As theatre buffs know, there are two major musicals drawn from Joseph Moncure March’s The Wild Party, which debuted in New York within months of one another: the Michael John LaChiusa-George C. Wolfe version which played on Broadway in the spring of 2000, and Andrew Lippa’s version, which played Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club from February to April of that year. Drawn from the same source material, they inevitably have many roles in common.

Julia Murney as Queen and Taye Diggs as Black in Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party at Manhattan Theatre Club

One of the many roles shared by both shows is “Black,” first played by Taye Diggs in Lippa’s retelling of the story (and by Yancey Arias in the LaChiusa-Wolfe version). So there was significant pushback earlier this month when the Yale Dramatic Association, widely known as the Dramat, announced the cast for their fall production of the Lippa’s Wild Party, where the character is specifically identified as black. A white woman had been cast as Black.

The Dramat should not be confused with the Yale Repertory Theatre. The Rep is a professional company that also includes the work of Yale School of Drama graduate students onstage and off. The Dramat is an undergraduate club which actually predates the Rep by more than 50 years. While there is a great deal of undergraduate theatre at Yale, with many of the residential colleges each fostering their own dramatic groups, the Dramat, so far as student-run theatre at Yale goes, is perceived as the major player school-wide.

As reported by Joey Ye writing in the Yale Daily News, approximately 75 students auditioned for the Dramat’s Wild Party, with only nine students of color trying out. Two students of color were cast. While the Dramat’s club leaders indicated that they had done outreach to the performing communities of color at Yale, their efforts had limited success. Ye quoted the student producer saying that the Dramat had decided to proceed with the show, with a white female student as Black, after the director “re-visioned the entire show with the people we had in the room.”

Ye noted that the Dramat has only produced two works by artists of color in its history, one earlier this year and one in 1995. While that doesn’t speak to roles specifically requiring performers of color, or productions which may have cast students of color in roles traditionally played by white performers, it suggests, as students did in Ye’s initial report, that the Dramat has not historically been perceived as a group that embraced students of color.

On Tuesday, Ye reported again for the Yale Daily News about The Wild Party, writing that the Dramat had made the decision to reopen auditions and to recast the role of Black. Two other roles will also be recast, because two students chose to leave the production as a result of the uproar.

In a statement on the Dramat’s website, the student leaders of the group wrote, in part:

We also know that the circumstances surrounding casting represent a much larger problem, extending beyond this particular production and the Dramat as an organization. There are serious, systemic challenges to meaningful progress toward diversity and inclusion. Over the past week, members of the community have raised questions about effective forms of outreach, the audition room environment, the balance between pre-professional and educational programs, and the dispensing of information about auditions and opportunities for those outside of the theater community. These are difficult questions, and each merits its own in-depth discussion, which we are committed to pursuing in collaboration with the larger Yale community, as we all strive for a better, more inclusive space.

The standard contracts provided to student productions, as well as amateur and professional companies, typically contains language about making no changes to the gender or race of characters without prior permission from the licensing house on behalf of the authors. Drew Cohen, president of Music Theatre International, which represents The Wild Party, responded to an inquiry from Arts Integrity as to whether the company had played a role in the Dramat’s decision. While citing MTI’s policy of confidentiality regarding its customer communications, Cohen noted, “I do not know what prompted the group to hold new auditions.”

Contacted separately, author Andrew Lippa responded:

“I have had no hand in the casting at Yale (other than being the playwright!). I applaud these student producers’ efforts to recast their production per the character description in the script. I have always, and will always, support and defend the rights of living dramatic writers (and all plays still protected by copyright) in all casting decisions.

“I look forward to seeing (and celebrating) these students and their production of my show.”

The Yale Dramat has announced that their spring ’17 show will be Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Südwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915.  The original cast at Soho Rep in 2012 included three black actors and three white actors, in Sibblies’s backstage exploration of racial roles in the creation of a play drawn from African history.

Update, September 22, 11:45 am: This post has been edited to more clearly reflect Lippa’s intent that the role of Black in his version is to be played by a black actor, as it has been in its original production and in the Encores Off-Center concert.

This post will be updated should there be significant further developments.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative and interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

Russell Harvard and Susan Pourfar in David Cromer’s production of Nina Raine’s “Tribes” (photo by Craig Schwartz)

“Unfortunately, no deaf actors showed up to the auditions.”

The statement above was made yesterday in a public statement to the Deaf and hard of hearing community by Leslie Charipar, artistic director of Theatre Cedar Rapids in Iowa. It was issued in response to complaints that Charipar has received from the Deaf community at large about the theatre’s upcoming production of Nina Raine’s Tribes, which TCR has cast with hearing actors in the roles of Billy, who is deaf, and Sylvia, a young woman raised by Deaf parents who is now going deaf. The statement is in response to what Charipar calls “questions, complaints, rants, and vitriol against our production.”

The statement about “showing up” is not a unique one, as it has been used by various theatres in a variety of circumstances, when they say they are unable to cast roles authentically for race, ethnicity and disability, but forge ahead with a show regardless. It places the onus on people whose lived experience mirrors or approximates that of the role in question, blaming them for not “showing up” and, ostensibly, then absolves the producer for proceeding with casting solely from the pool of those who did, regardless of the specific requirements of the role.

Now it’s worth noting, as Charipar points out in her statement, that TCR is a community theatre. It casts locally and no actors are compensated. Indeed, many positions at TCR are volunteer, but based on online evidence, they’ve built a thriving company dating back 90 years. They offer ten productions a year ranging from Sister Act to The Flick, as well as programs for children and teens. The company is sufficiently sophisticated to operate on a budget that totals over $3 million annually in expenses; even if one removes the in-kind contribution of $750,000 for its venue, it’s still over a $2 million operation.

Having been entirely unaware of the company or issues surrounding its production of Tribes until Charipar’s statement began to be shared widely on social media, it’s difficult to assess all of the communication that has taken place to date. There are certainly many comments about the issue on the company’s Facebook page, though none there that I saw rose to the level of rants or vitriol, only passionate statements on behalf of the Deaf community and authenticity in casting. Certainly with a statement like Charipar’s being issued, surely a great deal of communication of all kinds led up to it. It’s important to acknowledge that some of the commenters I did see appeared to be making the assumption that TCR was a company that is hiring actors, rather than casting local amateurs, and which could have gone beyond their immediate community, engaging an actor from outside their metropolitan area.

