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.

Editor’s preface: Austin Tichenor of the Reduced Shakespeare Company wrote an extensive Facebook post after seeing a production of 1776, directed by his sister, the author of this essay, at their old high school in California, 38 years after having directed his own production in their hometown. His reflections prompted Arts Integrity to solicit this post, about how the production had come together; it is certainly only one example of how 1776 and many works for the stage are being reexamined in high school productions, especially in the wake of the success of Hamilton. Amy Tichenor Moorhead, teaches dance and musical theatre at Piedmont High School in Piedmont CA.

The musical 1776 has been a favorite of my family’s for decades, but I never considered it for my high school’s annual musical until I realized the opportunity that lay in gender-neutral, as well as color conscious, casting.

Like most high school musical theater directors, I’m always looking for shows that have lots of roles for female actors. While researching online, I learned of Kansas City’s Musical Theatre Heritage all-female 1776 in 2010. There was precedent for this in our 2011 production of Les Misérables in which two women were cast in small roles written for men. I realized right away that there’s no reason women couldn’t play any of the male roles in 1776, and that in this way, we could fully embrace trans* and non-binary students as well.

Keith Edwards, son of the late composer and lyricist Sherman Edwards, told Playbill.com in 2010, “An inclusive society is roughly what the Founding Fathers desired with the launch of the Declaration of Independence, and although they did not emancipate slaves or women at that moment, they prepared the way for both.” Inclusion is always one of my primary objectives and though I don’t think of 1776 as a show frequently performed in high schools, it felt like a valuable way to include young women in discussions from which they’ve been largely excluded. With the addition of an ensemble, plus color-conscious and gender neutral casting, the experience could be powerful.

The announcement that I would employ gender neutral casting was met with enthusiasm, and the audition process began in September for our February 2018 production. The casting process is challenging, more of an art than a science. It revives memories of my own auditions which makes me sensitive to the actors’ hopes as well as despair in not being cast as they’d wished.

I entered the audition process with no plan about how I would cast each role. I asked the actors to indicate on their audition form if they were comfortable playing either male or female characters as well as playing opposite either male or female actors and almost all were fine with both.

I could have cast the show a number of different ways, but I chose the actors I thought were strongest for each role, taking the whole cast into account. I didn’t plan to cast Abigail/John and Martha/Thomas traditionally, and I looked seriously at other combinations. During callbacks, certain actors emerged for roles that I never could have anticipated and this is the marvel of the audition process.

I hoped a student with a decent Scottish brogue would audition for McKean, and it turned out there was more than one – a woman won the role. One casting intent I did have was that the Courier would be played by a woman, but it was ultimately cast traditionally. At the conclusion of casting, only 30% of the roles were cast gender typically.

With the rehearsal process underway by early October, I decided the production would be costumed in traditional dress of the period. I considered modern-day gender neutral costuming, like formal concert attire, but found this was actually going to be more expensive, and the cast was excited about wearing 18th century coats and trousers, with buckles on their shoes, cravats, the use of canes, and a few powdered wigs.

Though 1776 calls for a cast of 26, I chose to add an ensemble to help bring the streets of Philadelphia to life — and to be inclusive of more students who wanted to participate in this musical — bringing the cast to 48. About half of the ensemble were costumed as female and the other half were dressed as male.

In addition to costume and staging choices, the physicality of each character is vital, because in a classic musical like 1776 the characters need to be defined as following the social expectations of their particular gender. How to shake hands, how to sit up straight, how to stand tall, how to bow in the manner of a stereotypical 18th century male required extensive rehearsal for all in the cast. The issues of correctness are more about the time period and region, so the women worked just as hard as the men to achieve the proper physicality. Even though the male characters are dressed as males, the fact that many are female actors in male roles is still apparent and it allows us to see these eighteenth-century congressMEN in a new light.

Rehearsals provided ample opportunity to take note of gender equality. In scene two, Richard Henry Lee declares, “I’ll stop off at Stratford just long enough to refresh the missus” and the bawdiness continues when he launches into the song “The Lees of Old Virginia” with the lyrics “may my wife refuse my bed if I can’t deliver . . .” Seeing a 21st century teenage girl portray an 18th century slaveholding man – conceived by a man in the 1960s to be an energetic but righteous buffoon – was both entertaining and eye-opening. It also emphasized that women’s roles in the story of our nation’s founding are missing from 1776, and when they are present, it is as a partner in bed.

Early in scene three, Thomas Jefferson announces he is leaving for home on “family business”, Stephen Hopkins’s response required attention in rehearsal. Hopkins chimes in and tells Jefferson, “Give her a good one for me, young feller.” We tried several different deliveries in attempt to retain the spontaneous, lighthearted intent of the line and the female actor, ultimately, embraced the notion that Hopkins is completely unaware that he is being offensive and was not considered to be so at that moment in history, though he is today. He’s not evil, he’s just of another time and set of sensibilities.

Benjamin Franklin is probably the most inappropriate character by 2018 standards with riotously suggestive dialogue throughout the show. Upon the arrival of Martha to Jefferson’s room in scene 4, Franklin asks, “Well, Halooo, and whose little girl are you?” Hilarious (because impropriety is often a source of humor) – and creepy – whether  Franklin is played by a male or a female. With a female in the role, it is even more difficult for the audience to ignore the impropriety because we can’t overlook the fact that a female delivered the line.

While the Thomas and Martha engage in a lengthy kiss, Franklin explains, “Of course she’s his wife. Look how they fit.” I had thought this line would be even funnier delivered by a female actress, but it never got the laugh that I expected. Perhaps because we know more about Thomas Jefferson than we used to, and times have changed. Later, Franklin jumps up from his nap at the invitation to go to New Brunswick “for the whoring and the drinking” – and once again the idea of women as “little brides” or whores is highlighted by the young women in the male roles saying these lines. It’s arguable whether the casting or the fact that it’s 2018 made the line more, or less funny.

