Late last month, a headline writer for McClatchy DC was not alone in getting caught in a linguistic, oxymoronic knot when they announced, “Minority babies outnumber whites among US infants.” While the word minority has been a catchall to describe people of any race or ethnicity other than white, it also means, per Dictionary.com, “1. the smaller part or number; a number, part, or amount forming less than half of the whole, 2.a smaller party or group opposed to a majority, as in voting or other action, 3. a group in society distinguished from, and less dominant than, the more numerous majority.”

What the McClatchy headline, and others like it, seemed unable to address was that, despite the very facts they were reporting upon, the so-called minority is rapidly becoming the majority overall; babies are just the bellwether. Using minority to denote people of color is rapidly becoming, and in many cases already is, both incorrect and passé. Bloomberg News had similar trouble in their headline on the same subject – “The Majority of American Babies Are Now Minorities” – but they salvaged the situation, to a degree, with a graphic headed “Minorities No More.” Other outlets managed just fine, ranging from Pew Research, which actually addressed the inversion of terminology in their headline, to NPR.

Does minority remain the prevailing term for people of color inadvertently, or is it deployed to sustain a narrative in which people of color are not only numerically but conceptually less than white society? One can only hope that editing stylebooks are grappling with this very issue, and will come out on the side of retiring the reductive use of minority as a synonym for any and all people whose race or ethnicity is not Eurocentric white.

Perhaps if stylebooks were all more advanced on language surrounding race and ethnicity, the Chicago Sun-Times wouldn’t have run a headline this week that read, “Porchlight’s ‘In the Heights’ names its authentic cast.” Those who see anything beyond the title of the show, the theatre and the word cast, might wonder about the presence of the word authentic. Aren’t all casts authentic, in that the actors are who they say they are and will be playing the roles they’re announced to play?

The source of this construction can be found in the body of what should be a straightforward casting announcement (as it was in the Chicago Tribune), where Sun-Times writer Hedy Weiss writes, “Porchlight Music Theatre will open its production of that first Miranda hit with an unusually ‘authentic’ cast.” This begs the question: what’s with the quotes around authentic? What’s so unusual?

Weiss doesn’t explain, and the rest of the piece goes on to quote the artistic director of Porchlight and to list the cast. Presumably, Weiss is using the word authentic to address the fact that the cast is, based solely on their names, largely Latinx. Of course, that is entirely appropriate, considering that the characters in Heights are almost entirely Latinx. But by utilizing authentic (a word which does not appear in Porchlight’s release) set off in quotes and by citing the casting as unusual, Weiss seems to imply that this is an exception to some norm and questions the very term and concept of authentic when it comes to casting.

This subtle undermining of what has rapidly become the prevailing, but by no means universal, casting practice in the U.S. reveals at best a disagreement with the practice. That no editor questioned it, that an editor compounded it in the headline, effectively making it the central theme of the brief, predominantly cut and paste, story, suggests the retrograde idea that through casting, race can still be acceptably erased on stage, even when it is absolutely essential to the story being told.

While Weiss introduced both authentic and the possibly sarcastic equivalent of air quotes around it, Porchlight’s press release unfortunately led her in that direction. A statement from Porchlight’s artistic director Michael Weber mentions “an exhaustive audition process seeing hundreds of the Chicago-area’s diverse established and new music theatre talent, and even reaching out to our city’s vast hip-hop dance community,” “[making] every effort to present a company that reflects the true spirit of this story of community,” and “all but one of our actors is making their Porchlight Mainstage debut.”

Without ever using the word Latino (let alone Latino/a, Latinao or Latinx), this statement comes off as Weber patting his own theatre on the back for working so very hard to meet the basic requirements of the musical he chose. That’s the implicit message that Weiss intuited and made somewhat more explicit, if still enigmatic to those unaware of the concept of authenticity in casting.

No doubt Weber’s statement was designed to ward off any possibility of the kind of criticism leveled at the casting of Evita at the Marriott Theatre in Chicago earlier this year. Actor Bear Bellinger was the first to call out the casting of that production, and the resulting press attention made very clear that when it came to authenticity in casting when it comes to racial representation (a term that needs no quotes surrounding it), Chicago needed to step up its practices. But now that color conscious casting has become the predominant practice nationally, there’s no need to point it out or expect kudos for employing it (inadvertently, Weber has demonstrated how little his company knew of Latinx talent in the city). The subject of race in casting should only be news when it is being ignored or exclusionary.

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes (Photo: New Dramatists)

On a corollary note regarding gender, Porchlight’s release is a bit too caught up in Hamilton fever, as it came with a large photo of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Heights’s composer and lyricist. To be sure, Heights was Miranda’s baby from its earliest days at Wesleyan University, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that in addition to the photo, Miranda’s name appears in the headline, is mentioned in Weber’s statement and he gets a bio alongside the production’s director, while bookwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes’s sole mention amounts to “book by.” Miranda is rightly acclaimed and surely Porchlight is attempting to link itself to the impending Chicago run of Hamilton. That doesn’t excuse virtually ignoring Hudes, who – like Miranda – has received the Pulitzer Prize; in fact, she beat him to it by four years. Also, Porchlight’s In The Heights is not the “Latest Creation by Multi Award-Winning Director/Choreographer Brenda Didier.” Heights was created by Miranda and Hudes, two acclaimed Latinx artists.

Whether it’s the dissemination of messaging by theatres or reports on that messaging by the arts press, there’s an essential need for everyone to step up their game. While theatres are being encouraged, and in some cases required, to participate in equity, diversity and inclusion training that may help to smooth this transition, it’s not immediately apparent whether the same effort to raise awareness is taking place in newsrooms, especially among veteran writers whose concept of language around race may have been formed in an earlier era. But both the act of making art and the act of writing about it share the common goal of communication, and at a time when the conversation around race in this country is both heightened and often divisive, certainly the arts are one place where care and consideration can prevail.

Update, July 20, 2:45 pm: Additional information that reflects upon the topics in this post is currently being gathered, and further updates will include that material as it is confirmed. However, it has been noted by several readers on social media that while Porchlight may have done an extensive casting search for diverse talent in the cast, the primary creatives on the production are all apparently non-Latinx artists, which certainly bears on the discussion of authenticity in one of the few popular musicals that centers on the Latinx community.

Update, July 27, 11:30 am: an update to this post has been posted separately, as “Intricacies and Intent Surrounding Race and Ethnicity in Casting.”

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts and interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

In an era of constrained school budgets, it is not all that unusual – albeit quite problematic in terms of diversity and equity – to find schools charging students and their parents “activity fees” to offset certain expenses, particularly in extracurricular pursuits, notably athletics. When the Board of Education of the Harford County Public Schools in Maryland voted on June 13 to impose a $100 per student activity fee on extracurricular drama programs in area high schools, and raised the fee charged to sports participants to the same rate (having previously been $50), it wasn’t, at a glance, necessarily seen as a targeted attack on the arts. But there’s much more to it, based on statements made by the school board subsequent to both to this decision and a vocal but failed appeal from drama participants and supporters made at the next school board meeting.

“Titanic” at Bel Air High School (Photo by Chuck Bowden)

According to several members of the community apprised of the plan, which has not yet been formally issued, at Harford schools, students will be charged the fee if they want to perform – offstage participants are exempted, creating two classes of theatre kids. Students will be charged the fee per show, so if they appear in a play in the fall and a musical in the spring, for example, it will cost their parents $200. [see update below]

Unlike sports, the school system has only token funding for extracurricular drama – the programs are all largely self-supporting. So young performers are being taxed a regressive tax if they want even a moment under theatrical lighting in front of an audience, and the money generated goes not so much to defray the cost of productions, but rather to shore up a hole in the Harford budget. Interscholastic sports, on the other hand, have a $2.9 million allocation in the county’s school budget. Indeed, the motion and vote to levy a fee on drama came at the end of a board meeting where county swim teams and their supporters successfully lobbied to save their pursuit in Harford Public Schools.