But coming back to the statement about Deaf actors not showing up, Charipar writes, “It is our policy at TCR to cast from the pool of actors who auditioned. That is the only fair way to cast…that is the purpose of auditions.” She also writes, “I know that at least one organization that advocates on behalf of the deaf community was contacted to let them know that we were holding auditions for a show with a role for a deaf actor.”

Regardless of whether the theatre is amateur or professional, TCR is a major creative and entertainment resource for the Cedar Rapids community. Having produced Dreamgirls with a black cast, having cast an actress of Korean heritage as Christmas Eve in Avenue Q, it would seem to be incumbent upon them to make all necessary efforts to at least find a deaf actor for the role of Billy in Tribes. That means going beyond their usual policy of just casting who shows up, but really making a concerted effort to reach out to the Deaf community in their region.

TCR did put out a casting notice for late August auditions indicating that they were seeking, in their words, “two hearing impaired actors in their 20s, one male who can speak and sign, and one female who can speak and sign, or be able to perform with a hearing impaired accent.” But with performances beginning in October, presumably with rehearsals in September, they didn’t allow any extra time in the event that Deaf or hard of hearing actors didn’t materialize. If they had been committed to authentic casting, they might have worked further ahead of their usual schedule, and made their call for Deaf actors more vigorously.

The results of their casting call obviously led Charipar to the following questions in her statement:

“My question to you is: with no deaf actor in the role of Billy, should we just not do the play, thereby ending any conversation that this play or the controversy of our casting might bring? Or is it more valuable to do the play with the actors available so that we can talk about the issues confronting the deaf community?”

But earlier in the statement, Charipar made clear her priorities:

“It was a decision made in service to the show we have committed to do, to the audience who has already purchased tickets to this particular show, and to the actors who showed up to audition.”

Despite the artistic director’s intention to begin a conversation about the issues of the play, TCR neglected the real concerns of the very community they sought to explore through the theatre’s work. This is contrary to a central tenet held by many Deaf and disabled activists, “Nothing about us without us,” which is to say that they should be included whenever and wherever their lives are being explored or affected.

Since Charipar posed rhetorical questions, let me pose my own:

• Did TCR have ASL interpreters available at auditions and did it announce that interpreters would be present?
• If an insufficient number of black actors had auditioned for Dreamgirls, or no Asian actors had auditioned for Avenue Q, would TCR have proceeded with those productions using only the people who showed up? Does TCR differentiate between respect for communities of color and the Deaf and disability communities?
• Did TCR find hearing actors who sign, or will they need to engage an ASL consultant to train the actors who were cast (or, if being strictly accurate to the British setting, BSL)? If it’s the latter, does TCR understand that they will be asking the actors required to sign to perform in another language without actually speaking or comprehending that language, since ASL is not English?
• If there is an ASL or BSL consultant, who presumably works closely with individuals who are deaf or a broader Deaf community, what does that person think about training people to pretend to deafness?
• Has TCR made arrangements for open-captioned or sign interpreted performances, to ensure that no Deaf members of their community are excluded from experiencing the show, if they are willing to accept the casting?

The Theater Cedar Rapids production of Tribes is clearly going forward after weighing opinions for and against producing the play without authentically casting the role of Billy or Sylvia. That’s their right. But returning to the theme of having a conversation about the issues raised in the play, it’s fair to say that Theatre Cedar Rapids is already engaged in that conversation, though perhaps not in the way that they intended and not as soon as they intended. That’s the right of the Deaf community and those who support them.

Let’s hope that the result of this conversation is some real learning not simply at TCR, but in Cedar Rapids at large, about the Deaf and disabled community, and the many barriers that exist to their participation in the arts both as professionals and amateurs. This shouldn’t simply be a fleeting speed bump for TCR on the road to doing things the way they’ve always been done.

Update, September 14, 2016: Theatre Cedar Rapids has postponed their production of Tribes. In a statement, artistic director Leslie Charipar wrote, “In light of conversation among and feedback from the Deaf community and after a great deal of conversation and soul-searching with TCR staff, Tribes director David Schneider, and the cast of Tribes, TCR has decided to postpone our production of Tribes until we can gain the support of the Deaf community and collaborate with them in finding d/Deaf actors to play the deaf roles as well as ensure that we are portraying the deaf experience in an authentic and respectful way.”

Howard Sherman is the interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

In recent years, it’s been suggested that some companies and organizations have intentionally caused upset through a statement or product, only to quickly recant, for the express purpose of getting two press “hits” out of one incident, in the process demonstrating their responsiveness to their customers or the population at large. As a one-time publicist, admittedly in the lower-stakes world of not-for-profit theatre, I’ve never been entirely convinced that this is a valid or even calculated strategy, or that it benefits the “offender” in any way. Of course, in the current presidential election we’ve watched one candidate make incendiary and offensive statements and receive great press attention and outrage for doing so. The result there is that it appeals to a certain portion of the voting population and, while the candidate may “walk back” or “recalibrate” his statements, actual apologies are exceptionally rare.

Watching this sort of “offend-apologize” dynamic when it comes to the arts can be instructive, whether it’s the Old Navy t-shirts that crossed out “artist” in favor of “astronaut” or “president,” or the AT&T campaign that urged people to watch football at the theatre. In the former case, the product was dropped; in the latter, AT&T expressed their love for the “thespian community,” saying they meant “no disrespect,” but the ads actually continued after that.

The just-finished Labor Day weekend saw two examples of affronts to the arts community. The better known example was the Wells Fargo “Teen Day” campaign, which used “ballerina” and “actor” as the abandoned pursuits of teens, in favor of current interests as “botanist” and “engineer.” While the Wells Fargo campaign did allow for something else to come along in the future, the fact that it didn’t offer anything but the arts as being in the past yielded an avalanche of outcry, and as awareness peaked on Saturday, Wells Fargo offered an apology late in the afternoon (east coast time).

Somewhat less noticed was the dismay over a casting notice from San Francisco mainstay Beach Blanket Babylon, shared online by monologist Mike Daisey, which stated that while “historically we have used performers whose facial features make them appear conventionally Caucasian,” “all ethnicities are welcome to audition.” They generously noted that “If you don’t [fit their description], your voice and stage presence could change our minds.” This is tantamount to saying, “white people preferred, but hey, people of color, if you go above and beyond, you may get a shot.”