Abigail Adams, a more fully-developed character than Martha Jefferson, still revolves around her husband John. She does reference their sick children and their farm’s struggles, alluding to how difficult it must have been for the women left at home. I initially planned to bring Abigail’s home to life with little children scurrying around to suggest all she would have had to contend with while still scraping out time to correspond with John. I had to let this staging idea go given the complexities it presented with the congress set and the placement of Jefferson’s house, and given Abigail’s primary role within the script as her husband’s main source of strength and support.

*   *   *

“The Lees of Old Virginia” in the Piedmont High School 2018 production of “1776” (Julie Reichle Photography)

Piedmont High School is predominantly European American (68%); however, the audition pool contained African-American and Asian-American students, as well as students of Indian  and Pacific Islander heritage. As a white, cisgender woman I gave a great deal of thought in casting deliberations as  to how to cast the individuals not historically granted access to privilege and power. In prior years, I have practiced color blind casting. But as Diep Tran, associate editor of American Theatre magazine told the Los Angeles Times, “Color-conscious” means “we’re aware of the historic discrimination in the entertainment industry . . . and we’re also aware of what it means to put a body of color onstage”. Snehal Desai, artistic director of the Asian theater company East West Players in Los Angeles, the longest-operating theater of color in the United States, said in the same article, “The thing about colorblind casting is that it denies the person standing in front of you. It ignores identity, and for people of color, that further alienates us”.

In casting a high school production of 1776, does color matter ? Yes it does. I was aware of the critical need to becolor conscious. On casting Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda told The Atlantic, “This is a story about America then, told by America now…and we want to eliminate any distance between a contemporary audience and this story”. One-quarter of the actors featured in my 1776 production were students from communities traditionally underrepresented on stage, playing historical characters who were, in real life, white.

There are two roles in particular that gave me pause. In the casting of Joseph Hewes (North Carolina) and Dr. Lyman Hall (Georgia), although I knew the actors would be wonderful in their roles, it occurred to me that the audience might be troubled and unsure how to interpret African-American students portraying Southern delegates, that is, stepping into the shoes of slaveholders. As Jessica Gelt wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Color-conscious casting implies an understanding of the profound implications of skin color.”

I wrestled with how the Southern delegates were arranged on stage. Initially, I followed the Director’s Stage Guide’s furniture positioning for the scenes in the chamber which called for Hall and Hewes to be upstage left. I worried that the audience might see the casting of Hall and Hewes as resulting in an unfortunate accident which placed these two students in the back, behind others, rather than a conscious casting choice that would cause people to think. I tried several subtle variations on the arrangement of the delegates in that up-left corner, and eventually placed Edward Rutledge (cast typically) between them, and further upstage than Hewes. We did have a stage level change that gave some flexibility.

I worried about what the audience would think about the casting during Rutledge’s “Molasses to Rum to Slaves”. Even more than worrying what they might think, I worried that they wouldn’t think about it at all. At the conclusion of the song, the stage directions call for Rutledge to walk out as Hewes and Hall follow him. I directed Hewes and Hall to exchange a look and a nod before they began to follow Rutledge to suggest that they were making the independent decision to walk out rather than to simply be followers of Rutledge, under his authority.

*   *   *

From the 1980 Tichenor family production: “But, Mr. Adams” (l-r) Austin Tichenor (John Adams), John Tichenor (Benjamin Franklin), David Stein (Roger Sherman), Chris Stevens (Robert Livingston), and Bruce Turner (Thomas Jefferson)

I noted previously that 1776 has been a favorite of my family, dating back to when my brother Austin directed it in 1980. It was a community theater production that we produced with alumni and then-current students from Piedmont High School, performed in the same high school auditorium as my production 38 years later.

Austin cast himself as Adams, my other brother, John Tichenor, played Franklin, our dad played Hall, I assisted the choreographer and dressed the wigs, Mom sold tickets and cleaned the toilets — it was very much a family affair. In a post on Facebook after seeing my production, Austin noted an example of the benefits of diverse casting: “When Dr. Lyman Hall reveals his famous epiphany (“A representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion”) the moment retained all its irony but gained added resonance by being spoken by a young African-American woman. It became a fantastic and moving moment about the power of representation: Not only on our stages but in our governments.”  Just the reaction I’d hoped for.

With a gender neutral, culturally diverse cast, 1776 facilitates dialogue about our 2018 political panorama and reminds us of our responsibility for making sure that all voices are heard as we move forward. Rehearsals presented frequent opportunities for discussion and making connections to our country today – and there would be even more if we were doing the show this summer. The experience provided us with an opportunity to consider gender, racial and ethnic equality through the lens of musical theater.

As I continue to unpack the adventure five months later, the production still informs my thoughts about casting and directing.  I’ve realized that my casting process must be color conscious rather than color blind and even more than before, I will consider the gender spectrum. Instead of auditioning two distinct groups, men and women, I will look beyond the strictures of gender expectations, and, as I have in the past, the racial and ethnic default to casting roles as white unless specified as characters of color when choosing actors for roles. Yet I will be carefully aware of how the words and messages of the text resound when embodied by actors who do not replicate the characteristics of those who may have created the roles.

As I anticipate RENT, which I’ll be casting in September, a show that embraces characters all along the gender and sexuality spectrum, I’m eager to see what revelations we’ll come to when we cast consciously.

Now there is a redaction, an editor’s note, and an author’s apology. But for roughly 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday this week, in a theatre review in the Chicago Reader, the racially incendiary “n-word” was part of the text online.

The review, by Justin Hayford, was of the Court Theatre’s current production of the stage adaptation of the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. The slur is spoken, once, during the play itself, by a black father to his black son. When the word first appeared in the Reader, it wasn’t presented as a quote, but rather as Hayford’s paraphrase of that moment in the play.