Why target student performers to raise an estimated $50,000? That’s hard to say, because neither local news reports nor direct inquiry by Arts Integrity has yielded any significant explanation from the people who imposed the fee. An e-mail with questions about the decision, e-mailed to Barbara P. Canavan, superintendent of schools, yielded a reply from Jillian V. Lader, manager of communications for the school system, stating, “The decision to require a participation fee from students involved in the extracurricular drama program was made by the Board of Education of Harford County on Monday, May [sic] 13, 2016.” Ms. Lader then directed Arts Integrity to communicate with the board via a contact form on the district’s website, to which there has been no reply after more than a week. Worth noting: Barbara Canavan is not only the superintendent of schools, but also the secretary/treasurer of the board, and as such was certainly party to the decision process regarding drama. Direct e-mails to several of the board members also received no reply.

Students protest before June 27 board of education meeting (screen capture from ABC2 report)

While the school system was keeping fairly mum about the decision, their actions spurred others to become vocal. Ryan Nicotra, who works at Baltimore’s Single Carrot Theatre, attended Bel Air High School in Harford County and lived in the area for, as he put it, “25 of my 26 years,” has organized the unincorporated Harford County Arts & Culture Alliance in the wake of the board’s initial decision on June 13. Working with students, parents and other advocates, Nicotra mobilized some 250 supporters to attend the June 27 board meeting to advocate against the new fee. According to a report in The Baltimore Sun, “More than 50 Harford County students, parents, teachers, alumni, even school board members, pleaded with the Board of Education Monday to rescind a $100 fee to participate in high school drama programs, but their efforts could not sway board members.”

Later in the article, The Sun reported, “[Board Vice President] Voskuhl, a former Bel Air High principal, stressed HCPS is not alone among school systems in the U.S. for charging student participation fees. At the previous board meeting on June 13, he made the motion to double the sports activity fee and to re-establish the drama fee, which along with other non-sports activity fees approved in 2013 were rescinded by the previous board.” So it appears these fees come and go depending upon who is elected.

Describing a bit of the conversation at the June 27 meeting, Juniper Ernest, a member of the parents’ association for the Bel Air High School drama group and parent of a rising junior and rising freshman at the school, wrote:

“Several of the board members spoke to say that they agreed that the original proposal was in fact a poor and inequitable decision. That it will prove detrimental to students and that they need to provide more opportunities for kids to get involved instead of putting up barriers. One of the board members seemed especially moved hearing from students who expressed what being in a drama company means to them and the impact it has had upon their lives. This board member stated that we can’t keep punishing kids with fees because of our budget deficit.”

“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” at Fallston High School

Nicotra is undeterred by the results of the June 27 meeting. He outlined plans being undertaken by his coalition of students, parents and community members, saying, “In the past two or three weeks, I’ve probably made well over 100 phone calls and probably bought 40 cups of coffee. I have been trying to talk to as many parents and teachers as I can, but also partners at the state and national level, people that work with the state department of education, talking with people who have been on the board before and had some valuable insights into the best approach.”

“From a legal standpoint,” Nicotra continued, “we have a small legal team that’s working on a formal appeal to the state board of education, which is qualified and able to overturn a decision made by a local school board if it is either illegal, arbitrary or capricious. We feel that the manner in which the motion was made, passed and upheld indicates that it was an arbitrary decision. It’s murky whether it was also capricious. It’s not illegal; these fees exist here and elsewhere. But that it would be introduced without public comment, or input or even any sort of justification for budget projections indicates that it was put together very quickly.

“We’re also working to see whether this is worthwhile to pursue an equity suit against Harford County board of education because specifically in Harford County there is a huge poverty correlation with race. The schools in Harford County that would be most directly impacted by this and most hurt would be schools that also have disproportionately high minority rates and minority students.”

Also vigorously advocating against the fee is Bel Air High School student Olivia Bowley, a rising junior. In addition to being one of the more than four dozen people who spoke at the June 27 board of education meeting, she wrote an open letter about the situation to Broadway World, which published it on July 5, in which she expressed her concerns over the new policy.

In correspondence with Arts Integrity, Bowley wrote:

“They are estimating $50,000 revenue from pay to play fees from drama. But to be completely honest, that estimate seems unrealistic. There are 10 drama companies in the county. The Bel Air Drama Company, to which I belong, is the most robust of all of them. Our company averages about 100 kids for the year. Many of the other drama companies are still in their infancy or in a rebuilding state, with very little student involvement.

“What is completely frustrating to us is that we are the only ‘club’ being assessed a fee.  There are dozens of clubs in our high school and drama was singled out as the only one to be lumped in with the sports in the ‘pay to play’ fee.”

Regarding specific costs to the schools for drama, Bowley explained:

“I can only speak to our school – Bel Air Drama Company, until recently was self-funded – we would put on productions with the cost of the ticket sales. The only cost the school would incur – outside of the stipend to pay the drama directors (which I believe is $ 2,400 annually, split between two people) would be any associated HVAC costs, etc. for production weeks.

“That being said, for the first time in 2017, the drama company ticket money raised will go to the school and not the drama company.  Previously, the drama company kept those funds and used the proceeds to absorb the costs of the putting on the productions — set, lights, costumes, etc.  For 2017 and going forward, the school will retain the money and will reimburse the drama company for appropriate expenditures associated with putting on a production.  I can tell you that our drama company charges $10-12 per ticket per production.”

While teachers are often precluded from, or cautious about, speaking against student policy, Robert Tucker, the drama teacher and advisor of extracurricular drama programs at Edgewood High School wrote directly to the school board following the initial passage of the fee. His letter read, in part:

“The benefit of the extracurricular drama activities are numerous and varied. Students involved in the arts regularly exhibit higher order thinking skills. The drama programs challenge students to practically apply every subject they student. Mathematics are applied through designing circuits for lighting plots, or designing a sturdy base for a set element. English is utilized when carrying a scene, history for dramaturgy, even FACS are utilized for the creation of costumes.

“I am very concerned about this proposal for several reasons. Chief among them in equity. Along with Aberdeen, Havre de Grace and Joppatowne, this school serves a population with a lower average income and socioeconomic power. This policy would disproportionately affect the schools with the Rt. 40 corridor, and prohibit those programs where they are needed most. Simply, this punishes those who may be too poor to pay $100.”

While the board of education has not officially issued details of their plan, The Sun has noted that with preexisting fees, students who qualify for free student lunches don’t have to pay activity fees. The net result was an increase in the number of high school students applying for free and lower priced lunches. Inevitably, students who don’t quite qualify get caught in between by both lunch costs and the activity fees.

In an e-mail to Arts Integrity, Tucker described the $100 fee as “staggeringly prohibitive.” He asserted, ”There is evidence that pay to play programs stifle participation in extracurricular activities, especially among the economically disadvantaged.”

“Letters From Sala” at Edgewood High School (Photo by Deborah Johnson)

Tucker also wrote, “Placing a barrier on participation in extracurricular activities puts students in danger. These groups were the original GSA/LGBTA groups for many students my age and older, providing a safe place for people to identify as themselves. Drama clubs still do this in ways other groups do not.”

Advocacy efforts as described by Nictora are still, in many ways, at their earliest stage. But in addition to what he outlines, a petition seeking to have the activity fee for drama reduced or eliminated was started on Change.org, originated by Taylor Casalena, who just graduated from Harford Technical High School. While it began before the June 27 meeting, it remains active for those who want to express their support for Harford drama and to speak against the activity fee.

Juniper Ernest spoke of both the concerns and the resolve that she sees in the community:

“I am thankful that our family will be able to provide our kids with the fee required so that they can participate. We do know many families at Bel Air and other schools, however, who will not be able to participate if the fees remain. That has caused my daughter and I to take action and speak up. We are advocating on behalf  of other students. We believe that the stage should be accessible to ALL kids, not just those who can afford it. We are so disheartened that our Board of Education thinks it is acceptable to put barriers in the way that would prevent kids from participating in something so vital and worthwhile. We feel very passionately that the arts are something that should be supported and celebrated in our schools and we will not stand idly by while our school system makes cuts to arts programs and discourages kids from experiencing the arts by imposing fees to participate.”