To those who say that artists have the right to cast whom they choose, I will absolutely agree, but doing so in a way that is patently discriminatory is not OK. It’s all the more puzzling since the notice, so far as it was disseminated by Daisey, doesn’t actually describe any characters (performers double, triple, quadruple and more in BBB) – and the show has clearly hired artists of color in the past. But BBB pulled the casting notice within a day and issued their own apology.

The Wells Fargo and BBB apologies are worth looking at closely, because there’s a distinction between them. The bank’s mea culpa read, “Wells Fargo is deeply committed to the arts, and we offer our sincere apology for the initial ads promoting our September 17 Teen Financial Education Day. They were intended to celebrate all the aspirations of young people and fell short of that goal. We are making changes to the campaign’s creative that better reflect our company’s core value of embracing diversity and inclusion, and our support of the arts. Last year, Wells Fargo’s support of the arts, culture and education totaled $93 million.” Note the phrases “sincere apology” and “making changes to better reflect our company’s core value.”

Whether you think the ads should have ever gotten through in the first place, the statement is reasonably definitive. There’s no waffling. I know I won’t be alone in watching for new materials, although there are currently flyers with the old language in Wells Fargo outlets around Manhattan and presumably the country. Will they all be recycled today and new ones rushed to offices around the country? After all, Teen Day is less than two weeks away.

What you find on the Bleach Blanket Babylon site instead of their casting notice

The apology from BBB is rather less absolute. “We apologize to anyone who may have been offended,” it reads, “by the audition notice that was posted on our website. Beach Blanket Babylon was founded on the principle of poking fun but never offending anyone and we hold these principles true today. We have removed the audition notice from our site and promise to be more sensitive in the future.” This statement deploys the worst kind of “non-apology apology,” in that it is only sorry that some people were offended. It doesn’t actually take ownership for what it did, and places responsibility on those who were upset. Are they sorry for what they wrote, for the sentiments expressed, or only sorry that it bothered some people?

Even though BBB says they’ll try to be “more sensitive,” all they’re really saying is that they won’t be so boneheaded in the future. That this took place in a city that has been at the forefront of diversity is particularly startling. Just because BBB pulled the notice quickly over a holiday, and because it wasn’t quite the national cause celebre that Wells Fargo’s gaffe became, doesn’t mean they should be allowed to skate on this.

The “we’re sorry if you’re offended” construction is oft-floated, and I’ve had it thrown at me directly in my role at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts. When a prominent critic wrote about Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan in the recent Broadway revival, they repeatedly used the word “cripple,” which is deeply offensive to people with disabilities, throughout their review, and not simply when referring to the title of the play. When I conveyed the fact that the term was an affront to many, and that even the character in the play objects to it, I was told that since the play used the word, so could the critic. “I’m sorry if any of your group was offended,” was the response, as if I was representing some fringe opinion, ignoring the millions of people with disabilities in the country who might see things my way.

The BBB notice has a corollary in a recent casting notice from City Center’s “Encores!,” for its upcoming “concert version” of The Golden Apple. While the construct of Encores! shows being concerts, as opposed to relatively simple, quickly rehearsed productions, is largely in the past, one might think that it still affords the opportunity to cast with less concern for appearances than the average full production. But when “Encores” posted a casting notice that repeatedly emphasized they were “not looking for heavy character actresses,” they were called out quickly thanks to actor Kirsten Wyatt (saying “Pretty sure #Encore is saying no fat checks. Fat men – feel free to audition”). Again, an apology, with the offending phrases removed, but it was impossible not to be aware of the bias at play.

The Wells Fargo, AT&T and Old Navy disrespect isn’t exactly new, and while some claim it may be inadvertent, it belies an attitude towards the arts that says they’re dispensible, or easily treated as the butt of jokes. It’s fair to acknowledge that ads are intended first and foremost to sell a product, not to be arts advocacy. But let’s remember that Misty Copeland’s Under Armour spot was a sensation precisely because it championed an artist not as some silly nerd, but a paragon of skill. It’s a shame the Madison Avenue folks can’t get the message about valuing the arts more generally. It’s still too much about the cool kids making the arts nerds the butt of their jokes.

As for these casting notices that seem blithely unaware or uninterested in the offense they give, that’s even more shameful. We hear a great deal about the arts being a big tent and embracing talent first and foremost, yet casting notices seem to periodically reveal fundamentally exclusionary sentiments. Perhaps its better to hear about them than not, so they can be called out for what they are, but if the result is simply to cause producers, casting directors and the like to employ better language to mask their intent, the field isn’t exactly advancing, is it? If we expect others to portray our field with respect, admiration and value, we need to do better too.

Update, September 7, 7 am: Late yesterday afternoon (west coast time), Beach Blanket Babylon issued a second apology regarding their casting notice, more detailed and definitive than the first. It appears below.

In recent years, it’s been suggested that some companies and organizations have intentionally caused upset through a statement or product, only to quickly recant, for the express purpose of getting two press “hits” out of one incident, in the process demonstrating their responsiveness to their customers or the population at large. As a one-time publicist, admittedly in the lower-stakes world of not-for-profit theatre, I’ve never been entirely convinced that this is a valid or even calculated strategy, or that it benefits the “offender” in any way. Of course, in the current presidential election we’ve watched one candidate make incendiary and offensive statements and receive great press attention and outrage for doing so. The result there is that it appeals to a certain portion of the voting population and, while the candidate may “walk back” or “recalibrate” his statements, actual apologies are exceptionally rare.

Watching this sort of “offend-apologize” dynamic when it comes to the arts can be instructive, whether it’s the Old Navy t-shirts that crossed out “artist” in favor of “astronaut” or “president,” or the AT&T campaign that urged people to watch football at the theatre. In the former case, the product was dropped; in the latter, AT&T expressed their love for the “thespian community,” saying they meant “no disrespect,” but the ads actually continued after that.