Within hours of the review going online, outrage flared, with multiple advocates conferring and venting on social media with one another and sharing the communications they had begun to share with the Reader. Their efforts led to a fairly quick reaction from the publication, or rather reactions, because at first, the piece was altered to place the entire phrase containing the word in quotes, suggesting that Hayford was citing a line in the text. Subsequently, in a second edit, the quotes were shifted to only include the word itself in quotes. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, the word was wholly redacted, appearing as “[vile racial epithet]”, with the actual snippet of a quote – different than what Hayford had previously written – from the play appearing in the text, marked off with quotation marks.

Hayford’s apology began:

“I included the N-word in my review of Court Theatre’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. A lot of people let me know I shouldn’t have.

You’re right. I agree. I apologize.”

He went on to write, in part:

“Although the character in the play uses the N-word, I could have conveyed the horror of the stage moment without quoting the word at all, as many of you rightly pointed out. I might have used “vile racial epithet” instead. I clearly underestimated the hateful and hurtful nature of that word’s appearance in print, even when citing a character’s use of it.”

The editor’s note on the piece itself now reads:

“During the play, one of the characters uses a racial slur. Although the offensive language came directly from the script, we should have not printed it. We have removed the offensive word. We apologize.”

Given the relatively rapid time lapse from offense to apology, some might feel that the issue has been put to rest. But that fails to recognize the significance of the initial insult and the ham-fisted way in which the Reader tried, twice, to rationalize and qualify the primary word choice.

With any professional publication, even though the ranks of editors and copy editors have been reduced in recent years throughout the field, it’s simply not possible that Hayford’s review appeared online without at least one other person at the Reader having read it and approved it. The backtracking and ultimate contrition only began when the furious reaction set in.

When quotation marks went up around Hayford’s original clause containing the slur, it was ostensibly to make clear that the word was part of the text. But Hayford’s failure to provide an accurate quotation from the script completely undermined the effort, and in a review of some 440 words, was a phrase of less than 10 sufficient context to justify that particular quote, with that word, the only quote in the review? As it came clear that Hayford was not citing the script, the quotes were shifted to only the word in question, stripping it of any context and making impossible to acknowledge it as coming from the script. On that basis, quotes could have also surrounded Hayford’s use of the word “and.”

Having learned of the online upset during this period of multiple revisions, but prior to the final version, Edwin Eisendrath, CEO of the Chicago-Sun Times, which owns the Reader, reached out to Richard Costes, an active advocate in the Chicago theatre community, who had been posting about the review on Facebook and e-mailing the leadership at the publication. Eisendrath wrote, in part:

“The concerns, later summarized in in the e-mail you sent, are disturbing, and prompted some digging. In fact, we have confirmed that the awful racial epithet quoted in the review is in the script and was part of the performance. The reviewer felt the scene was a powerful part of the play, and included it in the write-up. . .

You are also right that the word and the subject are painful. Theatre, as all arts do, treats in painful subjects [sic]. Sometimes artists are more successful and sometimes less successful in their efforts. Reviewing these efforts can be tricky when the reviewer wants to convey the experience of the performance.”

Leaving aside the condescension of the CEO explaining the purpose and effect of theatre to someone in the theatre, it is clear that the initial plan at the Reader was to justify each successive choice – until they reached a point when they realized the position wasn’t defensible. As a matter of free speech, they had the right to print what they did, but it took a lot of voices crying out to bring the Reader to the point where the powers that be understood that in this case was a serious ethical lapse to deploy the slur.

Why “in this case”? If, in an essay-length review, a critic writing about this piece, or perhaps one of August Wilson’s plays, included a sustained quotation, or several, in which the word was fully contextualized, then it might be seen as part of a comprehensive critique and clear part of the author’s voice. It does appear – just once – in Todd Kreidler’s stage adaptation, but the brief quotation strips the word of the context of a scene or the speaker, let alone a two-hour anti-racism work.

Only weeks ago, the Reader was engulfed in controversy when this same racial slur was used in the headline of an article about gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker. The Reader, appropriately, backtracked there as well; in fact, it fired the editor responsible. So it’s impossible to think that anyone working for the Reader hadn’t already been made aware of the incendiary nature of the n-word, even if they had never encountered it and its ugly history before (which is, of course, highly doubtful).

The Chicago Reader gave extraordinary service to the theatre community with its groundbreaking expose of Profiles Theatre in June 2016. In fact, their sensitivity there only throws the pain and anger prompted by the Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner review into higher relief. They have absolutely done better in the past and, if their writers, their editors and their publisher have actually learned something from making the same gaffe twice in two months, they will do better in the future. But they have to prove it.

Another Chicago voice heard clearly during the immediate outrage over the review was that of playwright Ike Holter, whose Facebook page became a rallying point against the use of the slur. Among his many posts was this thought, which might serve as a guide to all future editors and writers considering the use of the n-word and its impact:

“If a black person is mad at the word, assume it is on a level of hurt, pain and fear that you will never understand. Do not tell them to “Calm Down” or “Be Quiet”. either support them or leave them alone. When we hear that word from a non black person, it hits an invisible bone in our body. You don’t want to know what it feels like, so don’t act like you do.”

One last note: Hayford’s review, with the slur intact, sans apology, appears in print in this week’s Chicago Reader. Even if there’s an editor’s note next week, nothing can take that back.

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.

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.

In an article in the Globe on September 11, Hanney spoke out for the first time regarding the casting issue. He told reporter Don Aucoin:

“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?

But as he followed up in conversation with the Boston public radio station WBUR, Hanney started to trip over his own reasoning:

“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.”

*    *    *

Taking a deeper dive into the North Shore website, it’s possible to take a closer look at their pattern of casting, albeit on a limited basis. The site shows cast bios and headshots for the current and immediate past season – Evita, Mary Poppins, West Side Story, Spamalot, Funny Girl, A Christmas Carol, Beauty and the Beast, Young Frankenstein and The Music Man (bios and headshots aren’t available for tenth show, Singin’ in the Rain).

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.

