passed away in 2017, because of lobbying from Hispanic groups who found the slow-talking, slow-witted Jimenez to be a deeply offensive stereotype. Jose Jimenez would be joined in oblivion a year later by the commercial pitchman Frito Bandito, consigned to the same fate as Jimenez for the same reason: being a negative stereotype, in this case a rootin’-tootin’ shoot ‘em up villain with a taste for Frito-Lays’ corn chip snack and a theme song that included the refrain, “I love Frito Corn Chips, I love them I do/I love Frito Corn Chips I’ll get them from you”. The Frito Bandito was as genuinely threatening as the Hamburglar and as authentic as Eli Wallach’s character in The Magnificent Seven, which is to say not at all.
The now rarely seen or heard Speedy Gonzalez
It would take much longer, until 2002, but when the Cartoon Network acquired the rights to the Warner Brothers cartoon family, they withdrew the Speedy Gonzalez cartoons from TV for yet again the same reason, stereotyping. For trivia fans it’s worth noting that both Speedy and the Frito Bandito were voiced by the famed Mel Blanc. Speedy, for those unfamiliar with him, was regularly portrayed as an anomaly in his Latinx community, with the rest of the rodent characters portrayed as slow talking and slow moving.
So with the mass media relegating the afore-mentioned Latinx stereotypes to archives years ago, it’s disconcerting to learn that a small, family-operated theatre north of Salt Lake City, the Pickleville Playhouse, has been producing a series of original shows over the past decade featuring the leading character of “Juanito Bandito”, written and portrayed by the Caucasian actor TJ Davis, sporting a black wig, sketchy accent and absurd handlebar mustache. Among the shows featuring this character have been, in chronological order, The Hanging of El Bandito, Bandito Rides Again, Who Shot Juanito Bandito?, The Hanging of El Bandito Reimagined, Bandito Rides Again Reimagined, Who Shot Juanito Bandito Reimagined, Juanito Bandito in the One with the Monkey, Ready, Fire, Aim starring Juanito Bandito and Love & Death vs El Bandito. Oh, there’s also the seasonal favorite, Juanito Bandito’s Christmas Carol.
In the peculiar ways of the internet, word of Davis’s character has recently begun popping up in theatrical feeds, inevitably in conjunction with charges of stereotyping. The tweets were most likely prompted by a joint letter, originated by Diana Burbano, dated February 9, from some 40 theatre artists to The Grand Theatre in Salt Lake City, a large venue in Utah’s capital where one of the Bandito shows recently played. Davis initially responded in a sustained blog post, since withdrawn, in which he defended the character, saying it wasn’t a stereotype because the character’s accent is so poor. His shorter, revised post reads, in part:
Two days ago I wrote a post trying to explain some of my points of view regarding the Bandito character. I’ve chosen to take it down because even though I thought it might help those who had expressed concern (people who have never actually seen what we do), it seems now that a blog post is not the appropriate avenue.
I am absolutely interested in doing the right thing in every aspect of my life. I believe that racial stereotyping is a big problem in the entertainment industry today. I don’t want to be a part of that problem, and I do not believe that the Bandito productions are a part of that problem.
JB is not a stereotype of any race or culture. I do not darken my face with makeup nor have I ever done so in order to make him appear to be Latino. Bandito has been Spanish (from Spain) from the beginning.
In the post that remains, Davis seems to suggest that his character, who he claims is from Spain, isn’t making fun of Latinos. While the character’s iconography seems drawn from The Magnificent Seven and its ilk, he’s really splitting hairs. He may believe that he’s not making fun of Latinos, but even if we were to grant him that, he does appear to be making fun of Hispanics. Yes, there’s a distinction, but for the purpose of addressing stereotyping, it’s a fairly academic one. A feature story in the Herald Journal of Logan, Utah notes that the character had its origin when, “Davis, who had seen first-hand in Guatemala how non-native speakers ‘butcher’ Spanish decided to try something different. ‘I came in one day and said, ‘What if I do this with a Spanish accent?’”
TJ Davis as Juanito Bandito (screenshot via YouTube)
Davis notes that he doesn’t darken his skin, but seems unaware that one need not employ makeup to deploy brownface, blackface, yellowface and their ilk. His self-admittedly poor accent is more than enough of a tipoff as to which ethnic group he’s referencing; one of his Instagram posts includes the ad line, “We’re adding a chow. Jou’re welcome.” The open captioning on a video from one of the productions features the dialogue, “You chooted at him because he lunched at you?” Pure Jose Jimenez material.
He further protests that he is being criticized by people who have not seen what he does. While it’s probable that the rumble of unhappiness is coming predominantly from people who haven’t made it Utah to see the character in action, there’s plenty of video currently online to get a sense of what the portrayal is like. Though Davis’s earlier post indicated that he had Latino friends who told him the character was fine, that’s unlikely to be the prevailing opinion among those he doesn’t already know, as confirmation bias in his existing circle won’t be a factor.
Davis says he wants to do the right thing in every aspect of his life, writing, “Our mission in everything we do is to create fun, clean family entertainment to help our communities create lasting memories with those they love.” Let’s take him at his word, with the assumption that his communities include Latinx and Hispanic patrons, or potential patrons. Perhaps he’s unfamiliar with Gonzalez, Jimenez and the Frito spokes-cartoon, since they’ve been out of circulation for almost a half century.
Mr. Davis, the right thing is to not make a career of a character that is instantly recognizable as a stereotype, even if he is intentionally a badly drawn version of one. Utah may be a state that is largely Caucasian – as of 2016, per the US Census Bureau, the category of “White alone, not Hispanic or Latino” represented 79% of the Utah population, the next largest category is “Hispanic or Latino” at 14%. But that’s not an excuse for ignoring the minority for the amusement of the majority. In fact, it might argue for even greater sensitivity, since the families that attend the Pickleville shows surely don’t want to be teaching the lesson that it’s fine to laugh at people who are different than you, especially when they are in the minority and overmatched by the dominant ethnicity. Even when intended benignly, brownface is an offense. Your saying the character is not a stereotype doesn’t make it true.
Some might see it as unfair to impose this sensibility on a small family playhouse, but it seems that Juanito Bandito has been expanding his territory. Davis’s Instagram account promotes recent holiday shows featuring the character playing beyond his home of Garden City, with gigs at the Eccles Theatre in Logan and the Grand Theatre in Salt Lake City. There have also been student performances for elementary schools, indoctrinating children into the harmless good fun of ethnic ridicule at the earliest opportunity.
Sure, some Utahns may mourn the mothballing of an apparently beloved character, but there are those who miss Speedy and Jose as well. Letting go of the past is part of growth and progress, and it seems high time for the Pickleville Playhouse to advance past humor out of the 1960s, especially since such contemporary musical styles as rapping are already part of their performances. After all, if Davis is committed to not offending the Latinx community, in Utah and beyond, he probably doesn’t wan’t to upset the Hispanic community either.
Madison Ferris, Sally Field, and Joe Mantello in The Glass Menagerie (Photo by Julieta Cervantes)
Sam Gold’s production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie produced a wide range of critical responses when it opened last week, and that surely wasn’t unexpected. Based upon Gold’s 2015 staging for Toneelgroep Amsterdam, it is a radically deconstructed version of the play, different in look and feel than most (presumably) of those that came before it.