The just-finished Labor Day weekend saw two examples of affronts to the arts community. The better known example was the Wells Fargo “Teen Day” campaign, which used “ballerina” and “actor” as the abandoned pursuits of teens, in favor of current interests as “botanist” and “engineer.” While the Wells Fargo campaign did allow for something else to come along in the future, the fact that it didn’t offer anything but the arts as being in the past yielded an avalanche of outcry, and as awareness peaked on Saturday, Wells Fargo offered an apology late in the afternoon (east coast time).

Somewhat less noticed was the dismay over a casting notice from San Francisco mainstay Beach Blanket Babylon, shared online by monologist Mike Daisey, which stated that while “historically we have used performers whose facial features make them appear conventionally Caucasian,” “all ethnicities are welcome to audition.” They generously noted that “If you don’t [fit their description], your voice and stage presence could change our minds.” This is tantamount to saying, “white people preferred, but hey, people of color, if you go above and beyond, you may get a shot.”

To those who say that artists have the right to cast whom they choose, I will absolutely agree, but doing so in a way that is patently discriminatory is not OK. It’s all the more puzzling since the notice, so far as it was disseminated by Daisey, doesn’t actually describe any characters (performers double, triple, quadruple and more in BBB) – and the show has clearly hired artists of color in the past. But BBB pulled the casting notice within a day and issued their own apology.

The Wells Fargo and BBB apologies are worth looking at closely, because there’s a distinction between them. The bank’s mea culpa read, “Wells Fargo is deeply committed to the arts, and we offer our sincere apology for the initial ads promoting our September 17 Teen Financial Education Day. They were intended to celebrate all the aspirations of young people and fell short of that goal. We are making changes to the campaign’s creative that better reflect our company’s core value of embracing diversity and inclusion, and our support of the arts. Last year, Wells Fargo’s support of the arts, culture and education totaled $93 million.” Note the phrases “sincere apology” and “making changes to better reflect our company’s core value.”

Whether you think the ads should have ever gotten through in the first place, the statement is reasonably definitive. There’s no waffling. I know I won’t be alone in watching for new materials, although there are currently flyers with the old language in Wells Fargo outlets around Manhattan and presumably the country. Will they all be recycled today and new ones rushed to offices around the country? After all, Teen Day is less than two weeks away.

What you find on the Bleach Blanket Babylon site instead of their casting notice

The apology from BBB is rather less absolute. “We apologize to anyone who may have been offended,” it reads, “by the audition notice that was posted on our website. Beach Blanket Babylon was founded on the principle of poking fun but never offending anyone and we hold these principles true today. We have removed the audition notice from our site and promise to be more sensitive in the future.” This statement deploys the worst kind of “non-apology apology,” in that it is only sorry that some people were offended. It doesn’t actually take ownership for what it did, and places responsibility on those who were upset. Are they sorry for what they wrote, for the sentiments expressed, or only sorry that it bothered some people?

Even though BBB says they’ll try to be “more sensitive,” all they’re really saying is that they won’t be so boneheaded in the future. That this took place in a city that has been at the forefront of diversity is particularly startling. Just because BBB pulled the notice quickly over a holiday, and because it wasn’t quite the national cause celebre that Wells Fargo’s gaffe became, doesn’t mean they should be allowed to skate on this.

The “we’re sorry if you’re offended” construction is oft-floated, and I’ve had it thrown at me directly in my role at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts. When a prominent critic wrote about Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan in the recent Broadway revival, they repeatedly used the word “cripple,” which is deeply offensive to people with disabilities, throughout their review, and not simply when referring to the title of the play. When I conveyed the fact that the term was an affront to many, and that even the character in the play objects to it, I was told that since the play used the word, so could the critic. “I’m sorry if any of your group was offended,” was the response, as if I was representing some fringe opinion, ignoring the millions of people with disabilities in the country who might see things my way.

The BBB notice has a corollary in a recent casting notice from City Center’s “Encores!,” for its upcoming “concert version” of The Golden Apple. While the construct of Encores! shows being concerts, as opposed to relatively simple, quickly rehearsed productions, is largely in the past, one might think that it still affords the opportunity to cast with less concern for appearances than the average full production. But when “Encores” posted a casting notice that repeatedly emphasized they were “not looking for heavy character actresses,” they were called out quickly thanks to actor Kirsten Wyatt (saying “Pretty sure #Encore is saying no fat checks. Fat men – feel free to audition”). Again, an apology, with the offending phrases removed, but it was impossible not to be aware of the bias at play.

The Wells Fargo, AT&T and Old Navy disrespect isn’t exactly new, and while some claim it may be inadvertent, it belies an attitude towards the arts that says they’re dispensible, or easily treated as the butt of jokes. It’s fair to acknowledge that ads are intended first and foremost to sell a product, not to be arts advocacy. But let’s remember that Misty Copeland’s Under Armour spot was a sensation precisely because it championed an artist not as some silly nerd, but a paragon of skill. It’s a shame the Madison Avenue folks can’t get the message about valuing the arts more generally. It’s still too much about the cool kids making the arts nerds the butt of their jokes.

As for these casting notices that seem blithely unaware or uninterested in the offense they give, that’s even more shameful. We hear a great deal about the arts being a big tent and embracing talent first and foremost, yet casting notices seem to periodically reveal fundamentally exclusionary sentiments. Perhaps its better to hear about them than not, so they can be called out for what they are, but if the result is simply to cause producers, casting directors and the like to employ better language to mask their intent, the field isn’t exactly advancing, is it? If we expect others to portray our field with respect, admiration and value, we need to do better too.

Update, September 7, 7 am: Late yesterday afternoon (west coast time), Beach Blanket Babylon issued a second apology regarding their casting notice, more detailed and definitive than the first. It appears below.

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.

The casting of the upcoming production of In The Heights at Porchlight Music Theatre in Chicago, in particular the hiring of a non-Latinx actor for the leading role of Usnavi, has provoked a great deal of comment and controversy in that community and beyond. In response, on August 9, Victory Gardens Theatre hosted a public forum, organized by ALTA, the Association of Latinx Theatre Artists of Chicago, “The Color Game: whitewashing Latinx stories.” It 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; reports 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 from Arts Integrity (here and here) as the situation unfolded, and a commentary by Arts Integrity director Howard Sherman, writing in his 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 to clarify Miranda’s position, Arts Integrity was in touch 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, Miranda wrote, referencing Hudes’s comments in the the article, “I honestly can’t improve on her words. She speaks for us both.” Additionally, Yew reports that he had received an e-mail from Miranda backing the statement.