Anyone claiming that there is equity or equality – by gender, by race and ethnicity, by disability – in the American theatre would have to be willfully ignoring the evidence. The Dramatists Guild’s The Count showed that only one in five plays produced in the U.S. is written by a woman. The annual survey of performers on Broadway issued by the Asian American Performers Action Coalition most recently showed that only 22% of Broadway performers in 2014-15 were people of color. The executive summary of a study of leadership in LORT theatres by gender states that at no time have more than 27% of leadership roles been held by women. Define your universe, choose your metric, and it seems quite clear that whites, particularly white men, remain in the majority.

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.

To be clear from the very start, two points. Judi Honoré, the owner of Shakespeare Books & Antiques in Ashland, Oregon, has every right to display anything she chooses in the window of, or for that matter anywhere in, her store. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, also located in Ashland, Oregon, has every right as an organization to express its institutional opinion about events locally or nationally as it sees fit, and to align its business practices accordingly.

These rights, however, came into conflict this summer, when a window display of banned books at Shakespeare Books & Antiques, which has been in place (albeit with rotating inventory) for the past several years, was perceived by members of the OSF company as making a racial commentary about a current OSF production. Specifically, the origin of the dispute arose from the juxtaposition of an edition of Little Black Sambo to a collection of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, while OSF was producing The Wiz, the retelling of The Wizard of Oz with an all-black cast.

The controversy has extended throughout the summer, and continues to simmer. OSF is still developing plans for a town hall meeting intended to allow members of the community to share their opinions of what has emerged from expressions of discomfort over the window display and its significant aftermath. But before that happens, on Monday October 31, Shakespeare Books & Antiques will close. So how did this come to pass, that ideals of social consciousness and free speech became seemingly oppositional positions?

*   *   *

For those unfamiliar with the children’s story Little Black Sambo, it recounts a simple, non-realistic tale of a child who is sequentially threatened by a group of tigers into parting with all of his clothes, then driven up a tree, after which the tigers fall to squabbling and end up chasing one another by their tails at the base of the tree until they somehow melt into butter, which is then brought home by the child and used by his mother to make pancakes for the family. The book, by Helen Bannerman, first appeared in 1899 in England, and has been republished and retold in numerous editions ever since.

While the original preface stated that it was written by “an English lady in India, where black children abound and tigers are everyday affairs,” some versions employ illustrations more evocative of Africa, while others conflate the two.  The depiction of Bannerman’s little boy and his family has also varied widely, from relatively realistic to grossly stereotypical, with some editions employing iconography more akin to those often seen in the early 20th century American South, as also seen in a 1935 animated short based on the story.

Within decades of its appearance, LBS, while one of the relatively few children’s books with a black protagonist, was increasingly perceived as racist. Langston Hughes cited the book as being of the “pickanninny variety,” writing that the name “Sambo” was “amusing undoubtedly to the white child, but like an unkind word to one who has known too many hurts to enjoy the additional pain of being laughed at.” Even after LBS began to be removed (and banned) from schools and libraries, the name was taken up by a chain of US restaurants, started in California in 1957 as their brand, growing to more than 1,100 outlets by the 1970s before collapsing (after an attempted rebranding) in the 80s.

New editions of LBS have continued to emerge, with some making efforts to address the racial portrayals, particularly with regards to the illustrations, including some which have sought to more accurately bring accuracy to the setting of India. But the name remains a racial slur in the minds of many people, as it already was when the book was first published.

*   *   *

Portion of banned books display at Shakespeare Books & Antiques in Ashland, Oregon in September 2016

The context for the display in the Shakespeare Books & Antiques (SBA) window is provided by two signs. The first, shown within a frame in the display itself, reads:

BOOKS REFLECTING THE HISTORY OF RACISM IN THE UNITED STATES

Our position is that these books should still be available to read during these critical time [sic]. As Scott Parker-Anderson so eloquently wrote for the Library of Congress, “The truth about the past can make people uncomfortable, but it does not change the truth. There were slaves, they were treated horribly, and called horrible names. Those are the facts, that cannot be changed. REMEMBER, those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it.”

The second sign, affixed to the window, reads:

BANNED BY SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, SOMETIME

We believe attempts to censor ideas to which we gave access, whether in books, magazines, plays, works of art, television, movies or songs are not simply isolated instances of harassment by diverse special interest groups. Rather, they are a part of a growing pattern of increasing intolerance which is changing the fabric of America. Censorship cannot eliminate evil, it can only kill freedom. We believe Americans have the right to buy, stores have the right to sell, and authors have the right to publish constitutionally protected material.

In a photo of the SBA window dating from the start of the dispute, two LBS books can be seen: one an edition of the original story, the second an apparent sequel by a wholly different author and illustrator, Little Black Sambo and the Monkey People. It is the former which is placed adjacent to the Oz books and a framed list of the many Oz titles. Also visible, but only by their spines, are Uncle Tom’s Cabin and a collection of the Uncle Remus stories.

Describing other parts of the display, Honoré, in an interview, said, “The Color Purple may have been there at the time, but I’m really not sure.” She went on to list the aforementioned books, as well as two copies of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird.

The placement and proximity of LBS and the Oz books first came to light when four ASF company members, including actors from The Wiz company, which at the time was still in rehearsal, went to speak with Honoré in June. The accounts of the conversation given by Honoré and Ashley Kelley, one of the actors present, are fairly similar.

In Honoré’s description:

Middle of July, four actors were outside looking in my window. I didn’t know they were actors, they were just four black people. I went outside like I usually do and said, ‘Can I explain to you why any of these books are banned?’ and they said, ‘We’re actors in a play called The Wiz, which is playing here, and it’s an all-black cast and we object to the fact that you have Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Little Black Sambo, Huck Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, these books right next to the Wizard of Oz book. Why do you have them that way? What kind of message are you trying to send?’

I said, ‘I’m not trying to send any message, they’re all just banned books. They said, ‘Well, we feel you’re trying to send some kind of a message,’ but I still don’t know to this day what kind of message I was supposed to be sending. I honestly don’t. But they saw me sending some horrible message by having them in that order. So I said, ‘Why don’t you come in and what we’ll do together is we’ll move them. If you’re that offended and you feel bad about it, we’ll move them together.’