Where Gold’s staging likely differs from the vast majority of its predecessors is in the director’s decision to cast Madison Ferris, an actor with a mobility disability (in her case deriving from muscular dystrophy) in the role of Laura. Williams’ text certainly made clear that Laura had a mobility disability, but it has been traditionally played with a limp, or perhaps a leg brace.
Ferris uses a wheelchair, on stage and in daily life. There is no question that the physicality of Laura in this version is different than what Williams’ described, but so is much of the production. The casting of Ferris, like any other element of the production, is certainly fair game for critical consideration. But some of the language that emerged in critics’ efforts to talk about Ferris’ performance is striking.
We read that Laura, or the actor who plays her, is “physically challenged”. She has a “physical handicap”. She is “wheelchair-bound”. She “suffers” from muscular dystrophy. That these terms are largely eschewed by the disability community, which finds such terminology patronizing, insulting, archaic, misinformed or some combination of all four, seems to have escaped many writers (these examples are all from different reviews, from major outlets) and their editors.
Another review, after explaining how Ferris negotiates a set of steps with some help from other actors, describes the act as “an agonizing process, painful to watch, and a forceful symbol of the physical burden Amanda has to shoulder”. Still another wonders, “Why is Ferris’ disease called upon to generate a spectacle?” One critic says that the casting “blurs the boundary between character and actress.”
Performers with visible disabilities are rarely seen in the commercial world of Broadway, with notable exceptions being the Deaf West Theatre productions of Big River (2003) and Spring Awakening (2015), the latter casting Broadway’s first wheelchair-using actor. So the unfamiliarity that arts journalists now display regarding how they write, or speak, about disability is perhaps understandable, but that doesn’t excuse it.
To declare someone with a disability a burden on their parents, no matter the circumstance, is judgmental ableism. Does a disability that blurs the line between actor and role blur it in some undefined way that all other acting performances manage to escape? How can someone be “wheelchair-bound” in a production where the actor and character regularly move in and out of the chair?
While most, but not all, of the quotes above are from negative notices, they demonstrate the degree to which the writers are perhaps uninformed about or uncomfortable with disability. It reveals much more about them than about the production, displaying their lack of personal experience and perhaps even their fear of disability and people with disabilities.
In a week when British audiences have learned that Mat Fraser will play Richard III, and a call has gone out in the US theatre community seeking an actress of color with a mobility disability for yet another Glass Menagerie, artists with disabilities and those who advocate for them (and until recently, I was employed as the latter) have reason to be encouraged. But arts journalists owe it to the artists they cover, and the audiences for whom they report, to get up to speed with language surrounding disability. They can like what they see or not, but perhaps they would do well to avoid giving (often significant) offense where, I would hope, none is intended.
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.
The theatre’s first response came on the personal Facebook page of Kevin P. Hill, producing artistic director at North Shore, who wrote, in part:
North Shore Music Theatre understands that there has been concern expressed over the casting of our production of Evita. As the recipient of the Rosetta LeNoire Award for non-traditional casting, NSMT has always encouraged performers of all ethnicities to audition for our productions. The cast process for Evita was no different. We made extensive efforts to see as many diverse performers as possible and contracts were offered to many performers of diverse ethnicities, including Latino. Some contract offers were accepted, and others were not. Our talented cast and crew of Evita include professionals from diverse backgrounds – a reflection of NSMT’s vision.
In attempting a defense, Hill brandished an award from Actors Equity with which the theatre was honored in 2003 – under entirely different management. In fact, since NSMT had gone bankrupt in 2009, and Hanney’s ownership began only in 2010, Hill’s citing of an award received by a prior regime, one which carries the outdated terminology of “non-traditional” casting, was a weak public relations move.
Subsequently, in a Boston Globe feature on Constantine Maroulis, who was cast in the role of Che, we got some of the American Idol runner-up’s thoughts on race and ethnicity in casting. Maroulis declared that as part of a Greek American family, he had experienced racial bias, saying, “Even in the late ’70s, moving to an incredibly white suburb and affluent area, we were treated like terrorists at first . . . so I’m not exactly a loaf of Wonder Bread, either.” He went on to declare his thoughts on race in casting, saying, “I don’t think it’s an issue; I think people are trying to make it an issue.”
People were trying to make it an issue because of the long-standing exclusionary patterns when it comes to opportunities for people of color in theatre, film and television. People were making it an issue because while the original Evita in New York, 38 years ago, cast an Italian and a Jew in the roles of Latin Argentinians, the most recent revival featured Latinx actors in the two principal roles, demonstrating that the world has moved forward. North Shore’s casting of the production demonstrates that there’s still a way to go.
“I do colorblind casting,’’ said Hanney. “You have to be able to sing, dance, and act. That’s the criteria.’’
“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.”
Of course if the casting was, to use another phrase no longer in favor, truly color blind, then why didn’t Hanney manage to cast any actors of color in the few leading roles Evita offers. Shouldn’t the law of averages have managed to yield even one? Is it possible that not a single talented person who is Black, Asian, Middle Eastern, Native or Latinx could possibly measure up to the white actors Hanney favored?
“I don’t even — I never even thought about that — that type of casting.”
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. Those are the three most important things,” he says.
Well, despite its earliest casting, Evita does call for specific ethnicity. While Argentina’s current population is heavily influenced by Europeans who immigrated there a century ago, mixing with the indigenous population, Argentina is a Latinx country. So why wasn’t that taken into consideration? Some color conscious casting seemed called for – by the setting and text, even if it is a show created by two Englishmen who knew little of the actual locale of their show.
Hanney told Playbill that ethnicity in Evita is, as far as he is concerned, irrelevant. “There is no part of the story that speaks to events happening to her or not happening to her because of her race, nor are her actions motivated by her race.”
With the caveat that race and ethnicity aren’t possible to fully assess based solely on names, professional bios and images, a review of NSMT shows reveals that of 320 performers, including children, it appears that just 21 roles were played by people of color. That’s a total of 6.5% of all actors hired this year and last, a number that would drop by more than half were it not for West Side Story and Evita.
Compare this with the demographics of the area in which North Shore produces. According to data from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the city of Boston itself has a population that is 47% White, 22% Black, 18% Latinx, 9% Asian, 2% Mixed Race and 2% Other. Expand out to the greater Boston metro area, as defined by The Boston Foundation, and the population is 77% White, 10.1% Latinx, 8.3% Black and 7.2% Asian. Zoom in on Beverly itself, the community where NSMT is located – per City-Data.com, it is 90% White, 3.7% Latinx, 2% Asian, 1.3% Black, 1.3% Mixed Race, and less than 1% Other.
So no matter what yardstick one uses, North Shore Music Theatre only manages to achieve only slightly better than half of the racial mix in its overwhelmingly white town, let alone represent the greater Boston area from which it draws its audience. If NSMT was indeed blind to color, then it would at least match its own community, since presumably talent is distributed equally throughout all racial and ethnic communities. But North Shore, while it does do local casting, also casts out of New York, where there is no shortage of racially and ethnically diverse talent. So are their numbers a result of bias on the part of the theatre or an utter failure of their casting mechanisms? That’s a question with which one hopes they’re willing to grapple. But the only explanation for the failure to match up to their color blind rhetoric lies in there somewhere.