Hudes’s full statement, the excerpts from her American Theatre interview, as she provided it 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.

Margaret Hughes

It is quite possible that, when the English stage was officially opened up to allow women to perform alongside men, most likely in 1660 when Margaret Hughes played Desdemona, some argued against it, on the grounds that young boys had been successfully been playing women for years, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. After all, only 30 years earlier, a French touring troupe met with disdain for daring to employ women, and even once English women were permitted to act, men did not immediately cease playing women’s roles.

Ira Aldridge

When Ira Aldridge became the first black actor to find fame on the stages of Europe, having left America, which offered him no opportunity, there were at first people who took exception to the breaking of the color line, feeling that blackface had been more than sufficient for the portrayal of non-white characters and that a black man speaking the words of Shakespeare was “blasphemous.” One critic wrote that “with lips so shaped that it is utterly impossible for him to pronounce English,” while another objected to his leading lady being “pawed about on the stage by a black man.”

Phyllis Frelich

After Phyllis Frelich won a Tony Award in 1979 for Children of a Lesser God, might some have dismissed her honor as resulting from a sympathy vote because she was a deaf woman playing a deaf woman, or that her achievement was somehow less simply because she used sign language, which was how she communicated every day? After all, one critic, praising Frelich, took note of her “affiliction.”

Invented scenarios? Only in part. And certainly none are implausible, at distances of hundreds of years or just a few decades. They are, after all, representations of the breaking of a status quo, the altering of a dominant narrative, and the much too easy ways of diminishing significant achievements at the time that they happened.

The stage remains a place where certain practices, steeped in tradition, persist. Despite being seen by many as a bastion of liberals and progressives, the arts are dominated by white Eurocentric men, whether it comes to the stories being told or the people placed in the positions of authority who are charged with making work happen. While the not-for-profit arts community has begun in recent years to explore equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives designed to give voice to a broader range of gender, race, ethnicity and disability, the field is still dominated by white structures and white professionals “opening doors” to other stories.

That’s not to be dismissive of those efforts, but only a means of contextualizing them and reflecting how nascent they still are in so many places. Let’s not forget, it was only in 2015 that the Metropolitan Opera dropped using blackface on the actor playing the title role in Otello, an original Broadway musical featured an all-Asian cast, an actor with a mobility disability in life originated a role in a Broadway production using a wheelchair. How was it possible that this hadn’t happened sooner?

The changes on our stages, the efforts to assert of a broad range of identity where it was previously denied, is reflective of society as a whole. While it has been 51 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and 26 years since the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, there are still legal battles being fought to insure and protect their full and proper implementation. However, in the past decade, with the rise of social media, advocates for change have had the opportunity to make their cases ever more swiftly and directly, without adjudication by the media as to what concerns will be permitted to reach a critical mass of awareness, with people driving the story, not the story driving the people.

As efforts towards fairer and truer representations of racial and ethnic identity in theatre have resulted in particular shows becoming flashpoints – with The Mikado in Seattle and New York, with The Mountaintop at Kent State, with Evita and In The Heights in Chicago, The Prince of Egypt in the Hamptons and so many more – one of the more frequent and derisive responses has been, “It’s called acting.” That is to say, ‘Oh, it’s all make believe,’ all little more than ‘let’s pretend,’ and as such shouldn’t be held to the same scrutiny or standard as say, the make-up of juries or the population of schools. It says that since the discipline is about taking on a persona, the reality of the person doing so shouldn’t be considered, shouldn’t matter. The phrase condescends to anyone who dares think otherwise.

Those who would reduce efforts toward equity in the arts might wish to isolate them as being the result of identity politics or political correctness. The “it’s called acting” claim is, make no mistake about it, an argument for the status quo, for tradition, for the denial of opportunity, for erasing race. It expresses the thinking that gives awards to people who pretend to be disabled on stage and screen, while making it difficult for people with disabilities to attend cultural events, let alone be a participant in creating them. It is the mentality that loves West Side Story, but cries foul when songs sung by characters who speak Spanish are translated into and performed in Spanish.

“It’s called acting” is the response of those who perceive their long-held dominance, their tradition, as threatened, their own position as being at risk. “It’s called acting” sustains systemic exclusion. After all, as the saying goes, “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality looks like oppression.” Privilege abounds in the arts, on stage, backstage and in the seats.

If we lived in a society, a country, where everyone was indeed equal in opportunity, then the arguments for paying heed to the realities of race, ethnicity, gender and disability might be concerns that could be set aside. But that’s far from the case, and if the arts are to be anything more than a palliative, they must think not just of artifice, but also about the authenticity and context of what they offer to audiences.

For the arts to survive, they must move forward, lest they become antiquated. In a society where the balance of ethnicity and race is shifting, it is incumbent upon the arts to at last fully welcome and support all voices and allow them to portray and tell their stories as well as the stories of others, instead of being forced to assimilate into some arbitrarily evolved template. There should to be an acknowledgment of how the lived experience can contribute to the arts, rather than denying its presence or validity, along the lines of the canard, “I don’t see color.”

There is no absolute in the arts, no definitive good or bad, right or wrong. The act of creation and the response to that act exist simultaneously in the eye of the creator and beholder (the audience). Consequently, the arts give rise to phalanxes of arbiters at almost every level – teachers, directors and artistic directors, and critics – who seek to guide and even control training, practice and opinion, each in their own way. When those arbiters have disproportionate influence, or in fact become gatekeepers, they assume a greater responsibility, one that goes beyond themselves into the field as a whole. How they are empowered, what they believe, becomes essential to sustaining – or diminishing – the arts.

When it comes to respect and recognition, diversity and inclusion, there is a new arts narrative being written right now. Within that process there are progressives making change, late adopters who are coming to understand, and reactionaries who want to hold on to the past. If we believe that art has value, so do the ethics and process of making it. Being unaware, or worse still, dismissive of how the arts are changing and how the arts reflect society, would keep the field trapped at a moment in time, one already mired in the past, as the world advances. That’s the road to irrelevance, which the arts cannot afford.