Honoré notes that in moving the books, they were never removed from the window, but merely relocated away from the Oz books.

Via e-mail, Kelley described the encounter with Honoré as follows:

We went inside to talk to Ms. Honoré and we proceeded to have a peaceful conversation. We asked her what the inspiration was for the display and she began explaining the history of the books, not understanding what we meant. I told her specifically that I’m sure it wasn’t intentional but unfortunately the display as it stands is making negative commentary about the people in her community. Still not understanding, I explained to her that The Wiz was happening across the street which is the African American version of The Wizard of Oz.

She claimed she didn’t know there was such a version or that OSF was doing it. I told her that THAT was why we are offended by the display, the placement of these books that exploited African Americans next to the entire Wizard of Oz collection. I stressed again that I didn’t believe it was intentional but that unfortunately whether she knew or not it was making a statement. She kept defending why she had the black books to us and I in turn responded by telling her it wasn’t about the fact that she had those books and that I understand why she has them in the first place. My only issue was that they were next to all the Oz books…that’s all.

She finally understood and asked me what to do. Then SHE came up with an idea to move the books from the window and asked us if we would like to help. We said yes, walked inside with her and helped her move the books elsewhere. After that we stood with her for a while talking about her background and had a very pleasant conversation. We introduced ourselves. I thanked her for listening and for talking to us. We hugged and left her store.

After this, I sent an email to my cast to tell them about the positive experience I had with Ms. Honoré and that it was a very proud moment especially with all the horrible things happening with people of color all over the country and even in our town.”

*   *   *

Shakespeare Books & Antiques (from their website)

If that had been the end of the issue, with hugs, it would indeed stand as a positive moment for all concerned. But things quickly became complicated.

Ashley Kelley expressed surprise as to the fallout, writing:

It was brought to my attention weeks later that the display had been put back and that Ms. Honoré was upset with me for telling people what happened at OSF…which I didn’t understand because the email was a positive representation of her and the bookstore because we were able to peacefully talk and come to a solution. Then all of a sudden there were SO many people involved and the story seemed to shift to “we asked her to remove the books from the store.” which was NOT the conversation at ALL.

I was honestly very disappointed in how such a positive moment turned sour based off of lack of communication it seems. I was under the impression that everything was handled after my initial encounter with her. Little did I know there were more conversations, other emails, letters, etc. that I had no involvement in.

Claudia Alick, the community producer at OSF, who also chairs the company’s Diversity and Inclusion Planning Council, said in an interview that after learning of the encounter, she had discussed the conversation at the bookstore between the company members (three of whom were actors and one staff member, per OSF’s press office) and Honoré in a “healthy conversation” with Cynthia Rider, OSF’s executive director, who indicated that she wanted to speak with Honoré. Alick said she then went home to prepare an agenda for that conversation.

That same day, Rider called Honoré, asking to meet and discuss what had occurred. Honoré says that Rider said, “I’d like to discuss with you your banned book — she didn’t say banned book, she said your public window display — and protecting my staff. That was her exact language.” Honoré then describes her decision not to wait for a meeting with Rider at the store, and instead closing the shop and heading straight to OSF to ask for an immediate meeting with Rider. She ultimately met with Rider and with general manager Ted DeLong in an impromptu session. Alick had already left the OSF campus.

Julie Cortez, communications manager of OSF, relating Rider’s impression of the meeting, wrote that, “While Cynthia says Judi seemed upset when she arrived, by the end of the meeting their relationship seemed cordial.” Honoré describes the meeting as more problematic, saying, “I knew I was in deep trouble when Ted DeLong [OSF’s general manager, who also attended] said he thought Huck Finn was a horrible book.” Honoré says she was asked to remove the books from the window.

Further describing the meeting, Honoré recalled, “I said, ‘If you have a group of students and they’re really dumb and you keep telling them they’re really smart they will become smart. Vice versa if you have a group of students who are really smart, you keep telling them they’re dumb they will become dumb. If you have a sweet little town like Ashland and you keep calling us racist, it will become racist. I think the positions you guys have been taking have been incorrect.’ I don’t think they appreciated that much.”

*   *   *

Some may recall that Ashland and Oregon Shakespeare Festival were in the news this summer for another racially based incident, which was widely shared on social media and subsequently reported in mainstream media outlets. In that case, a man verbally attacked a black actor in the OSF company as she walked down the street, shouting, “It’s still an Oregon law. I could kill a black person and be out of jail in a day and a half. The KKK is still alive here.”

News reports indicated that the man who threatened the actress was likely a local homeless man who was known to the Ashland Police for other aggressive actions. The police determined, according to a report in the Mail Tribune, that “no crime had been committed,” even as they were “decrying this hateful speech.”

Asked about that incident, vis a vis the conversations over her window, Honoré was dismissive, saying, “One black actress was apparently yelled at by our town schizophrenic who said horrible things, but he yells at everybody, including me. If I don’t give him a dollar, he’ll say something like, ‘I’m going to kill you.’” She went on to volunteer, “They said the police officers were picking them up for no reason whatsoever, and they had to ride around in a car with a white person or they felt like they’d be targeted and get picked up. None of that is true. I mean I know our little sweet town and that doesn’t seem to happen here. And then they also said that if they go into a store and they’re asked more than once, ‘Can I help you,’ they’re being targeted for shoplifting.”

However, that incident happened in late June, subsequent to the meeting between Rider and Honoré, but before the dispute between SBA and OSF became widely known.

*   *   *

Immediately following the meeting between Honoré and Rider, Honoré says she went back to her store, upset at learning about the e-mail that was circulated and Rider’s original request to come to the bookstore and discuss the display. So she returned LBS to its original location in the window.

“Honestly, I felt like I was either sandbagged, slapped in the face or backstabbed, when they went back to OSF after I felt I had done something really nice for them. After I had temporarily moved it, then I put it back where it was. But that was for maybe a day, and then I thought better of it and I moved them way to the end again.”