On Wednesday, July 13, Harford Property Services, a business in Havre de Grace, announced that it would cover the activity fees for all students participating in the drama program at Havre de Grace High School, a significant commitment considering that the board of education hasn’t fully detailed how the fees would be levied. In a statement provided to The Baltimore Sun, HPS president J.D. Russell said, “Our students and their families should not be burdened with fees in order to gain the benefit of participating in extra-curricular activities. For many families with two or more school-age children, each participating in multiple programs through the school year, the financial weight is too heavy.” HPS is to be applauded, however there are nine other high schools in the district.

Fundamental questions for the Harford Public Schools board of education remain. How did they decide to levy this tax on drama performers only, leaving other arts programs or for that matter any school activities others than drama and sports untouched? Was there proper notice given of the intent to introduce this fee, to allow for community input, or was it an improperly introduced spur of the moment decision to plug a hole in the school budget? Is it the school board’s intent to progressively add other activities to the roster of those paying fees, transferring school expenses directly to parents of the students who are participating or requiring them to raise money on their own to maintain equity for all students? Since this decision originally came in a meeting that lasted until 12:30 am, and where the subject wasn’t on the agenda, the board of education can’t claim transparency. Since no impact study was provided, the board can’t claim any foundation for how this will affect drama in the region’s ten high schools.

They’re not the first governing body with educational oversight to do so, but the Harford Public Schools board is teaching terrible lessons to their students and their community. They’re suggesting that budgetary expedience takes precedence over informed decision and due process. They’re passing the buck arbitrarily, ignoring the multi-faceted value of drama as an educational tool, even if it is classed as an extracurricular activity. It seems as if they just wanted to go home one night after a long meeting, and they decided to stick it to the kids who they assume will pay anything to be on stage. After backtracking on their plans for the swim team, they’re now holding fast when it comes to drama.

Fortunately, the show’s not over – in fact, it may still be in the first act of several more to come. If Nicotra, Bowley, Tucker, Ernest and their many allies in Harford County – and beyond – succeed, the school board may yet realize what a short-sighted, anti-arts, anti-education measure they adopted. Ultimately, members who imposed this tax will have to answer for their decision, if not now, then in two years, when it’s time for the next school board elections, and when many of the kids affected by this action will be eligible to vote. They’ll likely want to vote in people who don’t treat any of the arts as a cash cow to milk for money to pay for other shortfalls and, who don’t channel some questionable vaudeville promoters of old, acting like they want their budgetary palms greased before they’ll let any act on stage.

Note: some of the photos accompanying this article were discovered through public sources, but did not all appear with credits for the performers or photographers. They will be immediately updated, or withdrawn if need be, upon request.

Update, October 11, 2016: Following a visit to Harford County yesterday, Arts Integrity learned that the pay-to-play fee is per student per year, not per production, as previously stated. However, the policy, which can be found here, caps fee for student involved in sports at only two years; no such cap is in place for drama.

“I knew y’all would come. It’s the rest of the world I couldn’t have anticipated.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda (all photos by Howard Sherman)

That was what Lin-Manuel Miranda admitted about his extraordinary recent success with the musical Hamilton to some 200 high school drama teachers in a session on July 7, just two days before he was to leave the cast of the show. He was speaking at the Broadway Teachers Workshop, an annual summer program for theatre teachers from around the country, in a wide-ranging discussion that took him from elementary school to the present day. While questions came to Miranda at first from the moderator Patrick Vassel, the associate director of Hamilton, the session was predominantly Miranda responding to questions directly from the teachers.

For the benefit of all of the teachers (and students) who weren’t there, here are some highlights from Miranda’s remarks, slightly condensed and edited for clarity. Among the material not included here are any topics covered in my prior interviews with Miranda, both for Dramatics magazine and this website.

On being a teacher post-college

When I was about to graduate Wesleyan in 2002, I called Dr. Herbert [Miranda’s high school mentor] and said, “I have a BA in theatre arts, can I come substitute teach at Hunter for a living?” He said, “I’ll do you one better we actually have a part time English position.” So I taught seventh grade English my first year out of school.

There’s nothing better than the people who taught you becoming your friends suddenly being on the other side of that divide So that was enormous fun. And I loved it, I loved my students. I had two seventh grade English classes and I still follow them and they’re still in touch.

They offered me a full-time position at the end of the year and I could kind of see the Mr. Holland’s Opus life ahead of me and I said, ‘I’ll kick myself forever if I don’t even try to work on this musical I’d already been working on called In The Heights.’ I’d already met Tommy [Kail, Hamilton’s director], we were workshopping In The Heights in the basement of the Drama Book Shop while I was teaching. I basically quit teaching part time to be a professional sub, which is much more precarious because you don’t know if you’ll make rent month to month. But it’s much less draining, so your time is free to write.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

So I really was a professional sub until In The Heights opened on Broadway. Elementary school Spanish, physics, science – in the physics classes I’d be like “who wants a song”? I didn’t know what I was talking about. But it was enormously life-changing and it’s in the DNA of everything I do now.

A huge impulse from Hamilton is that impulse to teach. Because what you learn when you’re a teacher, in a lot of ways it’s different from being a performer. You go into being a performer because you get that itch that only applause can scratch. What you realize when you’re teaching is tactually the best moments when you’re a teacher is when you’re laying back and the kids are making the connections for themselves and all you do is keep the ball in the air. You watch them make the connections with each other and my best teachers always did that. You’ll know when those neurons are firing and things are happening and you just get to watch it. They’ve got the information and they’re making the connections, they are debating.

So that was enormously useful as well, because I think the best actors know how to listen. They don’t just scratch that itch that applause provides, they listen to their fellow castmates and they hold them up. They realize they’re twice as strong when they are in an ensemble than when they’re center stage and in the spotlight. Those are the lessons I’ve learned from being a teacher and a performer and they’ve been essential, really essential.

On his earliest musicals and the influence of mixtapes

I wrote four musicals in college. Only one of them was In The Heights. I wrote another one called On Borrowed Time, which was my senior thesis, which if I have my way you’ll never hear. I wrote a jukebox musical called Basket Case; I wrote the book and it was all 90s songs. It was about a school shooting and it started with “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam and it ended with the shooting to “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden. In it was “Barbie Girl” and Destiny’s Child.

It actually came as a result of listening to mixtapes of music I liked in the car. They were starting to form the spine of a story in my head which is sort of how I write scores. I’m really grateful that I was a teenager in a time when to impress a girl you made her 90 minutes of cassette music and that’s an art form unto itself, is it not? Draw the cover art, you have a rise and a fall, you can put in skits. It’s not like a CD, they have to listen to it in the order in which you have arranged it. That is a musical score. It’s usually the musical score of, ‘Why don’t you like me?’

But it’s also a way of making friends, a way of showing of your tastes, or a way of getting a friend into music that they don’t really know about, My knack for eclecticism in music is born of the mixtape era.

On student audiences at Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda at the Broadway Teachers Workshop

To an insane degree, the best shows are the student shows, because they’re prepped. They know what they’re coming to see. You don’t realize how much life has beaten you up until you see a bunch of kids see a show. The things they react to wouldn’t occur to you to react to.

There’s a moment where an American spy passes another spy a letter and a redcoat comes and just twists her neck and pulls her away. It’s not on the album, it’s a physical moment, it’s just before “Right Hand Man.” Adults watch and they go, ‘oh, this is a transition, it’s a stage transition, this is information we needed to know.’ When kids see that moment they go “OH!” Honest. Life hasn’t beat them up yet, they can actually be surprised and afraid and annoyed. It’s such live ammo to have an audience of students but it’s so much more rewarding because they’re there for all of it.