Howard Sherman is interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

Subsequent to Arts Integrity exploring the Porchlight Music Theatre’s casting of their forthcoming production of In The Heights, as well as Hedy Weiss’s article for the Chicago Sun-Times (detailed in Race, Spoken and Unspoken, in Chicago Cast Announcement), other voices weighed in on the issue of authenticity in casting. They added details that weren’t all apparent to someone outside the Chicago theatre community, as well as commentary on the situation.

Trevor Boffone, a professor at the University of Houston and Ph.D. in Hispanic studies, wrote about the situation on his website, asserting that the cast features “a white actor playing Miranda’s theatrical doppelganger Usnavi, the musical’s main character,” going on to write:

This casting decision gentrifies a show that is about a community fighting against gentrification. Evidently, Porchlight fails to comprehend the lived realities of Latin@s all across the nation who face many of the issues seen in Miranda and Hudes’ musical. This especially rings true when a white man is cast as Usnavi. These roles were written by Latin@s for Latin@ actors. The Latin@ community wants their stories told, but in an ethical way that speaks with the community in question. To gentrify In the Heights is to completely miss the point of the musical.

Tommy Rivera-Vega, a Chicago area actor who had auditioned for the Porchlight production, wrote in a public Facebook post:

I understand that you cast some Latinxs in the show (people that I have worked with before, respect their work, and love.) But when the person actually narrating the story is not Latinx, you are creating an atmosphere, an ecosystem, a perfectly created barrio around him, where the white folks behind it can now feel safe telling our story. You are essentially “building a wall.” Not giving us a chance….

By casting a non-Latinx Usnavi, and not even having an overwhelming Latinx support in the Production team, the backbone of the show suffers, because it was never lived. Being a Latinx will turn into devising what being Latinx is, instead of just being it. You have essentially gentrified Lin-Manuel Miranda’s gentrification masterpiece.

*   *   *

Asked about the ethnicity of the actors cast in many of the show’s leading roles, Porchlight provided a statement through their press representative, which reads:

While Porchlight specifically encouraged artists who self-identified as Latinx to audition for In the Heights both in our AEA and non union audition announcements; we did not invite nor require potential employees to state their racial self-identification as part of our hiring practices. Even if we knew for certain an artists’ self-identification (of any qualification) we do not feel it is appropriate to violate the confidentiality of their privacy.

When it comes to the subject of inquiring about ethnicity in any casting process, Porchlight makes an important point, which can be stated even more emphatically: while the company neither invited or required actors to state their ethnicity, they legally can’t. To do so would violate antidiscrimination laws in regards to hiring, where subjects such as race and ethnicity, as well as age, sexual orientation, and medical status, are off-limits. However, that doesn’t prevent a producer, theatre company, director or casting director from proactively seeking actors of a specific ethnicity (or gender, or disability) and inviting them to audition.

Writing at fnewsmagazine, “a journal of arts, culture, and politics edited and designed by students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,” Jose T. Nateras explains:

The truth of the matter is, often, actors of color aren’t able to get an audition in the first place. For instance, Porchlight makes audition appointments available through a website that has only so many audition slots open for signing up on a first-come-first serve basis. It is well known that these slots fill up fast and whether or not the roles looking to be filled are for actors of color, a large portion go to white actors.

Granted, these are actors who, very understandably, want a chance to audition for one of the more respected musical theater companies in Chicago. An actor’s agent can submit them for auditions, or they can self-submit, but it is ultimately up to the casting department of a theater to call actors in from the many submissions they receive. So, yes, casting does come from the pool of actors who audition, but when you’re in control of who is in that pool, that’s not an excuse.

*   *   *

“…I immigrated from the single

Greatest little place in the Caribbean,

Dominican Republic.

I love it.”

– from In The Heights

The casting notice provided by Porchlight to the Casting Call portion of the Actors Equity website (the company hires both Equity and non-Equity performers) did state, “Especially seeking actors/actresses who identify as Latino.” However, the same posting, as is standard for Equity listings, also carried non-discrimination boilerplate, “Performers of all ethnic and racial backgrounds are encouraged to apply.”

Even Hamilton, praised for its diverse cast, got into trouble when it sought “non-white” actors, because such a notice violated non-discrimination hiring laws. But one way of addressing intentionality in ethnic casting, in being “color-conscious,” is to specify the race or ethnicity of the characters, not the actors.

It’s worth noting that when the AEA posting was used by Backstage as the basis for their own notice of the casting of Heights at Porchlight, the specific character breakdown repeatedly noted, under ethnicity, “all ethnicities,” which translates the non-discrimination language on the AEA website into the misleading suggestion that, unless otherwise noted, the characters themselves can be of any ethnicity. In an e-mail to Arts Integrity, Luke Crowe, casting vice-president at Backstage, explained, “With Equity listings, we also default to the inclusive ranges (all ethnicities, all ages 18+, etc.) unless the Equity listing specifically defines narrower criteria.”

While three of the more detailed character descriptions as provided to Equity by Porchlight mention ethnicity – Usnavi “dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic,” Abuela Claudia “moved from Cuba to New York,” Carla is “of Chilean, Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican descent – the others don’t address it, save for Benny, who is “not Hispanic.” This contrasts with the current casting notice for an upcoming production at Theatre Under the Stars in Houston, which at the start of the descriptions of the major characters in their breakdown, notes them as, “Usnavi, male, 20s, Dominican,” “Nina, female, 19, first generation Puerto Rican,” “Kevin, male, 40s, Puerto Rican,” and so on. While the published edition of the Heights script does not list ethnicity on its cast of characters page, the specific ethnicities are evident within the script itself, and even the back cover describes the setting as “a tight-knit Latin American community.” The clearer the breakdown, the stronger the call for the specific actors being sought.

*   *   *

Last fall saw questions raised and indeed controversy in connection with issues of authenticity in casting of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop in a community theatre production at Kent State University and a theatre department production of Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India, which was ultimately canceled, at Clarion University. In the wake of those incidents, In The Heights composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda went on record about his position over what should guide producers and directors in casting roles that call for specific races and ethnicities.

“My answer is: authorial intent wins. Period,” Miranda said, going on to emphasize that, “In every case, the intent of the author always wins. If the author has specified the ethnicity of the part, that wins.”