Claudia Alick subsequently visited the store and had her own conversation with Honoré, who Alick says recounted her studies in college (Honoré attended UC Berkeley in the late 60s and early 70s, where she wrote her thesis on sexism and racism in textbooks) and repeatedly protested, “I am not a racist.”

Alick says that after listening to Honoré for ten minutes, she interjected, “I never said you were a racist. Nobody said you were a racist. Those words haven’t come out of anybody’s mouth. I just wanted to know what was the decision made, because I think that I might have a different understanding of that decision, because you put the display back and I’m confused by that. And so then there was another ten minutes where she finally admitted that she was pissed and those were her words. She was pissed at the actors for – and in her words it was for – ‘sending nasty e-mails about me.’”

In a separate interview, OSF artistic director Bill Rauch spoke to the issue of leveling charges of racism at anyone:

[LBS] is a much beloved story for many, many people, especially older people who either had it read to them by their parents or read it to their own children. That’s come up again and again and again. Some of the emotion people have felt has been that by OSF saying, ‘We do not support the juxtaposition of those original racial caricature drawings on the cover of that book being juxtaposed next to The Wizard of Oz,’ they felt that we were personally attacking a story that was a beloved part of their childhood and therefore somehow calling them racist for liking that story.

Alick says she informed Honoré that, “It’s interesting that you said those e-mails were nasty. I can share with you that it was just them sharing their own personal experience and they didn’t say anything that was negative or nasty about anyone. It was actually pretty generous and kind framing and language that was used to describe what happened.”

According to Alick, after further conversation with Honoré about how the display might prove troubling not just to artists but to any persons of color walking down the street, Honoré asked, “What do you want us to do?” Alick says she responded, “No, we’re not going to tell you what to do. I just wanted to get clarity about what you were doing. You get to decide what you’re going to do.”

Alick says she was aware of other OSF staff members having one-on-one discussions with Honoré, emphasizing that they were private, personal communications. But Alick says that, “[Honoré] started coming to the festival, and stopping people of color and – I’m going to use the word harassment – harassing them, saying ‘Aren’t you in The Wiz? Well this, this and this.’ She did the same thing to me, where she stopped me on the street and had just a really kind of gross exchange with me that wasn’t kind, that was so problematic. And so organizationally, people of color asked essentially, ‘Hey, would you please do something?’ We’re like, ‘Well, the only thing we can do is let her know privately we won’t be doing business with you. We won’t be investing in your services in the future because you’re treating our company members this way.’ It wasn’t a comment on her public display. It was a comment on her direct behavior with our company members.” She later added, “We didn’t do anything public.”

Honoré recounts writing a letter to Rider on July 18, in which she set out the events regarding the window display and all that had transpired much as described here, adding her account of a positive conversation with another OSF actor of color regarding the display, which had prompted her decision to once again shift the Sambo book away from the Oz books. She also expresses deep upset with all that has occurred, including being called a racist by someone she describes as an OSF actor. She concluded the letter by writing, “In my opinion, Ashland, and this includes our residents and our police department, are profoundly inclusive and make every effort to reach out to everyone, as are the merchants of this very special small town.”

*   *   *

On July 26, Rider sent the following letter to Honoré:

I am in receipt of your letter of July 18 describing your recent experiences with OSF staff and actors regarding your display window.

For myself, my colleagues in senior management, and those most deeply involved in the work of expanding diversity, equity, and inclusion here at OSF and in Ashland, the most important facts, which you allude to in your letter, are as follows:

1. You received feedback from various OSF staff members, who are by definition your fellow community members, that your window display that included blackface caricatures was hurtful and offensive due to their racist origins.
2. You removed the display.
3. You heard reports that emails were circulating at OSF regarding this chain of events, and decided to reinstall the display.

Through these events, you have demonstrated a distinct lack of empathy for the experiences of the people of color who brought this matter to your attention and their reactions to your display, and reinstating the display caused continued pain to those individuals and by extension to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Because of this, I am by this letter informing you that Artistic Director Bill Rauch and I have given instruction to our staff not to patronize Shakespeare Books & Antiques for any Festival-related goods or services until further notice.

*   *   *

On August 4, the dispute between Honoré and OSF went fully public, in an article in the Daily Tidings (reprinted the following day in the Mail Tribune), resulting from Honoré sharing Rider’s letter with the paper. This marks the first time the word “boycott” appears to have been used in connection with the situation. The article also mischaracterizes Rider’s letter as a “ban on OSF staff purchasing items from the store,” instead of the actual language, which only proscribed staff from making purchases on behalf of OSF at the store. This occurred despite the article later quoting a letter to the editor from Rider and OSF artistic director Bill Rauch clarifying that they had not called for a boycott. But that became the prevalent narrative for the ensuing weeks.

While various letters to the editor played the dispute out in the local papers, as people took sides, the next major account of the situation came slightly less than four weeks later, when on August 30, the Daily Tidings reported that Honoré had decided to close her store, giving two months notice to her landlord for a closing on October 31. Honoré attributed the closing to a significant drop in business in the month of August, as well as the stress of responding to the conflict that had arisen with OSF. She said that in contrast to typical summer months, when her business averaged $20,000, her first 12 days of August yielded on $2,355 in sales and that on August 22, her total sales were $59.

In that article, the reporter John Darling included a statement from OSF, quoting it as follows,

If Judi is seeing a reduction in her business, that is either occurring for unrelated reasons or due to her decision to go public in the media and in her store windows,” the email said. “Given that OSF has only made one or two small purchases for Festival use at Shakespeare Books & Antiques over the years, the decision … was not about causing Judi financial hardship, but about communicating to our colleagues of color that we believe them and stand with them.

While Honoré in an interview described a seemingly dictatorial rule by the leadership of OSF over its staff (“She tells them what to do over there apparently and they do it,” Honoré said, referring to Rider), she was not able to provide any evidence that the OSF staff had been ordered away from her store for personal purchases. She affirmed that OSF had not revealed anything publicly about its communications with her, saying “They didn’t go public, I went public, and they’re calling the conversation I had with them a private conversation. Nobody told me that it was private.”