If North Shore were a not-for-profit, the pressures of granting bodies – foundations, corporations and government agencies – might force their hand. But presumably so long as they’re selling sufficient tickets to operate, owner and producer Bill Hanney only answers to the box office. Consequently, he might do well to look at the some of the demographic studies linked earlier, because they show the same story that’s happening in metropolitan areas around the country: whites do not represent the majority of most major cities and soon will not represent the majority of the population of America overall. If he hides behind vague commitments to colorblind casting which aren’t even borne out in his actual casting, then perhaps he’ll gain his awakening on a wholly economic basis. After all, in order to sustain a theatregoing audience for his venue he needs to demonstrate that his seats are open and welcoming to all by proving it through the artists he puts on stage.
Note: because of the limited information on the North Shore website, fuller information on their casting during the Hanney era may yield different results. If North Shore wishes to share that information, data will be recalculated and this post will be revised accordingly.
It is unlikely that many people in the theatre are unaware of the controversy that arose in mid-May, when a small Portland, Oregon theatre company proposed a production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with a black actor in the role of Nick. Outcry built swiftly after Michael Streeter of the Shoebox Theatre posted the following message to Facebook:
“I am furious and dumbfounded. The Edward Albee Estate needs to join the 21st Century. I cast a black actor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The Albee Estate called and said I need to fire the black actor and replace him with a white one. I refused, of course. They have withheld the rights.”
This touched off a tidal wave of conversation, debate and anger over the actions of the Albee estate, with many decrying the late playwright, who had been well known to exert significant control over all productions of his plays during his lifetime, as racist. That charge was leveled at the representatives of the estate as well, since they were sustaining what were understood to be Albee’s wishes.
So it was rather surprising when, just a couple of weeks ago, the Pulse Theatre Chicago opened their own production of Virginia Woolf, with black actors as George and Martha and white actors as Nick and Honey. This seemed to contradict the prevailing takeaway from the Shoebox controversy.
Upon learning of the production via a review by Kerry Reid in The Chicago Tribune, Arts Integrity contacted Sam Rudy, the spokesman for the Albee estate, to ask about how this production had been allowed to go forward when the Shoebox production had not been able to, unless they had recast with a white actor as Nick.
In response, Rudy shared a statement from Jonathan Lomma of WME, Albee’s agent and now agent for the estate. It read:
“Regarding your inquiry, the Albee Estate gave Chicago’s Pulse Theatre Edward’s own script edits that the playwright thought could be useful when George and Martha are portrayed by actors of color, as they are in the current Chicago production.
Those approved edits by Edward himself were used in an all African-American production of Woolf at Howard University several years ago.
While it has been established that non-Caucasian actors in different combinations have played all the roles in the play at various times with Edward’s approval, he was consistently wary of directors attempting to use his work to provide their own commentary by, for instance, casting only Nick as non-white, which essentially transforms George and Martha into older white racists, which is not what Edward’s play is about.”
The edits suggested by Albee primarily consist of a word or short phrase, 13 in all, mostly adjusting references to hair and eye color. The most significant change is a brief section in the Act 2 “begin and water” monologue.
In conversation, Lomma drew attention to a particular speech of George’s, which Albee felt was completely transformed, in a profoundly negative way, were it to be spoken by an older white man to a younger black man:
“All imbalances will be corrected, sifted out… We will have a race of men…test-tube bred…incubator born…superb and sublime… Everyone will tend to be rather the same… Alike. Everyone…and I’m sure I’m not wrong here…will tend to look like this young man here… I suspect we will not have much music, much painting, but we will have a civilization of men, smooth, blond and right at the light-heavyweight limit… diversity will no longer be the goal. Cultures and races will eventually vanish…the ants will take over the world…. And I am, naturally, rather opposed to all this.”
The Zachary Scott Theatre Center production of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
The Howard University Virginia Woolf
As Lomma noted, there had been productions of Virginia Woolf cast with black actors during Albee’s lifetime. When the Shoebox controversy arose, many people pointed to a production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2002 in which Andrea Frye, a black actress, played Martha with white actors in the others role. Less noted was a 2003 production at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center in Austin, again with a black actress, Franchelle Stewart Dorn, as Martha in an otherwise white ensemble.
While in May the estate was not able to provide much detail about these productions, a college production at Howard University, while mentioned in passing at the time and cited in Lomma’s statement, is evidence that Albee was not doctrinaire about race in the play.
Vera Katz, the first white theatre professor at the historically black Howard University, planned a production of Virginia Woolf as her final show before retiring in 2001. She reached out to Albee and he visited the show while it was in rehearsals, and offered suggested changes to the text that would make minor changes appropriate for an all-black production.
In June of this year, Michon Boston wrote on her Eclectique 916 site about the Howard University production, which she said was the first time she had seen the play staged. She reached out to Vera Katz to ask about Katz’s experience of producing the play, given the controversy that had just flared.
She received the following response from Katz, which Boston said Katz specifically asked her to share:
“My delay to responding to this debate is because my husband is critically ill.
In 2001, I had the audacity to contact Mr. Albee by writing him a letter in long hand and sending it through his agent. What I asked Mr. Albee in the letter was to adjust two specific changes to his play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” for a performance by an African American student cast at Howard University.
These changes were:
1) The mysterious baby we never see referred to as a “blond blue-eyed child”;
2) The university names in which George has lectured and taught.
My husband said “You’ll never hear from him.”
To my surprise, Edward Albee responded by calling me. He immediately agreed to discuss the changes asking me to get my script and reviewed them with me over the phone. The “blue-eyed” child became “the dark dusky child”, and the university names became HBCUs – Howard, Fisk, Wilberforce, etc.
Mr. Albee expressed his desire to visit Howard and talk with the young actors. When he arrived he insisted on shaking every actor’s hand and gave a brilliant lecture about the play.
He was extremely interested in a tour of the campus. During the tour he was very knowledgeable of persons the dormitories and buildings were named for — Mary McLeod Bethune, Dr. Charles Drew, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Ira Aldridge. For me, he seemed to want to expand his awareness of the Black experience during this visit.
Albee stood for a long time in front of a portrait of Ira Aldridge (actor). He talked about the importance of Ira Aldridge to the theater.
Mr. Albee said he was unable to attend the performance of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” because his play “The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?” was in production.
We thanked him by mentioning his visit in the program at Howard and sent him a copy (of the program).
Boston concluded her post by noting that Katz was working on a book in which she would go into more detail about her interactions with Albee and the Howard University Virginia Woolf.
Kate Robison and Adam Zaininger as Nick and Honey in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at Pulse Theatre Chicago (photo by Joe Mazza)
Professional vs. Non-Professional Productions
Following a phone conversation earlier this week with Arts Integrity, Chris Jackson, Producing Artistic Director of the Pulse Theatre Chicago and director of their Virginia Woolf, shared a statement explaining how they secured the rights for the show, having already explained that the company had no difficulty with its plans. He wrote:
“Pulse Theatre Chicago is a 501 (c)(3) non for profit, non-equity professional theatre company. We rent spaces across the city when we decide to mount each production. We do not have an artistic home and we work on a very low budget, mostly out of pocket. All of our artists are paid a small stipend after the run of the show. Because of those factors, Dramatist [Dramatists Play Service] informed us that we only qualify to the non-professional rights to the production, which in regards to casting, only requires that the gender of the characters may not be changed from the intended.