As part of the same interview, although previously unpublished, Miranda spoke of his intent in writing In The Heights. Having previously noted that West Side Story is populated by Latino gang members, he said:

“One of the impulses that went into the writing of Heights was, like, I don’t see a world in which I can play a part in musical theatre. There’s nothing existing. In the Heights was my way of writing something that had lots of roles for Latinos.”

*   *   *

In the struggle for equity in arts, across gender, racial, ethnic, disability and other communities which have seen choices default too often to white, Eurocentric males, there are many traditions, habits, practices and in some cases outright discrimination to be addressed. Exploring a single situation at a small theatre in Chicago is not meant to vilify that company, but only to highlight how challenging it seems to be for so many to move to a place of true diversity and equity, where stories that involve race and ethnicity are told with those elements intact, in addition to welcoming diverse artists into the telling of stories that were originally created by and for white artists. Only by looking at what has happened in the past and what is taking place today can we find our way to a fairer future – and a future where the voices of those creating work for today and many tomorrows can be heard and respected, even when they’re not in the room or even on the phone, checking to see that their intent has been understood and properly represented.

*   *   *

Addendum, July 27, 4:00 pm: Arts Integrity received the following statement from Porchlight Music Theatre, approximately five hours after this piece first went online. It reads, in its entirety:

To our colleagues in the Chicago Theatre community, please know that we at Porchlight Music Theatre have been intently listening to and have clearly received the messages of concern regarding our upcoming production of In the Heights. 

The thoughts that have been expressed are accepted with the utmost seriousness and consideration, and we humbly wish to contribute to this needed conversation.

In the casting of In The Heights, as with all productions at Porchlight, we did not invite nor require potential employees to state their racial self-identification as part of our casting and hiring process. All actors who attended were considered based solely on the content of their audition.

Our continual objective is to create and encourage an environment of inclusion in all our work here at Porchlight Music Theatre.

Moving forward, we are committed to expand our efforts in regard to inclusion and representation as well as furthering our relationships with the diverse talent and institutions that make up the Chicago Theatre community.

Addendum, July 29, 2:00 pm: In the wake of the casting conversations about the production, Michael Weber, artistic director of Porchlight, provided the following expanded statement to the website PerformInk, elaborating on their prior comments. Jason Epperson, publisher of PerformInk, told Arts Integrity that the site already had a four-part series on In The Heights in the works, with the first part always planned to focus on casting, when the controversy developed. This statement is reproduced with PerformInk’s permission.

We at Porchlight Music Theatre, as a company and as individuals, are deeply committed to being inclusive in all aspects of the organization. We acknowledge and apologize to the Chicago theatre community and the Latinx community as a whole for disappointment in the hiring of our IN THE HEIGHTS cast and production team, and for frustration that has been caused by the slowness of our fuller public response. We agree that we could have done a better job in making a public statement more quickly. We have been carefully paying attention to the conversations and assimilating them with the utmost consideration. During this time we have also been actively implementing many of the constructive ideas and suggestions that have been offered to us through social media and by email.

From the beginning, our casting approach was to hire an acting company that genuinely represented the community of characters as described in the play. We advertised in a transparent way with the intention of especially inviting actors who identify as Latinx to audition. There was an extremely large turnout, including many actors who had never auditioned at Porchlight before.

As is common knowledge, in the casting process we found ourselves at the heart of the challenge of how to hire a potential employee without crossing legal or privacy boundaries that would result in someone being denied employment based solely on their race. We found ourselves at the epicenter of the debate, “how can you know for sure when you cannot ask?”

There has been much conversation around the suggestion to do research and “ask around.” Prior to auditions, we did reach out to several noted Latinx artistic leaders in the community for guidance. All suggestions on avenues to post our casting notices were implemented. All suggested actors were invited to attend auditions. And during the audition process, we did ask around regarding actors we were interested in casting, but whose ethnicity we were unsure of, in order to gain as much insight as we could. However, that information often proved inconsistent and thus unreliable, with the only definitive means being to ask the actor directly as a condition of employment.

So, at the moment of decision, when an actor is in front of you, giving an excellent audition, and of whose ethnicity you are just not precisely sure, what do you do? From the information we were able to gather we moved forward with the actors who gave the best auditions, believing we couldn’t absolutely know their definite ethnic heritage without violating a boundary. We know now we could have done better.

Only post hiring did we learn conclusively that not all cast members self-identify as Latinx and that the fine actor playing “Usnavi,” Jack DeCesare, is actually of Italian descent. We want to be very clear that the responsibility for hiring Jack is wholly ours, not his. This excellent young actor merely showed up for an audition. And he did his job well. Our job was to assemble a company for a work that has unique casting responsibilities. We fell short.

We absolutely stand by the cast and creative team that has been hired for this production, but we recognize that more must be done to assure a truthful dramatic representation of this work, as well as how we at Porchlight approach diverse and representative casting in the future.

To this end we have reached out again to diversity and cultural leaders, including The Chicago Inclusion Project, The Latina and Latino Studies department of Northwestern University, The Latin American and Latino Studies Department at DePaul University, Latinx theatre professionals in our community, and others to obtain suggestions of cultural consultants that we can add to the creative team to assure the best representation of the nuances of the work and the community being represented in it.

Further, we plan to expand our already planned post-performance discussion series by inviting many of the voices who have expressed themselves on social media or to us directly to join in a prominent way in this needed and continuing national conversation. And we welcome this production being a point of example and learning for not only Porchlight but for other arts organizations who, like us, may face the same challenges. We look forward to creating forums where we can move forward, and closer, together.

IN THE HEIGHTS is not only a play about community and gentrification, it is a catalyst for conversation about the way things are and ways they can be better. This production has become a source of valid controversy and conversation in our community and an important source of increased understanding and growth for Porchlight Music Theatre. We acknowledge and accept the response our decisions have caused. We deeply regret that our actions have caused offense to our friends and colleagues in the Chicago theatre community, and beyond. We truly are embracing this as an opportunity to improve our artistic processes and we sincerely hope that we can once again earn your trust and respect as the inclusive organization that we have always striven to be.

We welcome further conversation both in public forums and directly via email.

Porchlight Music Theatre
Michael Weber, Artistic Director

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.