OSF shared with Arts Integrity a short memo they had given to “front line staff” to help answer questions from patrons about the situation, but the theatre’s first sustained public communication to the community, signed by Bill Rauch, headed, “A response to the ‘bookstore story,’” wasn’t issued until September 2.

It read, in part:

OSF has never sought publicity or media attention for its ongoing discussions with Judi about her window display. We intended privacy for all of our communications, written and verbal, prior to Judi reaching out to the Ashland Daily Tidings (a publication for which Judi’s husband is a columnist). I would like to emphasize that not once has anyone at OSF called for a public boycott of Judi’s bookstore. Our employees are, of course, always free to shop anywhere for their personal purchases, and before today we had never brought up this subject in any communications with our patrons or membership.

I stand by our decision not to do business with a person who has treated members of our company and community with disrespect. Since Judi went public about OSF’s decision, we’ve received numerous reports from staff and patrons about problematic and insensitive interactions in and outside of her store and on the OSF campus. Our attempts to continue the dialogue with her—with a mediator, if she would prefer—have gone unanswered.

Separately, Honoré said that she had asked Rider to visit the bookstore – Rider’s original intent in requesting a meeting with Honoré – but that Rider declined.

In the next to last paragraph of his community letter, Rauch wrote:

Free speech is necessary, but not all speech is neutral; all language, images and symbols are not equal. The fact that speech can be damaging must be acknowledged. As an institution and as individuals, how we use our right of free speech is a moral choice. It is not neutral to propound messages that deepen the isolation and oppression experienced by members of groups that have been historically marginalized. Propagating images that were historically stigmatizing to black people and that some people continue to experience as hurtful and stigmatizing is not a neutral act. In my view, we grow most when we listen with empathy and curiosity to all those who are different from us about their own life experiences.

*   *   *

It’s worth recalling Ashley Kelley’s comment about what has transpired in Ashland, “I was honestly very disappointed in how such a positive moment turned sour based off of lack of communication it seems.” In conversation and written material, both Honoré and the OSF leadership expressed the feeling that each “side” was not listening to or understanding the other. That is the very definition of a lack of communication.

The situation escalated not because of the conversation between the four company members and Honoré, but only when Rider asked to arrange to meet with Honoré, who then opted to precipitate an immediate conversation. Rider perceived that meeting as having begun in conflict but concluding well, however Honoré’s takeaway was both frustration with Rider (who she called “elitist”) and anger that the conversation about the window display had gone beyond herself and the four actors, causing her to reverse the results of that meeting.

While the original conversation between Honoré and the four company members, and the meeting between Honoré and Rider, occurred first, the late July exchange of letters between Honoré and Rider occurred after the incident in which a black actor at OSF was verbally abused. An atmosphere of concern over the treatment of people of color in Ashland had been heightened as the bookstore dispute played out over a number of weeks. As in all cases, a specific event shouldn’t be the pretext for diminishing the rights of others, but the bookstore situation was thrown into sharper relief by the intervening incident.

Bill Rauch noted, “I do think that for members of our community who feel Ashland is such a progressive community, that there can be no racism in our town, that if a person of color says they’ve experienced racism in our town that it’s the problem of the person of color, that they’re oversenstitive, that they’re being overly cautious and that the racism is not real. I think the juxtaposition of these things has triggered a lot in terms of the community response as well.”

Honoré cites Rider’s letter of July 26 as having prompted the precipitous drop in her business, claiming that other internal e-mails, which she could not produce, went beyond Rider’s instruction that staff should not do business with Shakespeare Books and Antiques. However, when she by her own admission went to the press for the story that first appeared on August 4, there was no mention of any impact on her business, only her unhappiness over what she characterized as a call to boycott her store.

Reading Rider’s letter carefully, one could argue that the language about ceasing to do business with SBA might have been somewhat differently structured. If one doesn’t read the entirety of this closing phrase – “I have given instruction to our staff not to patronize Shakespeare Books & Antiques for any Festival related goods or services until further notice” – one might only take away “given instruction to our staff not to patronize.” A statement affirming staff members’ own unfettered right to patronize the store would have been useful.

But regardless of how the letter was read, it was internal to OSF, yet Honoré says it resulted in a roughly 85% drop in business. If the staff of OSF was Honoré’s overwhelming customer base, then regardless of whether one agrees with the request to alter the display, Honoré’s choices influenced the purchasing decisions of her customers. In seeing the situation as one of social consciousness and sensitivity, OSF was well within its rights ito decide what vendors it chose to do business with, and that wasn’t a secret within the organization.

Honoré claims that in her one meeting with Rider, she was told, “Take the books out of your window or we’re going to boycott your store.” Rider denies having made such a statement. Asked whether her communication regarding OSF-related purchases wasn’t in fact an implicit message to the OSF community to not patronize the bookstore, Rider said, “That certainly wasn’t my intention.”

Was OSF advocating censorship, which presumably they would fight were such an effort directed at their own creative work? Given that they had no control over Honoré’s store, it’s hard to accept that they were, especially since the conversation only was about the placement of the books, not over whether Honoré should carry them at all. OSF was advocating to Honoré, according to their institutional imperatives and as a part of the Ashland community, sensitivity to members of the OSF company – both full time staff and guest artists – that escalated over a communications impasse. Rider observed, “Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you get to say whatever you want and nobody can tell you they’re upset about it.”

Because so many of the interactions within this dispute were person to person, it is difficult to pin down many absolutes, especially since the different parties offer differing impressions of the same event. In the fraught communications, it’s unfortunate that one possible rapprochement doesn’t appear to have been discussed. Might it have been possible for SBA and OSF to collaborate on further contextualizing the window display, so that it was clear the presence of LBS (and books like the Uncle Remus stories) was not to advance racially negative text or imagery? While Honoré absolutely has the right to display any books as she wishes, and there is no question that the books she displayed have all been officially censored at one time (or many times), a store window is not a museum or school, where history and education about featured items would usually be more fully explained.