“To my knowledge, the estate only had an issue with the interracial casting of the couple of Nick and Honey, which is understandable because in my opinion that casting choice disrupts the central theme of The American Dream being unachievable. I don’t think the estate is complete restrictive of actors of color being cast in Albee plays. If they were, we wouldn’t be talking! As far as I know, the estate approved our production. The only communication I have received from the estate about this production specifically came from them through Dramatist. They sent, opening night, the revisions that Albee made for the Howard University production of the show.”
In conversation, Jackson noted that he had secured rights to Virginia Woolf more than a year ago, while Albee was still alive.
As it happens, the licensing rights for Virginia Woolf are slightly complicated, compared to many plays. Dramatists Play Service handles the non-professional rights, while Samuel French handles professional rights, resulting in part from the fact the DPS didn’t begin handling professional rights until the early 1980s. Lomma continues to handle “first class rights,” which include Broadway, national tours and the West End.
So while Pulse is a professional non-Equity company, for the definitions that exist between DPS and French, their production was deemed non-professional. While Shoebox is comparably small, they appear to have been defined as professional for the purposes of licensing.
Following a conversation with Arts Integrity, and responding to questions about the process of licensing Albee’s work, Peter Hagan, President of DPS, sent the following e-mail:
“Our Albee nonprofessional licenses essentially mirror our boilerplate licenses for our other plays. The language simply says – as our other licenses do – that the play must be performed as written by the author, with no changes, etc. As you know, Mr. Albee was very specific about how casting changes could affect the authenticity of what he had written. Our license form for the Albee plays is actually quite old – so old, in fact, that it includes Albee’s prohibition against performing the play before a segregated audience!
As I told you, we do not represent the professional rights to some of the Albee plays, including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? For all of those Albee plays for which we do represent the professional rights, there is a stipulation that the director, actors, set, costumes and rehearsal schedule must be approved by the Estate of Edward Albee before a license is granted, as was the case when Mr. Albee was alive. As you know, he took a very hands-on approach to the professional productions of all of his plays.
As for our distinction between what is considered a professional production and what is considered nonprofessional, when actors are paid $150 per week or more for their work, we consider that a professional production, whether it is Equity or non-Equity. Samuel French has a different policy, so you should check with them about that.”
Asked about how Samuel French handles the stipulations on Albee plays that French represents, the company’s executive director Bruce Lazarus said that, for all shows they license, “On professional productions, if requested by an author, we submit any information that is requested to the author’s agent. We support a playwright’s right to approve casting to be sure it reflects their authorial intent.”
Albee famously denied all requests to allow for productions of Virginia Woolf with entirely male casts.
* * *
Sophie Okonedo and Damian Lewis in the 2017 West End production of Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (photo by Johann Persson)
In the wave of controversy over the Shoebox production that never was, a debate flourished over the rights of authors, and subsequently their estates, to exert control over the way in which plays are produced, beyond even the specific of Edward Albee’s requirements. It extended to the question of how long copyright protection runs and whether estates, by following the express wishes of an author too slavishly following their death, may be sustaining outdated thinking, be it in how texts are examined or how society has evolved since the play debuted.
Arts Integrity has written many times in the past in support of artists rights and the right of their estates, based in the legal protections afforded to authors in the theatre, which differs from film and television (and cases where a play may be sold for adaptation into those media). Arts Integrity also advocates for inclusive casting, and opening traditionally, and in some cases roles that were explicitly thought of as, white to performers of color.
It bears noting that Edward Albee passed away less than a year ago. While many chafed against the degree to which he controlled his works during his lifetime, and indeed may disagree with his feelings about the casting of Nick in relation to the rest of the company, it is not necessarily realistic to expect the people to whom he entrusted his estate to immediately abandon his wishes within months of his passing. That said, it is not unrealistic to imagine that the estate’s thinking will evolve, especially as current trustees of the estate will eventually give way to successors in future years, given the term of copyright.
For now, the creative elements of Albee’s plays in professional production, including directors and casts, will continue to be reviewed and approved by the agent for the estate, Lomma, and trustees of the estate, as submitted to them by DPS and French. However Lomma indicated that, save specifically for Nick in Virginia Woolf being cast as black with the others characters as white, there is no hard and fast proscription against artists of color taking on roles in the plays. Sophie Okonedo’s role in a recent West End production of The Goat, a role played on Broadway by Mercedes Ruehl and then Sally Field, is evidence that’s the case.
However, all parties represented in this article made the point of saying that the sooner producers engage in conversation about their interest in Albee’s plays, and their plans for them, the less likely it is that issues will arise.
In contrast to the impression left in May, Jonathan Lomma said, on behalf of the estate, “In Edward’s almost 30 plays, virtually all of the roles can and should be done in a diverse, color conscious fashion.”
Despite its origin in a 1988 film from John Waters, the underground master of camp, shock and transgression, the story of Tracy Turnblad, as told in multiple iterations, has become wholly mainstream. Thanks in large part to the 2002 stage musical version, Tracy’s story of leading an effort to integrate a local TV music program in Baltimore has had America singing and dancing along for years now. Beyond its more conventional musical numbers, it offers up a craven TV producer who laments her salad days as “Miss Baltimore Crabs” and teens miming the crushing bugs as part of a dance craze. Indeed, the mildly subversive tone of the musical, while significantly less spiky than the original film, is set by Tracy’s buoyant paean to her home city, which includes shout outs to the rats on the street and the local flasher.
In spite of its popularity and its pro-integration narrative (the show is set in 1962), the musical has been been criticized by some as advancing a white savior narrative, since it portrays a white girl, albeit one who is ostracized for her weight, taking the initiative and risk to make “every day Negro Day” on The Corny Collins Show, the musical’s American Bandstand analogue. Given that it’s explicitly about the crossing of the racial line between blacks and whites, a certain amount of disbelief met the news in 2012 that one Texas high school did the show with an all-white cast, seemingly deracinating a story about race and posing a particular challenge to truthfully representing the narrative.
Consequently, the casting of a March production of Hairspray at Princeton University, in which Tracy was played by a biracial student and her mother, Edna, was played by a black student, was both surprising and informative. It demonstrated how this musical about integration can be explored anew, 15 years after its debut and 30 years after the original film. The production, which played for five performances in a studio theatre on the campus, was the senior thesis project of two students, Alex Daniels, who played Tracy, and AJ Jones, who directed (only her second time directing). Princeton does not have a theatre major, but does offer theatre certificates for a concentrated course of study. The production was entirely student driven, except for its musical director and its sound designer.
In an interview with Arts Integrity subsequent to the run, Daniels, who describes herself as ethnically biracial and racially black, and Jones, who identifies herself as white, explained the thinking behind their production.
Daniels began by saying, “When I was a freshman, way back when, I was having a conversation with someone about dream roles of mine and I mentioned that I really loved Tracy and that she would definitely be a dream role. That person was like, ‘That’s not possible. You’re not white. You could never play Tracy.’ And so that comment really hit me in a not so great way. Why should the color of my skin limit me from any possibilities? I brought it up with AJ and from there we thought, why not? This script and this show seem to be catered to having a person of color in this position struggling with these issues.”