They’re there for Anthony being gorgeous because he’s gorgeous, so when he says “Let’s strip down to our socks it’s like, “Aaah!” – ten kids just started puberty. Twenty girls just started puberty and ten guys just figured something out. ‘Oh. Oh this. I know this about myself now.’ The inverse is true for Jasmine. Jasmine did one of our video Ham4Hams and the overwhelming comment was from teenage girls saying, “I’m so gay, I’m SO GAY.” That’s because they’re in love with her.

All this is to say the student matinees are just thrilling because the reaction is completely unguarded. When our characters pass away there are honest to god hitching sobs. We get that from adult audiences too, but its harder to get to you. It comes unbidden from these kids.

The enthusiasm during the rap battles, holy crap! Rap battles are the lingua franca of these kids. I mean there’s YouTube channels devoted to rap battles, Wilmer Valderrama telling “Your mama” jokes on MTV, so to see the founders snapping on each other, it’s revelatory to them and they’re getting the food of what they’re fighting about almost in spite of themselves. We really tried, we’re threading the needle of, “This is what the debt plan is really about.” This is what they’re for and this is what they’re against – and also ‘I’m going to put my foot up your butt.’ Oh! It is that thing of being able to fly in both directions, therefore all of it, if one thing doesn’t get them, something else will.

If we start from the point that these founders are human and what we’re trying to uncover is as much humanity [as we can] in two hours and forty-five minutes, what does that mean about the rest of your history textbook? It’s the beginning of a discussion and that’s very exciting. It’s not ‘we spoon feed you a musical and you love history.’ This musical unlocks that history is written by the victors and so what does that mean for history, what does that mean in your mind.

On failing and learning from failure

Lin-Manuel Miranda

There is so much liability for a teacher. There is so much you’re not willing to go out on a limb on, because you don’t know what’s going to come back to you. I felt very lucky that I found teachers that were willing to show up and be present so we could have a student run musical. That’s huge.

I learned how to corral a group of kids when you couldn’t hire them or fire them. If someone missed rehearsal, what could I say? “You’d better come back or…you just really need to come back!” You learned how to get everyone involved in something and do it for the sake of it, as opposed to for a grade or for cool points. It’s about making a great thing and learning to inspire your peers. I think probably half the things I did were probably artistic failures, but they were met with support and I think that’s the sort of important thing.

That’s how we figure out who we are and what we like and what we respond to. One of the great lessons I took away from film and theatre is to watch everything critically. If you’re in a show and you hate the show, don’t turn your brain off. ‘Why isn’t this show working?’ I find myself often imagining my own scenes on the ashes of a failed show that is happening in front of me in real time. ‘What about this isn’t working? Is it the performance, is the set distracting you from the performance, is the set too much for the plot?’

Continue to think critically when you’re watching any piece of art, because even if you say, “I wish I had those two hours of my life back,” you’ll know a little bit more about your taste, about who you are as an artist, about what you respond to. So it’s never really a waste of time. I think that’s a good perspective to have both when it’s creating things that don’t work or seeing things that don’t work.

On policy makers, politicians and the arts

Lin-Manuel Miranda

What I am finding is Hamilton has become a Rorschach test for our nation. Every candidate has been compared to every character in my show. Depending on which way you lean, either Trump or Hillary is Burr, and that’s OK, that’s fine. It’s good for us to have shared things to discuss. That is one of the places where the arts help us, to have water cooler moments in a time when everybody curates their own reality, right?

I think what we’re finding with social media is we have some shared moments but actually they allow us to go into our own windows and take our lessons from that. I’m always grateful for the way the arts can engender empathy. That’s the biggest thing that we can do that a politician, unless they’re really good, can’t do. We can let you into someone’s life and make you feel like you spent a hundred years with Eliza Schuyler Hamilton and been in her world, and that’s going to change you somehow, in a good way or a bad way. That’s what the arts can do.

Music is our secret weapon. It sneaks in past your defenses, it doesn’t matter who you vote for. If you’re not crying at the end of Hamilton or at the end of The Color Purple, you’re not a human. [The arts have] the ability to engender empathy and to see world views beyond our own. When you can’t shut out people as the other, that what the arts can do that nothing else can do.

On writing Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda

I think a part of me is always trying to write the ideal school show. So much of my life, from elementary school, was “What’s going to be the school play.” So there’s a part of me that’s always trying to answer that calling in my work now. That’s my ideal for what a great show is.

The watchword, the phrase I went by is “The personal is political.” It’s not enough to have a song about the debt plan for the capitol, how does it advance our story, how does it advance our characters. If it doesn’t it goes. We get away with all of the information that’s sneaking into your kids’ brains because Burr is like, “Everyone’s in that room, why can’t I be in that room?”

If the personal is political you can get away with anything. That’s the fun of it. It’s making sure you as long as you’re moving the story along, we can feed in as much stuff as we want, they won’t even know they’re learning. They just want to know what happens. We had to be very ruthless about that.

On the big takeaway from Hamilton

What’s the proverb? “May you live in interesting times.” I don’t know that it gets more interesting than right now. I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse. To be honest, it vacillates every day. I think that your kids are going to look to you to make sense of all this. We’re all trying to make sense of it. That’s an enormous responsibility, but it’s also an enormous gift.

We get 1,360 kids to see the show a few times a year. They’re not all going to become theatre teachers, they’re not all going to write musicals or songs. But what they do have to reckon with when they see Hamilton is that Hamilton made the most of his time, he made the most of his less than 50 years on this earth.

Charge your kids with that, the notion that life’s a gift, it’s not to be taken for granted, it’s not to be taken lightly You’re born with gifts and you’re born with an honesty that can never really leave you. What are you going to do with your time? What are you going to do with your time on this earth?

I remember being a teenager and thinking, ‘We have so much time, we have time to kill.’ Man, what I would do to get that time back. I think the continuing awareness that being here is a real gift, that whatever is happening in the world, make the most of it and sink your teeth into whatever you’re doing. That’s your biggest charge and the rest flows from there.

*   *   *

Disclosure: I presented four sessions on censorship in high school theatre at the Broadway Teachers Workshop in 2015, for which I received a $600 honorarium. BTW did not solicit this post, but agreed to my attendance at my request.

Reed Birney, Jayne Houdyshell, Cassie Beck, Sarah Steele, Arian Moayed, and Lauren Klein in The Humans (Photo by Joan Marcus)

With Broadway’s seasonal winnowing of the herd well underway – only 29 shows running, with nine closing by the first weekend in September – it seems a good time to look back at what was, and what we know about what will be.

What we know is that in the last Broadway season, only eight new plays opened on Broadway, and only one of them is still running, Stephen Karam’s The Humans. Based on productions with firm opening dates and theatres for the coming season, there are only three new plays on tap so far, and even that’s generously allowing Andrew Upton’s The Present, based on Chekhov, into the group.

It’s not that Broadway will lack for plays, but they’re predominantly revivals, everything from The Little Foxes to The Cherry Orchard to August Wilson’s Jitney – these from our subsidised companies with Broadway homes. Commercially, we’ll see The Front Page, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and The Glass Menagerie.

That’s not to say that more new plays won’t find their way to Broadway, and surely more productions will be announced between now and early January, at which point the season is usually pretty well set. At this time last year, we didn’t yet know about Eclipsed or The Humans, which made quick trips from Off-Broadway to on. Off-Broadway’s institutional companies have a raft of new work on tap, any of which could catch fire and make the leap, as could a sudden UK hit, or even, though it’s increasingly rare, a play emerging from the array of regional companies around the US.

But the ongoing problem of how plays manage to hold a place on Broadway, especially if they don’t come with a true box office draw star attached, is certainly apparent from last season and the one to come. The risk of mounting new plays, sans stars, is now incompatible with Broadway, unless buoyed on a wave of critical acclaim and industry awards. Even Off-Broadway, subsidised producers are hedging their bets with stars such as Daniel Radcliffe at the Public Theater and Matthew Broderick at the Irish Rep this summer.