While Shakespeare Books & Antiques will close on Monday, Honoré said that she does plan to reopen, after resting up from the stress of the past few months and getting a new business of hers, a furniture store, fully up and running. Saying that she has three times as many books warehoused as she was able to display in the shop that’s closing, she said she’d be back in a larger space. She felt some distance would put an end to the many people who were coming into her store to discuss the dispute with OSF, but not making purchases, noting that business only began to pick up when she announced she was closing.

As for further dialogue in Ashland through a town hall, which at one point was considered for Saturday, October 29, Julie Cortez of OSF said in an e-mail, “We are in discussion with the members of SOEDI (Southern Oregon Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Collaborative) about the best date to hold this community conversation, and we will keep people informed of what plans are made.” It’s too bad that the community still has to wait to process this situation together, openly, but hopefully they’ll get there soon in a way that helps everyone involved, directly or as observers, to fully appreciate and respect what’s being said and shown and read, on stage and off.

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes, authors of “In The Heights” (photo courtesy of New Dramatists)

The casting of the upcoming production of In The Heights at Porchlight Music Theatre in Chicago, in particular a non-Latinx actor in the leading role of Usnavi, has provoked a great deal of comment and controversy. On August 9, Victory Gardens Theatre hosted a public forum, “The Color Game: whitewashing Latinx stories,” which drew a full house and an even larger online audience to explore the issues of race, ethnicity, authenticity and representation provoked by the Porchlight casting and an earlier production of Evita in Chicago; reporting from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Reader on the forum expanded its reach yet further). The event had been preceded by multiple online essays on the subject, including posts by Trevor Boffone, Tommy Rivera-Vega and Jose T. Nateras, as well as two reports (here and here) from Arts Integrity as the situation unfolded, and a commentary by me, writing in my capacity as interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

On Sunday evening, August 14, Victory Gardens artistic director Chay Yew shared, via Facebook, a post that was headed, “Just Got this from Lin-Manuel and Quiara.” Readers have noted that it seems to be coming from a single voice, but Hudes’s preface addresses that:

I will be swamped returning from vacation and may not get a statement out, I wanted to forward you my email interview thread with Diep Tran for American Theater at the end of July when this happened. Lin stood behind my comments in this thread then, and I assume that still stands. Here are some of my most relevant comments, cut and pasted for continuity which I am comfortable with them being posted publicly, in the context of “excerpts from her interview with Diep Tran for American Theatre Magazine.”

For those seeking more clarification about Miranda’s position, I was in touch with him with him following the publication of the American Theatre article; he had been on vacation when the controversy over Porchlight’s casting emerged. Responding to an offer to add his own thoughts, he wrote, referencing Hudes’s comments in the the article, “I honestly can’t improve on her words. She speaks for us both.”

Hudes’s full statement to Yew is as follows:

I am not familiar with Porchlight but based on them being Equity, then I can only assume this is a professional theater company. Within the context of professional productions, casting the roles appropriately is of fundamental importance.

The fact is that creating true artistic diversity often takes hard work. Concerted, extra effort. It takes time and money. You cannot just put out a casting call and hope people come and then shrug if they don’t show up. You may need to add extra casting calls (I do this all the time), to go do outreach in communities you haven’t worked with before. You may need to reach out to the Latino theaters and artists and build partnerships to share resources and information. You may need to fly in actors from out of town if you’ve exhausted local avenues, and house them during the run. When faced with these expensive obstacles, an organization’s status quo sometimes wins because it’s cheaper and less trouble. The Latino community has the right to be disappointed and depressed that an opportunity like this was lost. It can be very disheartening, as an artist and as an audience member.

The sad fact is that even in New York, where we Latinos abound, the theater world often reflects a much more closed system. I’m talking onstage and off.

For decades, the vast majority of Latino roles were maids, gang bangers, etc etc. It’s demoralizing, obnoxious, and reductive of an entire people. It’s a lie about who we are, how complicated our dreams and individuality are.

Chicago has a historic Puerto Rican and Latino community. Its history as a hub of Latino migration is beautiful and robust. I’ve had the honor of working in Chicago numerous times and getting to know a deep pool of diverse talent there. Artists like Eddie Torres founded Latino theater companies to create opportunities where there were none. The Goodman houses a Latino theater festival frequently, and they did a beautiful job casting my play The Happiest Song Plays Last. DePaul recently hosted the Latino/a Theater Commons festival. Chicago is poised to be at the forefront of these issues!

I am proud to have written complex roles for actors of many ethnicities: Latino, African-American, White, Asian-American, Arab-American. I have stumbled at times. But I continue to commit to nuance and specificity as the core of the dramatic impulse, and the gateway to the human experience.

I have been in a lot of rooms where people give lip service to being committed to diversity. But that’s different than doing the hard work that it often involves.

I do not hold these views as strongly with educational and non-professional productions. I’m happy for schools and communities who do not have these actors on hand to use In the Heights as an educational experience for participants of all stripes.

I have had the pleasure of working with directors of many backgrounds on my work. Women and men, Latin@, Asian American, African American, bicultural, and white. I have purposely tried to work with the widest range of directors possible, aesthetically and culturally speaking, and this broad group of collaborators has enriched my vision as an artist.

I have chosen directors based on many considerations: aesthetics, artistic mission, their connection with a given script, their history of excellent casting and designer collaborations.

Rather than demand a particular background for a director of my work, I try to encourage Artistic Directors and producers to consider hiring woman directors and culturally diverse directors THROUGHOUT their season–not just for the “Latino” play or “women’s” play. Directors of color should be hired to do EVERYTHING. They should be directing Shakespeare and Moliere and Ibsen and Cruz. Not just Cruz.

This post, in a slightly different form, first appeared on the website of the Arts Integrity Initiative.