Expanding upon the inception story of their Hairspray, Daniels said, “When Alex told me about this comment, I started thinking more about Tracy possibly being biracial and it made a lot of sense, especially given her role in the show, bringing these two groups together. It changes the relationships with all of the characters in the show and gives them all a little more depth as well.”
In the production, Daniels appears in facial makeup that is noticeably lighter than her own skin tone. The rationale for this was described by Daniels as addressing, “How is Tracy going to fit into this world when she very clearly is not white? I personally cannot pass as white. Then we had the conversation about what if she’s trying to pass. What if she’s using makeup to lighten her skin, using whiteface in order to make it through every day in this community. So that’s where this conversation came in. We also just felt that the story of passing was something we wanted to talk about, the extent to which African-American, biracial females, and definitely men as well, went to belong in this community to reap the benefits of being white.”
Jones noted, “We spent quite a bit of time testing a lot of different types of makeup. We decided to have it only on her face because we wanted to make it clear to the audience that she’s not white, that she’s passing as white. We discussed whether other characters in the show know that Tracy’s trying to pass, and we came to the conclusion that yes, they have to be suspicious, but they can’t really know for sure, they can’t really say anything about it, because of the power of this white face that she has on.”
* * *
At this point, it would be fair to question whether this color conscious casting of the roles of Tracy and Edna was contrary to the authors’ intent for the show. Arts Integrity asked that very question of Music Theatre International, which licenses the show, specifying what the production had done in regards to those roles. In reply, MTI president Drew Cohen said that the company does not place casting restrictions according to race on its customers, and pointed out specific material answering questions about racial casting for Hairspray, in the form of a letter from the four authors of the show, as well as John Waters. It reads, along with instructions for using it, in its entirety, as follows:
The use of make-up to portray black characters in your production (e.g., blackface) is not permitted under this Production Contract. By signing below, you agree to inform the director of your production that such use of make-up is strictly prohibited.
If your production of Hairspray features actors who are portraying characters whose race may be other than their own, you may elect to include the below letter from the creators of Hairspray in your program. You are not permitted to edit the letter in any way.
Dear Audience Members,
When we, the creators of HAIRSPRAY, first started licensing the show to high-schools and community theatres, we were asked by some about using make-up in order for non-African Americans to portray the black characters in the show.
Although we comprehend that not every community around the globe has the perfectly balanced make-up (pardon the pun) of ethnicity to cast HAIRSPRAY as written, we had to, of course, forbid any use of the coloring of anyone’s face (even if done respectfully and subtly) for it is still, at the end of the day, a form of blackface, which is a chapter in the story of race in America that our show is obviously against.
Yet, we also realized, to deny an actor the chance to play a role due to the color of his or her skin would be its own form of racism, albeit a “politically correct” one.
And so, if the production of HAIRSPRAY you are about to see tonight features folks whose skin color doesn’t match the characters (not unlike how Edna has been traditionally played by a man), we ask that you use the timeless theatrical concept of “suspension of disbelief” and allow yourself to witness the story and not the racial background (or gender) of the actors. Our show is, after all, about not judging books by their covers! If the direction and the actors are good (and they had better be!) you will still get the message loud and clear. And hopefully have a great time receiving it!
Thank You,
Marc, Scott, Mark, Tom & John
While Cohen did not respond directly to the query regarding the specific color conscious casting at Princeton, where certainly white students were available, his pointing out of the letter, and his comment about not imposing racial restrictions, strongly indicate that such casting is permissible. In a separate piece of correspondence, Cohen stated, “The key is that the show must be performed as written and the characters should be portrayed as written.” He also clarified that while the authors’ letter singles out high school and community theatre productions, it is applicable to university productions as well.
* * *
So what was the effect of this concept of Hairspray? It seemed, as the thesis students intended, to deepen the story, and staging decisions only enhanced that. “Good Morning, Baltimore” was played slowly, more like a sad ballad, suggesting that Tracy’s everyday routine was not a joyous leap from bed, but rather the start of a new day of struggle. When the perpetually panicky Prudy Pingleton commented to Edna, her laundress, about “colored music,” it read as more pointed than ever before, and Edna’s dismissal of the characterization read as self-negating. When Velma von Tussle humiliates Tracy at her dance audition, it ceased to be solely an attack of her weight but also decidedly racial. When first encountering Edna and Tracy together, Velma’s already ugly sizeist comment “I guess you two are living proof that the watermelon doesn’t fall too far from the vine,” became doubly ugly. That all of the female characters are released from jail after the altercation at Motormouth Maybelle’s save for Tracy, a particular focus is placed on the continued imprisonment of a young woman who is biracial, while the black characters and white characters are all freed.
At the same time, the friendship between Tracy and Penny came across as particularly special, since clearly Penny – in and out of the Turnblad house like any teenager – surely had no questions about Tracy’s mixed parentage, but ignored the racial faultlines of the day. When Seaweed declares that, “Detention’s a rainbow experience,” he negates any concerns about racial divisions or conflicts as well for Tracy, who has been trying to pass as white. Detention becomes, in effect, a racial safe space.
By consciously altering the racial dynamic of Hairspray through only two characters, albeit leading roles, it is fair to suggest that the story of racial acceptance, integration and diversity became possibly even more resonant than the original portrayal as defined by the Broadway production. While the authors’ letter permitting cross-racial casting may have been intended primarily to address situations where there aren’t sufficient performers of color available, it laid the groundwork for Daniels and Jones’s interpretation, even though they asked the audience to engage directly with their color conscious casting, rather than suspending disbelief over it.
* * *
It is unfortunate to report that Cohen’s statement, common to all licensed productions, that “the show must be performed as written” was not fully adhered to when it came to the text. Daniels and Jones acknowledged that they had made small changes and excisions, such as changing the song “Big, Blonde and Beautiful” to “Big, Black and Beautiful,” as their Motormouth Maybelle wore her hair more naturally. Perhaps most significantly, in “You Can’t Stop The Beat,” a late segment involving the Von Tussles, both mother and daughter, in which they are encouraged to join the full on party, initially resisting and then ultimately joining in, was gone. They were denied their redemption as the authors intended.
Because Daniels and Jones did not request permission to make these changes, and perhaps other smaller ones that went unnoticed, they were violating the authors’ copyright and the licensing agreement. While their production may have been a student thesis and part of their academic work, it was publicly presented, and for multiple performances, so the legally standard practices should have applied. That they felt the need and the freedom to reauthor any of the show is a shame, since the casting, direction and performance had already been transformative, while still working within the existing text and the leave granted by the authors regarding race.
* * *
It is the right of Tom Meehan, Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, John Waters and the estate of Mark O’Donnell to determine what may be done in productions of Hairspray that go beyond the existing casting template, and they’ve offered up their thoughts for producers and directors to consider. This mirrors Lin-Manuel Miranda’s statements regarding the racial casting of In The Heights, where he has made clear that in high school productions, the cast need not be Latinx, in whole or part, so long as the performances are respectful of the Latinx identity. But it’s important to remember that this guidance is specific to these shows by these authors about their own work, not a policy applicable across the literary spectrum. Texts should remain inviolate without express permission, which may be hard to secure, but is nonetheless legally and ethically required.