Musicals have no such problems. Indeed, at any given moment there seem to be more musicals circling Broadway hoping to secure a theatre than there are landing slots. These are largely new works, too, and the coming season will include stage adaptations of films, such as Amelie and Anastasia; transfers from London, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Groundhog Day; and original pieces such as Come from Away and Dear Evan Hansen (both of which were first seen regionally). There is no dearth of new musicals, a far cry from 1994/95 when Sunset Boulevard and Smokey Joe’s Cafe, the latter a revue, were the only new musicals of the season. Even when many new musicals come and go quickly, losing $10 to $12 million each, there seem to be more waiting in the wings.

Are the successful, and even the unsuccessful, musicals driving plays away?

That’s not necessarily the case, since so many factors go into producing decisions. But it’s worth noting that The Color Purple – like Once before it – has made a good home of the intimate Jacobs Theatre, and while American Psycho’s run was short, it colonised the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, another smaller house more commonly used for plays. If musicals can be budgeted to work in smaller houses even more frequently, it’s likely they’ll proliferate there as well, since there seems to be so much less willingness to lose $4 million on a play and so much more financial upside to a hit musical.

Plays aren’t disappearing from Broadway any time soon, but the opportunities for new plays, at least from the current vantage point, seem to be on the wane. That’s a by-product of Broadway’s overall robust health, and perhaps the bounty of creative musical theatre talent, as well. But there’s no dearth of talented playwrights, either. Without the boost that being on Broadway can bring, in popular perception and in the media, will plays come to be seen by some as a truly separate form of theatre, if they can’t stand side by side with musicals everywhere theatre is found? Let’s hope that’s not where we’re headed.

Several sentences in the letter posted to the Facebook page of the Atlanta Lyric Theatre could easily serve as a model for statements by theatres nationally. They read:

Moving forward, it is the policy of Atlanta Lyric Theatre that ethnically specific casting, or the casting of any other actors of color, will occur in those shows in which ethnicity is a central component to the telling of the story. Additionally, The Lyric will continue its policy of considering people of all backgrounds for roles that are not ethnically specified. We are proud to be part of a diverse theatre community; and our stage will represent that inclusivity.

It is the hope of Atlanta Lyric Theatre and the members of the Latino community with whom we spoke that there will be a deeper understanding of the need for an ongoing discussion about race in theatre and in all aspects of our lives, and to encourage others to have positive and constructive face-to-face conversations.

The letter, dated June 30, was prompted by the casting of The Lyric’s production of West Side Story, which had closed the preceding weekend. The letter further states that while “the intention of The Lyric was to cast appropriate roles in the show with Latino singers, dancers, and actors, some roles in the show did not accurately reflect that ethnicity,” that “Atlanta Lyric Theatre regrets not casting all ethnically specific roles in ‘West Side Story’ with Latino performers,” and that the company “acknowledges that we could have done more to reach out to the community in an effort to insure Latinos were well represented.” As a professional company that casts not only locally but in New York, sometimes using Actors Equity guest artist contracts (there were four AEA actors in WSS), The Lyric certainly shouldn’t have wanted for options.

While The Lyric doesn’t specifically say that they “apologize,” the effect of the letter is to make clear that they realize they were in error and that they publicly pledge not to disregard race in casting again – though it should be noted that the cast was, in part, Latina/o, that there was not a complete racial erasure by any means.

Not to diminish the importance of The Lyric’s statement, there are a few comments that hint at what preceded it, but elide thornier topics. The Lyric begins by writing that they “initiated a meeting…with members of the Latino community to have an open dialogue about race and its impact on actors and audiences.” It is surprising that, having cast their production as they did, The Lyric spontaneously decided to address ethnic authenticity in casting.

Responding to questions via e-mail, The Lyric’s artistic director Brandt Blocker described the origins of the dialogue and the group the theatre met with:

The two Latino actors who originally voiced concerns around the casting of WSS were invited. One is a local freelance actor (who has performed in a Lyric cabaret in our studio space, but never on our main stage) and the other is originally from the Atlanta area but currently lives/works in NYC (and had no prior affiliation of any kind with The Lyric). Prior to the meeting, we requested them to please invite others in the local Latino theatre community who they felt would want to participate in our discussion. Our understanding is they invited the artistic directors of another local theatre company, but unfortunately they did not/were not able to attend. The Lyric also invited and in attendance were our Latina WSS choreographer, our Latino WSS production assistant (who is also a local freelance actor), as well as an active local Latino freelance director/choreographer (who was not involved in the WSS production, but has directed/choreographed shows for The Lyric in the past).

Elsewhere in his response, Blocker said, “The Lyric has been in contact with the Latino community here in Atlanta throughout the entire production process.” As to the final statement as issued, Blocker wrote, “The statement was written by The Lyric along with input, feedback, and ultimately, blessing, from the members of the Latino community with whom we met.  It was intended by both parties to be a joint statement in the hopes of demonstrating the power of productive conversation when it comes to conversations regarding diversity and inclusivity in our industry.”

It might have made the statement even stronger had it been made clear that The Lyric was responding to concerned expressed from outside the theatre, rather than seeming to emerge unilaterally from within. Also, this is not solely a creative issue but one for the entire Latina/o community in this case, and ultimately for all communities of color in the Atlanta area. Going beyond the artists affiliated with the production and other Latina/o artists known to The Lyric’s artists, perhaps reaching out to more broad-based Latina/o organizations, would have insured the message went even father and that The Lyric benefited from even greater community knowledge.

In a review of comments on The Lyric’s Facebook page, one commenter asks what happened to a conversation about race and casting that had begun on one of their posts (that same commenter later praised the letter regarding future policy). Given that the only Facebook comments that remain in connection with West Side Story posts are positive or neutral, it’s impossible not to wonder whether members of the Latina/o community expressed their concerns there initially, vocally and emphatically, only to have that dialogue expunged.

Blocker responded to this, saying, “Several individuals on the Lyric’s FB page removed their comments that were attached to this post of their own accord, and as a result, any sub-comments attached to their posts were also deleted.  After our meeting last week with members of the Atlanta Latino theatre community, we mutually agreed to remove the original posting because the remaining comments, with so many pieces deleted, were fragmented and confusing to a reader who had not had the opportunity to read the entire thread as it originally unfolded.” However, the fact that any question remains on their page asking what happened to the dialogue suggests that while a defined group may have agreed to remove the conversation in the wake of the new statement, there were others who were not directly party to that meeting who were left feeling perhaps too much had been removed.

As a corollary to Blocker’s statement above about the origin of the new statement, other groups that opt to issue statements that speak to artistic policy regarding race should consider making very clear that the company leadership fully stands behind it it. The Lyric letter was posted without any signature and without any personal e-mail through which people might respond, only an “info@” address. The letter would carry even more weight if it were signed by Blocker and perhaps by the present board chair Paula Grothe. Then it would make absolutely clear that the policy has been discussed and agreed upon throughout the organization, and not only in response to a particular circumstance, even though the intention is clearly and laudably stated. Blocker writes that, “the staff, creative team, and board of directors have enthusiastically embraced this policy, which is set to be ratified by the Board at their next meeting on July 24th.”

Finally, while the run of the play was short (June 10 through 27) and it’s not clear when The Lyric first began to hear from the Latina/o community, acknowledging the new policy while the show was still running would have been a major step. Also, not releasing the statement at a time when many people had begun a long holiday weekend would have helped to bring attention to their new commitment.

These are meant as constructive criticisms, specifically because there’s so very much that is positive in The Lyric’s letter. Certainly The Lyric has put itself on the line and the creative community in the Atlanta area will surely hold them to to the standards now set. As for other companies evolving their thinking on this topic in response to artists, or proactively making clear their intentions without any inciting incident, they would do well to take full responsibility in every sentence of what they say. There’s no shame in admitting you’re wrong, and that you are committing to not repeating the same mistakes again, be it with the Latina/o, black, Asian, Native, LGBT, disability communities and artists – or any other.