While the criteria for evaluating the Princeton students’ thesis academically is unknown, they did achieve two silent but memorable moments that have not typically been part of productions of Hairspray, but are both worth remembering. The first came midway through Act II when Tracy, inspired by “I Know Where I’ve Been,” wiped away the makeup which had been used to indicate that as a biracial teen, she was trying to pass as white, and would no longer. She becomes secure with her racial identity, even if it means more struggle in that community in that era.
The second memorable invention came in the very final moments of the show when, after the joyous and victorious refrain of “You Can’t Stop The Beat” hit its final peak, there was not the customary blackout. Instead, the cast (sans the Von Tussles, as noted previously) were arrayed in a straight line across towards the rear of the stage. Maintaining the rhythm of the now ended song, they stepped forward in unision, in unity, to the beat, beat, beat, and the dance party was transformed into the front lines of a civil rights march, of the fight for racial equality that would extend far beyond the integration of a single teen TV show.
Wendy Wasserstein was the kind of woman many women didn’t feel comfortable befriending, especially since she was what they feared being themselves: overweight, single, and a fag hag.
Baker has produced only one play about a woman’s life, and it was a one-act comedy, a relative trifle compared with her other work. Sometimes, it has been difficult to distinguish between Baker’s world of guys and her own ethos.
What about Circle Mirror Transformation? Is it explicitly about one woman’s life? No, not necessarily singularly, but do her plays genuinely warrant this characterization of them by Als? Are they collectively, in Als’s shorthand, “dude fugues”?
Baker projects her complicated, sometimes disappointing, but never less than human relationship to men, who interest her because they display their competitiveness more readily and openly, and thus more theatrically, than women do.
Interestingly, the review of John, in which Als felt that Baker was at last engaging fully with female characters, seemed focused on the naturalistic interaction of the characters, three out of four of whom are women. But he does make a generalization, suggesting that one or more of them may be “crazy,” a timeworn dismissal of women’s behavior. He does so without ever engaging with the play’s strong supernatural elements, which are almost impossible to overlook when we find one character reading H.P. Lovecraft to another, subverting the motivations and altering our perceptions of the characters and events as played on the surface. Indeed, we are to understand that the character who initially seems most unmoored from reality is in fact the most perceptive, not a madwoman.
So what has me – and based upon what I’ve seen on social media, many others – rather frustrated with Als now? It’s his review of The New Group’s Sweet Charity, which goes out of its way to critique not only director Leigh Silverman’s work on the revival itself, but her body of work as a director and perhaps even her personal attributes. It’s certainly fair for a critic to do much of that (reviewing people as opposed to their work, however, strikes me as unwarranted) – and to be clear, Als absolutely has the right to write about the theatre as he sees fit – but it’s the apparently gendered critique of Silverman, in a way that seems to overwhelm actually engaging with The New Group’s Sweet Charity itself, that’s striking many as problematic.
At this point I should acknowledge that as a cisgender, heterosexual middle-aged white man, I am perhaps singularly unqualified to weigh in on this subject, given my identity and the identities of the parties involved. If any readers feel that’s the case, I would urge them to stop reading this now. They might wish to consider an essay by Victoria Myers at The Interval (worth reading even if you choose to read on here), the most sustained, non-Facebook piece prompted by Als’s review that I’ve seen to date.
In the very first paragraph of his Sweet Charity review, Als writes, in reference to Silverman:
The problem is that she’s too serious about theatre; she wants her shows to count—to have a moral purpose. Sometimes a play is just a play, and not all of her productions can bear the weight of her imperative.
He goes on to refer to her “joyless directorial form” when she directed a piece for The Five Lesbian Brothers. He describes thinking of her as “downtown’s ‘woman’s director,’ in the old M-G-M George Cukor sense of the phrase.” He characterizes her work on Charity as having “very little shine or imagination” He compares her unfavorably to the director and choreographer of the original production, writing, “Silverman’s moral stance is different from Fosse’s. She’s not excited by display; she keeps things small, somehow.” He concludes by saying that like the show’s character, Oscar, who dumps the character of Charity at the very moment other shows would deploy as happy ending, “Silverman may have been driven by the same impulses: instead of trusting in and directing the flow of Foster’s natural wellspring of talent, she set out to dam it.”
So Silverman is, in Als’s view, a woman who is far too serious about her work and should just lighten up; in every way inferior to the man who originally conceived, directed and choreographed Charity; generally yet mysteriously reductive; and someone whom actors (those who, given his examples, are other more exuberant women) have to fight past in order to give engaging performances.
But while idolizing Bob Fosse (and Sutton Foster), Als doesn’t explicate what Silverman has actually done with Charity, a 50-year-old relic of an era when entertainment was frequently trapped in telling stories where women fell only along the virgin-whore duality. That was certainly evident in Charity’s source material, the film Nights of Cabiria.
How do we engage with this type of material now? Do we, to employ Als’s metaphor, admire them as eternal soap bubbles or, as so many works of entertainment now do, mine them for a grittier take, which rather than blowing ash upon works, strips them of their glitzy patina to better engage with the reality that might lie underneath? Certainly taking a darker view is not only a man’s right. Silverman has even made small revisions to the work, which go unremarked upon.
Broadway’s last Sweet Charity played out in pop colors along more Fosse-esque lines, though I recall Oscar’s rejection of Charity at the show’s end, in Denis O’Hare’s performance, as particularly ugly and cruel. In Silverman and Shuler Hensley’s hands, it seemed a genuine expression of personal failing, filled with regret. Both are perfectly valid readings of the script, which while written by the hugely successful Neil Simon, has become dated in the half-century since it debuted. It is hard to find Charity’s repeated humiliations as funny, as they were once intended to be. While my memory of O’Hare’s performance in contrast to Hensley’s is inevitably subjective, I’m intrigued that its dissonant harshness has stuck with me for 11 years, while my most recent experience seemed rueful and compassionate.
During an interlude from assailing Silverman, Als notes in his review the age of Sutton Foster, a relatively atypical critical practice, and it seems an arbitrary choice. It would be more pertinent had he connected it to his description of Charity as a “youngish girl.” In fact, Foster is the same age as Gwen Verdon when she created the role. While she reads as eternally youthful (the basis for her TV series Younger), a key element of Charity’s character, then as now, is that, in the time and society in which the show is set, the character is decidedly not youngish, with essential implications for the character’s motivations, and how we perceive them against the typical expectation of women in the 1960s. That Foster and Silverman chose to address that element is not diminishing Foster under Silverman’s cloak of darkness, but rather an actor and director working in concert to mine truth from what the text offers them.
That seems to be the operant motivation for Als’s critique – Silverman is denying the charm of the piece, and of the leading lady. But The New Group itself is noted for a repertoire that explores dark stories and ugly truths; that they were producing Sweet Charity seemed a dissonant concept when first announced. In fact, the concept that Silverman and Foster brought to the company (instead of Silverman simply being “hired,” in Als’s assumption) was in keeping with artistic director Scott Elliot’s aesthetic – and an experiment more reasonably undertaken in a 222-seat venue than a 1500 seat Broadway house. Has Charity been reduced, shrunken, made small, as Als would have it, or has it been made more intimate, more human, less razzle-dazzle in service of character and storytelling? Even before entering the theatre, all signs pointed to the latter, lest anyone be confused about intent.