P.S. One last tip for The Lyric: it may be wise to remove those photos of the “Indians” of Peter Pan from the company website. While you cannot deny your company’s history regarding ethnic and racial representation, making these particular images so readily available is at cross-purposes with your new policy.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School of Performing Arts and interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

As a result of their quixotic effort to secure the first high school performance rights to Hamilton, Wexford Collegiate School of the Arts’s Hamilton videos drew a great deal attention earlier this month, perhaps as much for being pulled from YouTube than from their short life online. A CBC video about Wexford’s efforts to gain the attention of the Hamilton team remains online, even though it contains material that was otherwise withdrawn from circulation due to claims of copyright infringement. That video has been seen much more widely than the original Wexford videos were, racking up many hundreds of thousands of views after being posted to Facebook by the CBC.

In the wake of the debate over the videos, Ann Merriam of Wexford Collegiate, who directed the Hamilton performances, responded to questions posed by Arts Integrity about the origin of the school’s Hamilton videos, and any public performances of the material. The questions were posed prior to the videos being removed from YouTube, with no anticipation that such action would necessarily take place.

Wexford students perform Hamilton on CityTV

Merriam said that the material from Hamilton was performed four times publicly, once at a show choir festival at the Etobicoke School for the Arts, once at a Benefit for Arts Education, and twice as part of the Wexford Variety Show. In addition to “Right Hand Man,” “Yorktown” and “Burn,” which appeared as videos, the songs “Alexander Hamilton,” “Guns and Ships,” and “You’ll Be Back” (identified by Merriam as “The King”) were also performed. In addition to the performance venues mentioned by Merriam, the students also performed on a program called “Breakfast Toronto” on the CityTV channel.

No specific budget for the performances was broken out by Merriam, who wrote, “Firstly, we are a public high school and don’t track costs by production. This project was all volunteers. I didn’t have any budget since it initially was not part of our programmed year.” However, Merriam did indicate that there were costume rentals both for the performances and for the video shoot (which was separate from the public performances), of “approximately $750-800” each time. In addition, Merriam wrote, “We paid $1,000 to a hip-hop artist to create original tracks.”

She explained that the cost of the rentals for the video shoot was covered by a group of parents from “People for Education,” since it fell outside of the school’s Variety Show activities. As for the director of the videos and the multiple choreographers, Merriam said they were all either volunteers or individuals who work regularly with the school on various assignments for small annual stipends. Approximately $1,200 was spent on equipment rentals for the video shoot.

Admission was charged to the Wexford Variety Show, where the six numbers were performed. Past shows have had a $20 (Canadian) ticket price. The 2016 price has not been confirmed. There were also tickets sold for the show choir event.

Given the furor that arose, there was commentary from many quarters. On the legal front, a post from Adam Jacobs, an attorney with Hayes eLaw in Toronto, was most helpful and informative, especially in regards to where US and Canadian copyright laws may differ. However, Jacobs was very clear about where Wexford had gone awry:

SOCAN’s tariffs do not, however, deal with the performance of a musical work in combination with acting, costumes and sets; these “grand rights,” which include many of the other protectable elements from Hamilton, would have to be licenced from the various creators of Hamilton. This leaves Wexford Collegiate in a scenario where, should they offer to pay the relevant SOCAN tariff to perform the musical compositions, they are able to publicly sing musical compositions from Hamilton, just without the accompanying characters, costumes, dialogue, staging or choreography….

Any reproduction of the Hamilton musical compositions, including any reproduction of the public performance of those musical compositions in order to post the video to YouTube, would require a private licencing agreement with the composer and music publisher….

Note, however, that even if one or more Canadian copyright exceptions were to apply, YouTube will apply American copyright law to determine whether there has been any infringement. It is likely that the US law would provide even less scope for the posting of such videos than Canadian law.

While Wexford Collegiate may have been ill-advised to perform musical compositions from Hamilton and post videos of the performances on YouTube, there were avenues available to the school to engage their students’ creativity while complying with Canadian copyright law.

The Dramatists Guild of America issued a statement on copyright in the wake of the Hamilton videos, without making specific comments about the Wexford situation. It read, in part:

When their work shows up in unauthorized productions, or on YouTube videos, it’s not just a matter of lost revenues. It is an infringement on the very nature of the dramatists’ authorship and a violation of their right to control their artistic expression. Even the non-commercial public use of their work by well-meaning fans, either on the internet or in amateur productions in their communities, can damage a show’s value in various markets, and it is a copyright violation under most circumstances. Most importantly, it undermines an author’s prerogative to decide when, where and how their work will be presented.

Finally, it is important to note that for every online commenter who castigated the Hamilton team for, apparently, asserting their copyright (“apparently” since the show has made no public statement on the situation to date), it seemed there was another commenter who took the students of Wexford to task, often quite unpleasantly, for their appropriation of copyrighted material. But what is clear from Merriam’s detailing of the context of the performances is that this was not a case of students going rogue, either in performing the material or sharing in hopes for more opportunity to perform Hamilton, but rather students participating in activities organized by and sanctioned by their school.

It is no surprise that the students were disappointed and confused when the videos were removed, because they were operating within the parameters they’d been given. Invective serves no purpose in clarifying this situation and bringing forward the proper practice for all to understand and learn from. Clearly that learning must come first for the faculty and administration of Wexford Collegiate, who from this point forward, will presumably operate within the guidelines of Canadian copyright law (and US law, where applicable) in all of the work presented by and at the school. Through them, successive classes of Wexford students must be taught what is and is not permissible, so that ultimately the students can preserve their own rights to earn a living from original work they create now and in the future.

CBC video about Wexford “Hamilton”

One final thought: as the school campaigned for attention, media outlets were, as is their nature, attracted to this story because it involved a hot show and talented kids. Save for the CBC, which acknowledged in its original report that these performances were unauthorized (but still embedded the YouTube videos and created their own from them), there seemed to be little thought by video, print or online outlets as to whether they were distributing material that violated copyright. Since they would presumably fight the appropriation of their own material, it’s a shame that reporters, editors and news directors didn’t look at this situation more critically, before playing a role in disseminating material that was not properly licensed for performance or recording.

Profiles Theatre, Chicago, in 2013 (Photo byEric Allix Rogers/Flickr)

The closure of a 50-seat theatre in Chicago, even one with a 28-year history of production, doesn’t typically become a topic of conversation nationally, let alone a subject for discussion internationally. But the shuttering of Profiles Theatre, announced by website and Facebook posts late on Tuesday evening, is a cautionary tale for anyone who makes theatre. Because Profiles Theatre didn’t shut its doors because of lost funding, dwindling attendance or poor management – the theatre is gone because it had, allegedly, condoned predatory and abusive behaviour on the part of one of its two artistic directors for many years.

On June 8, at 4:30pm Chicago time, the Chicago Reader posted an online story titled: “At Profiles Theatre the drama — and abuse — is real,” written by Aimee Levitt and Christopher Piatt. It was rapidly shared online throughout that evening and well into the next day. Described as being drawn from a year-long investigation that involved more than 30 interviews, the story carried accounts of reprehensible behaviour of Darrell W. Cox, co-artistic director, director and frequent lead actor at the company, which had often been praised by critics as being emblematic of the raw Chicago style. The article detailed a series of claimed transgressions towards women at the company, including allegations of manipulative sexual relationships and genuine physical abuse on stage during performances.

Save for an anodyne statement declining to discuss the charges, Profiles was silent. Two days later, after Penelope Skinner withdrew the rights to her play The Village Bike, which was to be the next production, Cox posted a statement to the company’s Facebook page. Neither materially challenging the assertions nor apologising for his behaviour, Cox bemoaned having been made into a villain, saying that those who knew him best knew the truth. Cox’s co-artistic director, Joe Jahraus, remained silent. Come Tuesday night, whether Profiles was unwilling or unable to offer any counterargument about what had occurred, they were gone. Just a week had passed. On the evening of June 15, responding via email to questions from the Chicago Tribune, Cox suggested his actions had been misinterpreted.