To reiterate: Als is welcome to his opinion, as we all are. But as a critic, he repeatedly denigrates Silverman for ostensibly applying the same aesthetic to all of her work because she had the effrontery to tamper with Sweet Charity. He categorizes Silverman as a downtown women’s director, an implied pejorative, yet beyond a fleeting mention of her Broadway debut with Well, fails to acknowledge her “uptown” work, with three Broadway shows to date, which is unfortunately a rare achievement for any woman – or her ongoing collaboration with David Henry Hwang.
Instead of analyzing the choices Silverman made in Charity, he attempted to divine her motivation. Als tells readers of his disappointment with the show not being what he wanted it to be, rather than interpreting it according to what was there. Even in a much-reduced cast, why did Silverman choose to have Joel Perez essay all of the main male roles other than Oscar? Is it possible that Silverman was looking at male mores of the time and seeing a sameness that she wanted to emphasize? In reading Als’s review, we don’t even know that Perez plays multiple roles. The fundamentals of reviewing are made subordinate to an agenda.
At the start, I cited some examples of Als’s writing that I’ve found surprising. I have not conducted a years-long study of his work, and certainly his recent review covering both Lynn Nottage’s Sweat and Suzan-Lori Parks’s The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World displays none of the implied gender bias of his Sweet Charity review. So this is no blanket assertion of his motivations or beliefs, but simply an attempt to explore, overall, one piece of writing that has proven troubling to so many, including artists I admire. With Sweet Charity, Als – with guidance from his editors – could have critiqued the show, and Leigh Silverman’s work on the show, in a way that would have allowed readers to better understand the production on its own terms, rather than as a platform for his seemingly gendered survey of Leigh Silverman as a person.
That’s why it proves so maddening to so many when efforts to right the balance meet with opposition. Last week, in Raleigh NC, an effort to advance the cause of female directors in the city’s theatres began to fray just a day after it was announced. The participating theatres had agreed to hire only female directors for open directing slots in their 2017-2018 seasons; this followed on a Women’s Theatre Festival in the area this past summer. As reported by Byron Woods of Indy Week last week, with further updates just before Thanksgiving, a pseudonymous complaint of discrimination about the plan to the signatory companies and the Raleigh Arts Council was sufficient to have one theatre immediately withdraw and for Sarah Powers, executive director of the RAC, to re-emphasize the importance of their non-discrimination granting policy, and to say that the claim would be investigated.
For those who champion equity, as well as diversity, this sort of blowback is frustrating. After all, when statistics prove inequity, why do efforts to rebalance the scales get charged as discriminatory? The fact is, while there is more than enough evidence to demonstrate a tacit pattern of discrimination favoring white men in the theatre, there is no explicit policy. But when there is a concerted, verifiable attempt to favor any subset of the population while excluding others in hiring, anti-discrimination policies and laws kick in, because they were designed to protect everyone from discrimination, not only defined populations.
It’s troubling that in the Raleigh situation, the complainants – there are now two – are pseudonymous, with Indy Week unable to verify their identities. But the press release about the Raleigh initiative on behalf of female directors is verifiable, as are the companies participating.
The situation is corollary to the one experienced by the musical Hamilton earlier this year, when a casting notice sought “non-white” men and women for its multicultural cast. While it is entirely within the purview of the production to choose actors according to the desired characteristics of the roles, the explicitly exclusive language about the actors being sought put the show at risk of violating discrimination statutes, as well as the policies of Actors Equity. It was quickly revised, even as the production made clear that its creative intent was unchanged.
Looking to the future, we are now less than four years away from the intended start of The Jubilee, an initiative begun by, per its organizing principles as stated on Howlround in October 2015, “a self-organized group of theatremakers from around the country,” asking both theatre companies and individuals to sign on to the following:
In order to address equity in the American Theatre and in my community, I pledge to support a diverse, inclusive, and intersectional vision in the 2020-2021 season:
Every theatre in the United States of America will produce only work by women, people of color, Native American artists, LBGTQIA artists, deaf artists, and artists with disabilities.
It’s impossible not to look at the Jubilee plans in light of the Hamilton and Raleigh precedents, and indeed the political and social outlook of the still-forming new federal administration. Similar initiatives could face an uphill legal battle, although The Jubilee may be protected by the fact that playwrights are not defined as employees under prevailing labor law. Public perception is another matter, especially at a time when apparently some white men perceive their primacy as being reinforced as a result of the presidential election.
However, this doesn’t mean that diversity and equity cannot be proactively addressed. In Hollywood, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is more than a year into investigating the gender imbalance among film and television directors, prompted by efforts from the American Civil Liberties Union. If the theatre field doesn’t self-police and initiate real change in the face of overwhelming statistics, it might one day find itself under comparable investigation.
The myriad circumstances, practices and excuses that have maintained the American Theatre as a majority white male domain are unjust and unfair. None of the foregoing is intended to dissuade efforts towards equity, diversity and inclusion, or to suddenly treat white men as a specifically protected and oppressed class. But as various constituencies in the arts work to correct the historic imbalances, they need to remain aware of the legal ramifications of their efforts, and the language in which they define them, even given the significant irony of those seeking to end discrimination potentially running afoul of anti-discrimination laws.
Scene from the musical Marathon of Hope (screen grab from Drayton Entertainment YouTube video)
If you look at photos or video from Marathon of Hope, a new musical that just premiered in Waterloo, Canada, about an hour outside Toronto, something seems off.
The musical is based on the life story of Terry Fox, a young Canadian man who in 1980, after losing a leg to cancer, undertook a country-wide run to raise money for and bring attention to cancer research. He did not complete his effort, because his cancer metastasized to his lungs and he died in 1981. His life is the stuff of legend in Canada, with schools, athletic centers and sculptures standing as memorials to him, and ongoing fundraising to fight cancer in his name. His story has been told in two separate TV movies, in 1983 and 2005.
So what’s wrong with the images?
It looks like the on-stage Terry Fox, especially when seen in running shorts, has three legs. One limb appears to be flesh and bone, the second is shrouded in a black legging and the third is a prosthesis. The images reveal that in telling the story of a man who is certainly one of the best known Canadian athletes and advocates with a disability, Drayton Entertainment, the producer of the musical, has cast a non-disabled actor. The prosthesis is a stand-in for the real one that Fox used to make his run; the black-clad one is an effort to disguise the presence of one of the actor’s own limbs.
The list of actors with disabilities portraying characters with disabilities on stage, TV and film is stunningly brief, despite Harold Russell’s dual Oscar win in 1947 for The Best Years of Our Lives. Deaf West’s Big River and Spring Awakening, with Deaf and disabled actors, were significant milestones on Broadway, but they remain the exception to the rule. Yet the decision to have a non-disabled actor play Terry Fox seems creatively and historically derelict (though it should be noted that Fox’s family approves of and supports the musical).
Drayton doesn’t seem unaware of the casting imperative for the show, making note of their efforts to seek talent in the amputee community. Their announcement of the show’s cast includes this statement.