At the same time the main report was published, the Reader’s critic, Piatt, wondered in a separate essay whether he should have intuited an unhealthy culture at Profiles. Several days later, Chris Jones of The Chicago Tribune expressed his own regrets, via Facebook, about his own unwitting role in the Profiles story, a company he had praised often. Several women who had worked at Profiles, but had not been interviewed for the article, came forward, seeming to corroborate the behaviour it described.

The ‘storefront’ theatre community of Chicago, which would certainly be recognised as akin to fringe theatre in London, is intertwined with the larger, more fully professionalised companies in ways large and small companies might not mingle in other cities. Profiles had operated for much of its life as a non-Equity company, only coming under an Actors’ Equity agreement four years ago. While the Equity status offered actors at Profiles recourse against inappropriate behaviour, the Profiles ethos is said to have produced a culture of silence that was apparently whispered in the theatre community, but only emerged fully with the Reader story.

An issue this highlights is about how difficult it is for artists, especially young artists trying to make a place in the theatre community, to come forward when they face established, even acclaimed, artists who are abusing their positions. Further, when artists are working in situations without the protection of union agreements and without a clear place to go for help, they are at a particular disadvantage. The Reader exposé is an important step in empowering people to come forward, so that such a culture isn’t allowed to fester for as long as it may have at Profiles.

Not so coincidentally, an initiative called Not in Our House was begun in Chicago, specifically designed to develop resources for those working in the city’s extensive non-Equity theatre ecosystem. The rumours and whispers about Profiles were part of the impetus for the formation of NIOH, which back in February proffered a draft code of conduct for the non-Equity community, seeking input through crowdsourcing. Since the Profiles situation was blown open, NIOH is hearing from theatre communities around the country, and may well serve as a template for satellites or similar organisations.

In a week when most eyes were focused on the Tony Awards, Broadway and New York, Chicago’s theatre community was convulsed by the Profiles situation, and even with the theatre having suspended operations, any sense of closure is surely still in the distance for so many. But instead of being looked at as an anomaly, the Profiles story needs to provoke more conversation, even in theatre communities that might like to think everything is perfectly fine. Because we never know, until we know.

Wexford Collegiate “Hamilton” video via CBC

On the one hand, it’s hard not to admire the efforts of Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts in Scarborough, Canada, near Toronto. A teacher and her students made as thorough a pitch as possible to be the first high school to produce the musical Hamilton, seemingly having staged several elaborate numbers from the show in their effort to be recognized. While YouTube videos showed a only simple set, the lights, costumes and sound demonstrated how much time and effort was spent trying to get the attention of the creators of Hamilton, with full out performances of multiple numbers from the show.

There’s no doubt that pretty much every high school as well as college theatre troupe in the US and Canada (and perhaps even ones outside of North America) shares Wexford’s desire to produce Hamilton. There are numerous professional venues that are still trying to book the show, be it as a tour or sit-down production, and no doubt plenty of Equity and non-Equity companies would relish the opportunity to perform the musical.

Wexford Collegiate “Hamilton” video via CBC

Of course, Hamilton has connected with young people in a way probably unrivaled since Rent, making the pleas from young people particularly potent. We are living in the time of Hamilmania, as a single musical has captured the interest and imagination of theatregoers and non-theatregoers alike. Everyone wants a piece of Hamilton, or Hamilton itself.

On a practical level, it was always highly unlikely that Wexford’s efforts would succeed. At this point, Hamilton isn’t even confirmed for a professional Canadian debut, let alone a high school one. Performance rights have not been made available beyond official companies derived from the Broadway production. If permission were to be granted uniquely to Wexford, the outcry from high schools everywhere would be deafening.

Of greater concern is that the Wexford videos didn’t appear to be simply demos to make their case. An article from the CBC says, “They’ve [Wexford] already performed an unauthorized presentation of material from the show, parts of which were captured on video.” So there’s more than what YouTubers were seeing? How much of Hamilton was staged at Wexford?

The CBC spoke with the teacher behind the project, Ann Merriam:

“After seeing it the first time, I said to myself, ‘I’m going to see it again, I’m going to tell everyone I know to see it, and I’m going to introduce it to my kids and school and have them perform it,'” she told CBC News in an interview.

Merriam said her school’s performances of the show were “an unbelievably meaningful” experience for the kids.

This suggests something much fuller was presented at Wexford Collegiate, very possibly violating the copyrights of the very artists whose permission is being sought. It’s one thing to work on numbers from Hamilton in a class, but another if what took place rises to the level of performances, even if only in front of the school’s student body. Whether or not the “performances” were advertised or charged for, Wexford may well have crossed a line, and indeed may be teaching some very bad lessons about respecting copyright, even as they were asking permission to produce the show legitimately.

YouTube takedown notice

As of the evening of June 16, the same day the Wexford videos were first featured by the CBC, they were gone from YouTube, due to a copyright infringement claim. So if the goal was to get their appeal noticed, Merriam and her students succeeded, but not in the way they wanted. Perhaps the videos were scooped up preemptively by automated copyright protection services, but the jury’s out.

If much time and money were spent to produce this elaborate pitch, one can’t help but be concerned about the wisdom of the effort at all, both in the allocation of resources and the precedent of performing too much of the material to which the school was apparently fully aware it didn’t have the rights. If either Merriam or the CBC overstated what was actually performed, that’s unfortunate, but since the videos were not parodies or amateurish tributes by a handful of fans, they possibly went too far as recorded material. Arts Integrity both called and e-mailed Merriam before 11 am on the 16th, while the videos were still available, for more clarity on the project, but neither inquiry received a response.

Lin-Manuel Miranda has already said how much he looks forward to seeing Hamilton done by high school students, and you can’t blame Wexford for trying to be the first. However, in the process, the school became an object lesson for other high schools (or any theatre group) thinking of similar gambits, with Hamilton or any show not yet available for licensing. Artists control and are compensated from the works they create through copyright, and violating it is not the way to plead your case.

If you’re looking for critical consensus, you won’t find much of it in the new book The Critics Say…: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future (McFarland & Company, $35). That’s because the critics interviewed for the book by Matt Windman, himself a critic, have a wide variety of opinions about what it is they do, how they do it, why they do it and whether it will continue to be done.

Rather than devote a chapter to each critic, Windman organizes the book topically, so that even while the interviews were discrete, the critics’ thoughts begin to engage with one another on subjects from “Why We Exist” to “Regrets and Advice” through devised interplay. That’s useful, because transcribed speech often isn’t compelling to read, so by extracting themes, Windman is constantly changing up who is “speaking” at any given moment, creating rather more of a narrative than would otherwise be the case. Windman certainly threw out a wide net and reeled in many of the biggest fish, including both Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood from The New York Times.

If you go looking for gossip and backbiting in the book, you won’t find a great deal of it. Yes, Isherwood chides “those crazy queens on All That Chat,” and Brantley, who doesn’t use social media opines that it is “largely about” self-promotion. But the book is much more concerned with a sober-sided consideration of the place of the critic in the arts and journalism culture of today, and it provides a strong primer in the thoughts of those who practice criticism – or at the least what they’re willing to share on the record. Oh, there is a brief chapter devoted entirely to Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, but even there, the critics use the show as a pretext for discussing the power of critics, or lack thereof, in today’s society.