Given the scope of this particular project, in addition to its regular audition process, the not-for-profit theatre company initiated a nationwide search for the role of Terry Fox through open call video auditions.
The organization also reached out to the National Amputee Centre and 35 prosthetic and orthotic centres throughout Ontario, along with the Amputee Coalition of Canada and Amputees Amplified. Additional leads were generated through Casting Workbook, an industry group providing full service casting software.
There’s no question that these are good efforts to have made. But speaking for the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, where I am interim director, the countless artists with disabilities for whom we advocate, and the hundreds we have in our files for just such casting needs, Drayton didn’t go far enough, based on the final casting of the show.
While national pride could have been an issue in a story so dear to Canadians’ hearts, Drayton may not have reached beyond Canadian borders. Within minutes of learning about Marathon of Hope and its casting yesterday, my colleagues at Inclusion were able to list several male actors in their 20s who are amputees – including Anthony Michael Lopez and Evan Ruggiero (Ruggiero’s musical skills landed him a spot on Ellen). There are other actors who fit the requirements of the role in the Inclusion files, but without public websites or Facebook pages, we’re not able to name them so publicly (Drayton never contacted Inclusion, though we often consult with Canadian as well as UK companies).
Is it possible that Drayton reached out to these performers? Certainly. As it happens, both are working on stage this fall: Ruggiero as the title role in The Toxic Avenger for the Pittsburgh CLO and Lopez in New York Theatre Workshop’s Othello. But the fact is, when telling a story about disability, about a person whose disability was so central to his fame, to not cast the role with an actor with a disability denies one message of the show and insults professional actors who are indeed capable of playing the role. Talent searches among non-professionals may sometimes prove fruitful, but there’s no guarantee. For a show such as Marathon of Hope, if an appropriate actor isn’t immediately available, the show should be delayed until they are.
Pretending to disability under the mask of “theatricality” is no solution – even if it is part of the long, frustrating history of ignoring actors with disabilities. This point was not lost on J. Kelly Nestruck, critic for The Globe and Mail in Toronto, who wrote in his review of the production:
Carroll’s casting has angered some activists who feel that this is an example of “cripping up.” For me, the larger problem is that Mustakas’s production (which also features a pair of able-bodied child actors playing disabled characters) has not found room for disability anywhere in his aesthetic.
This is a musical whose main goal is to inspire – as unabashedly as Fox did. And instead, it sends a message that while a young man with one leg may be able to run 5,373 kilometres, there is no room for anyone with atypical abilities in musical theatre.
It’s worth noting that when the 1983 TV movie The Terry Fox Story was made, an actor who was a real-life amputee played the role. When the story was told again in 2005, the filmmakers cast a non-amputee, and used digital airbrushing to replace one of his legs. Regrettably, technological advancements in filmmaking trumped lived experience. Of course, that’s not possible on stage.
Whatever the future may hold for Marathon of Hope, it has the potential to make a strong statement not only about Terry Fox’s achievements, but also about the avenues open to performers with disabilities. In its present form, it has opted only to advance the former story, while disguising the latter – not once, but three times, per Nestruck – because the producers and creative team did not fully commit to every facet of the story they sought to tell.
As theatre buffs know, there are two major musicals drawn from Joseph Moncure March’s The Wild Party, which debuted in New York within months of one another: the Michael John LaChiusa-George C. Wolfe version which played on Broadway in the spring of 2000, and Andrew Lippa’s version, which played Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club from February to April of that year. Drawn from the same source material, they inevitably have many roles in common.
Julia Murney as Queen and Taye Diggs as Black in Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party at Manhattan Theatre Club
One of the many roles shared by both shows is “Black,” first played by Taye Diggs in Lippa’s retelling of the story (and by Yancey Arias in the LaChiusa-Wolfe version). So there was significant pushback earlier this month when the Yale Dramatic Association, widely known as the Dramat, announced the cast for their fall production of the Lippa’s Wild Party, where the character is specifically identified as black. A white woman had been cast as Black.
The Dramat should not be confused with the Yale Repertory Theatre. The Rep is a professional company that also includes the work of Yale School of Drama graduate students onstage and off. The Dramat is an undergraduate club which actually predates the Rep by more than 50 years. While there is a great deal of undergraduate theatre at Yale, with many of the residential colleges each fostering their own dramatic groups, the Dramat, so far as student-run theatre at Yale goes, is perceived as the major player school-wide.
As reported by Joey Ye writing in the Yale Daily News, approximately 75 students auditioned for the Dramat’s Wild Party, with only nine students of color trying out. Two students of color were cast. While the Dramat’s club leaders indicated that they had done outreach to the performing communities of color at Yale, their efforts had limited success. Ye quoted the student producer saying that the Dramat had decided to proceed with the show, with a white female student as Black, after the director “re-visioned the entire show with the people we had in the room.”
Ye noted that the Dramat has only produced two works by artists of color in its history, one earlier this year and one in 1995. While that doesn’t speak to roles specifically requiring performers of color, or productions which may have cast students of color in roles traditionally played by white performers, it suggests, as students did in Ye’s initial report, that the Dramat has not historically been perceived as a group that embraced students of color.
On Tuesday, Ye reported again for the Yale Daily News about The Wild Party, writing that the Dramat had made the decision to reopen auditions and to recast the role of Black. Two other roles will also be recast, because two students chose to leave the production as a result of the uproar.
We also know that the circumstances surrounding casting represent a much larger problem, extending beyond this particular production and the Dramat as an organization. There are serious, systemic challenges to meaningful progress toward diversity and inclusion. Over the past week, members of the community have raised questions about effective forms of outreach, the audition room environment, the balance between pre-professional and educational programs, and the dispensing of information about auditions and opportunities for those outside of the theater community. These are difficult questions, and each merits its own in-depth discussion, which we are committed to pursuing in collaboration with the larger Yale community, as we all strive for a better, more inclusive space.
The standard contracts provided to student productions, as well as amateur and professional companies, typically contains language about making no changes to the gender or race of characters without prior permission from the licensing house on behalf of the authors. Drew Cohen, president of Music Theatre International, which represents The Wild Party, responded to an inquiry from Arts Integrity as to whether the company had played a role in the Dramat’s decision. While citing MTI’s policy of confidentiality regarding its customer communications, Cohen noted, “I do not know what prompted the group to hold new auditions.”
Contacted separately, author Andrew Lippa responded:
“I have had no hand in the casting at Yale (other than being the playwright!). I applaud these student producers’ efforts to recast their production per the character description in the script. I have always, and will always, support and defend the rights of living dramatic writers (and all plays still protected by copyright) in all casting decisions.
“I look forward to seeing (and celebrating) these students and their production of my show.”
The Yale Dramat has announced that their spring ’17 show will be Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Südwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915. The original cast at Soho Rep in 2012 included three black actors and three white actors, in Sibblies’s backstage exploration of racial roles in the creation of a play drawn from African history.
Update, September 22, 11:45 am: This post has been edited to more clearly reflect Lippa’s intent that the role of Black in his version is to be played by a black actor, as it has been in its original production and in the Encores Off-Center concert.
This post will be updated should there be significant further developments.
Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative and interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.