The book contains countless revealing insights into the minds of the people who shape public opinion of theatre, available almost by opening the book randomly to any page at all. A few choice thoughts:

“The critic is part of the theatre community, but he is the annoying guy at the part who’s telling everybody, ‘You look like shit.’” – Rob Weinert-Kendt, editor of American Theatre

“I tell students it’s a marvelous hobby, but I do not encourage them to pursue it as a career.” – Alexis Soloski, The New York Times, on advice to aspiring critics

“When I was on the Obies committee, I was told (though I think this was tongue-in-cheek) that the standard for conflict of interest is whether you slept with the person. Mine is that I can’t have been invited to their birthday party.” – Helen Shaw, Time Out New York

“One of the hardest critical jobs is the correct appropriation of praise and blame. Did this actor do this? Was it a directing choice? Did this flow from the play? Was the director absolutely doing that? A critic does not see the production process. To some degree the critic is trying to imbue the process.” – Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

“If there weren’t critics, people would have to depend on advertising. And advertising, by definition, almost always lies…” – John Simon, Westchester Guardian

Having begun my career as a publicist, albeit one who worked mostly in Connecticut, which short stays in Philadelphia and New York, I’ve had the occasion to know a great many critics, and the majority of the individuals in the book I know at least from reading, many from professional interactions and a few I consider friends. I’ve had the chance to discuss, debate and sometimes profoundly disagree with some of the critics in the book. Consequently, I can say that they come across just as they have across telephone line, social media and even a dinner table. Because of the timing of the book in 2016, I do find myself missing the presence of some of the critics with whom I worked most directly, and spoke with most often, from whom I learned so much, all of whom have now passed away: Mel Gussow of The New York Times, Howard Kissel of the New York Daily News and Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press.

While their absence is inevitable, there are a few major voices missing from the book, for reasons unknowable. While print may be shrinking or even dying, and online reviews are now widely accessible, making more criticism available to more readers than ever before, Mark Kennedy’s voice at the Associated Press has significant amplification and reach, through the many outlets that carry AP copy; he’s not in the book. On the west coast, which is generally underrepresented in the critical mix of the book, Charles McNulty at the Los Angeles Times is a major and influential writer about theatre not only in Los Angeles, but frequently in San Diego and New York as well. And Michael Feingold, the long-time – and once again – critic at the Village Voice has a historical perspective that is unfortunately not heard.

There’s one other voice I wish were included, that of Frank Rich, the former theatre critic of The New York Times, who is named multiple times in the book. Frank, unlike Gussow, Kissel and Kuchwara, is still with us, having gone on to write for the editorial pages of the Times and now as a political columnist for New York magazine (as well as being an executive producer of the TV series Veep). While his days as a designated critic may be gone, theatre has remained a part of Frank’s writing in the two decades since he left his post. His insight would have only added value to Windman’s book.

The book is not wholly New York-centric, with critics from the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Toronto Star and Austin Chronicle included, but it certainly skews to the America’s northeast. So while it’s problematic to draw any definitive conclusions about the critical community from the 57 critics represented, it’s worth noting that there are only nine female critics among the 57, and only two critics within – to the best of my knowledge – who are persons of color, highlighting the lack of gender and racial diversity in the critical ranks overall. The interviews don’t skirt this fact (though one critic mistakenly declares that Hilton Als is the only black theatre critic anywhere), but as an area of inquiry, discussion of how the lack diversity among critics affects audiences and artists is limited. It seems a missed opportunity.

Have I spent too much time talking about what I miss, rather than what’s in The Critics Say? I am perhaps guilty of doing so, but only because I have had the privilege of such conversations throughout my career and the book prompts me to want to ask yet more questions, both with the people in the book and those who aren’t. But that’s where Windman’s effort pays off, in assembling provocative conversations with people inaccessible to most readers and creating a strong platform for yet more discussion. In his preface, Windman cites two previous books that spoke with critics, from 1993 and 2004, but just as I miss hearing the opinions of those no longer with us and those who didn’t participate, perhaps this form of inquiry deserves to be undertaken once every decade or so, for the historical record, as criticism, theatre and the media continue to evolve.

Whatever the fate of theatre criticism is in the next ten years or the next hundred, The Critics Say is a worthy time capsule of where things are right now, and surely required reading in arts journalism and arts management classes. And for those you read theatre reviews and find yourself saying, “Who the hell wrote this?,” Windman’s book offers some answers about who did, and why.

Daveed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos and Lin-Manuel Miranda in Hamilton (Photo by Joan Marcus)

When it comes right down to it, the question isn’t whether people will pay outrageous sums of money to see Hamilton. It is who will benefit most from these stratospheric prices.

To be sure, ‘Hamilton’s top ticket increases to $849‘ is an eye opener of a headline, but considering ongoing accounts of people paying upwards of $1,000 per ticket on the secondary market, what such headlines were really taking note of was that the show itself would now be getting more of that revenue, instead of outlets like StubHub and Ticketmaster’s own resale service. With every commercial production having a fiduciary responsibility to its investors, it became almost untenable for the show’s producers to allow that much money to go to other parties, bypassing not only investors but the creators of the show as well.

The producers had previously conducted a repatriation of tickets that appeared to have been sold to scalpers in bulk via automated bots (which I’ve written about before, as has Hamilton writer Lin-Manuel Miranda). The show’s producers say they have now put in place measures to stymie such automated sales going forward, limiting purchases not only by customer but by IP address (which limits sales to individual computers or networks). But whenever there’s a valuable commodity that is scarce and undervalued, and Hamilton tickets have been both, there will be profiteers. Even these measures aren’t going to shut down the resale market. Perhaps it will at least put a dent in Hamilton’s, by reducing the aftermarket profits available.

Reportedly only 200 tickets will be sold at $849 per performance, and when I last went online to buy Hamilton seats a few weeks ago, I was already seeing original sale tickets at over $500. But no matter what, this is still a leap. To counter the inevitably outcry, the producers also expanded the daily online ticket lottery, making 46 tickets per performance available at $10 each, for those able to attend with little notice and the luck of the draw. Also noted was the show’s arrangement with the New York City Department of Education, whereby some 20,000 tickets were made available to schools at about $10 each, with the Rockefeller Foundation underwriting another $70 per ticket, still less than half the original asking price.

But as it has come to symbolise new musical and dramatic styles, as well as an embrace of diverse artists, Hamilton has also sadly come to represent the growing inaccessibility of Broadway, and indeed a great deal of professional theatre, from the widest possible audience. Even recognising the basic economic imperatives of supply and demand at play with Hamilton, it’s unfortunate that theatre has a new round of headlines that reinforce the idea of theatrical elitism and an economic divide, at the very time when so much of the field is waking up to the need for equity, diversity and inclusion on the stage and in the audience. Despite the move’s inevitability, it remains an unfortunate new price precedent. As someone who clearly recalls the outcry when The Producers introduced VIP pricing just 15 years ago, I’m quite sure it won’t be one that stands forever.

The expanded lottery and discounted school tickets notwithstanding, the Hamilton producers didn’t help matters when they made seats from the next block of tickets (January to May) available for exclusive sale for five days to holders of the very top tier American Express cards, fostering an elitism that contradicts the spirit of the show. As for why the tickets then go on sale to everyone this Sunday at 8pm, precisely when die-hard theatregoers begin watching The Tony Awards, it’s simply a mystery.

If the primary motivation behind the new record-setting ticket price for Hamilton was to depress the secondary sale market and undermine scalpers – less than a decade after Broadway industry leaders supported an end to caps on resale markups, helping pave the way to the current scenario – here’s a thought. Maybe some portion of the new revenue (which is at least $60,000 per performance, by my estimate) could fund a new Hamilton Foundation, literally enabling the show to fund its own outreach to communities which could otherwise not attend, perhaps even extending that largesse to other shows without the same means to underwrite discounted tickets. Then the Rockefeller Foundation could support yet other good works, rather than funnelling money to a commercial theatre production, however worthy it may be as art and education and however much it is discounted.

Hamilton was in a no-win situation, and perhaps with time they’ll figure out some new initiatives to balance out the impact of their new pricing structure. But as was the case with Book of Mormon, Jersey Boys and The Lion King, to name just a few, additional productions and time will slowly make it possible for more people to end up in one of the many rooms where Hamilton will be happening, without spending a month’s rent or mortgage payment for the privilege.