Subsequent to Arts Integrity exploring the Porchlight Music Theatre’s casting of their forthcoming production of In The Heights, as well as Hedy Weiss’s article for the Chicago Sun-Times (detailed in Race, Spoken and Unspoken, in Chicago Cast Announcement), other voices weighed in on the issue of authenticity in casting. They added details that weren’t all apparent to someone outside the Chicago theatre community, as well as commentary on the situation.

Trevor Boffone, a professor at the University of Houston and Ph.D. in Hispanic studies, wrote about the situation on his website, asserting that the cast features “a white actor playing Miranda’s theatrical doppelganger Usnavi, the musical’s main character,” going on to write:

This casting decision gentrifies a show that is about a community fighting against gentrification. Evidently, Porchlight fails to comprehend the lived realities of Latin@s all across the nation who face many of the issues seen in Miranda and Hudes’ musical. This especially rings true when a white man is cast as Usnavi. These roles were written by Latin@s for Latin@ actors. The Latin@ community wants their stories told, but in an ethical way that speaks with the community in question. To gentrify In the Heights is to completely miss the point of the musical.

Tommy Rivera-Vega, a Chicago area actor who had auditioned for the Porchlight production, wrote in a public Facebook post:

I understand that you cast some Latinxs in the show (people that I have worked with before, respect their work, and love.) But when the person actually narrating the story is not Latinx, you are creating an atmosphere, an ecosystem, a perfectly created barrio around him, where the white folks behind it can now feel safe telling our story. You are essentially “building a wall.” Not giving us a chance….

By casting a non-Latinx Usnavi, and not even having an overwhelming Latinx support in the Production team, the backbone of the show suffers, because it was never lived. Being a Latinx will turn into devising what being Latinx is, instead of just being it. You have essentially gentrified Lin-Manuel Miranda’s gentrification masterpiece.

*   *   *

Asked about the ethnicity of the actors cast in many of the show’s leading roles, Porchlight provided a statement through their press representative, which reads:

While Porchlight specifically encouraged artists who self-identified as Latinx to audition for In the Heights both in our AEA and non union audition announcements; we did not invite nor require potential employees to state their racial self-identification as part of our hiring practices. Even if we knew for certain an artists’ self-identification (of any qualification) we do not feel it is appropriate to violate the confidentiality of their privacy.

When it comes to the subject of inquiring about ethnicity in any casting process, Porchlight makes an important point, which can be stated even more emphatically: while the company neither invited or required actors to state their ethnicity, they legally can’t. To do so would violate antidiscrimination laws in regards to hiring, where subjects such as race and ethnicity, as well as age, sexual orientation, and medical status, are off-limits. However, that doesn’t prevent a producer, theatre company, director or casting director from proactively seeking actors of a specific ethnicity (or gender, or disability) and inviting them to audition.

Writing at fnewsmagazine, “a journal of arts, culture, and politics edited and designed by students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,” Jose T. Nateras explains:

The truth of the matter is, often, actors of color aren’t able to get an audition in the first place. For instance, Porchlight makes audition appointments available through a website that has only so many audition slots open for signing up on a first-come-first serve basis. It is well known that these slots fill up fast and whether or not the roles looking to be filled are for actors of color, a large portion go to white actors.

Granted, these are actors who, very understandably, want a chance to audition for one of the more respected musical theater companies in Chicago. An actor’s agent can submit them for auditions, or they can self-submit, but it is ultimately up to the casting department of a theater to call actors in from the many submissions they receive. So, yes, casting does come from the pool of actors who audition, but when you’re in control of who is in that pool, that’s not an excuse.

*   *   *

“…I immigrated from the single

Greatest little place in the Caribbean,

Dominican Republic.

I love it.”

– from In The Heights

The casting notice provided by Porchlight to the Casting Call portion of the Actors Equity website (the company hires both Equity and non-Equity performers) did state, “Especially seeking actors/actresses who identify as Latino.” However, the same posting, as is standard for Equity listings, also carried non-discrimination boilerplate, “Performers of all ethnic and racial backgrounds are encouraged to apply.”

Even Hamilton, praised for its diverse cast, got into trouble when it sought “non-white” actors, because such a notice violated non-discrimination hiring laws. But one way of addressing intentionality in ethnic casting, in being “color-conscious,” is to specify the race or ethnicity of the characters, not the actors.

It’s worth noting that when the AEA posting was used by Backstage as the basis for their own notice of the casting of Heights at Porchlight, the specific character breakdown repeatedly noted, under ethnicity, “all ethnicities,” which translates the non-discrimination language on the AEA website into the misleading suggestion that, unless otherwise noted, the characters themselves can be of any ethnicity. In an e-mail to Arts Integrity, Luke Crowe, casting vice-president at Backstage, explained, “With Equity listings, we also default to the inclusive ranges (all ethnicities, all ages 18+, etc.) unless the Equity listing specifically defines narrower criteria.”

While three of the more detailed character descriptions as provided to Equity by Porchlight mention ethnicity – Usnavi “dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic,” Abuela Claudia “moved from Cuba to New York,” Carla is “of Chilean, Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican descent – the others don’t address it, save for Benny, who is “not Hispanic.” This contrasts with the current casting notice for an upcoming production at Theatre Under the Stars in Houston, which at the start of the descriptions of the major characters in their breakdown, notes them as, “Usnavi, male, 20s, Dominican,” “Nina, female, 19, first generation Puerto Rican,” “Kevin, male, 40s, Puerto Rican,” and so on. While the published edition of the Heights script does not list ethnicity on its cast of characters page, the specific ethnicities are evident within the script itself, and even the back cover describes the setting as “a tight-knit Latin American community.” The clearer the breakdown, the stronger the call for the specific actors being sought.

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Last fall saw questions raised and indeed controversy in connection with issues of authenticity in casting of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop in a community theatre production at Kent State University and a theatre department production of Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India, which was ultimately canceled, at Clarion University. In the wake of those incidents, In The Heights composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda went on record about his position over what should guide producers and directors in casting roles that call for specific races and ethnicities.

“My answer is: authorial intent wins. Period,” Miranda said, going on to emphasize that, “In every case, the intent of the author always wins. If the author has specified the ethnicity of the part, that wins.”

As part of the same interview, although previously unpublished, Miranda spoke of his intent in writing In The Heights. Having previously noted that West Side Story is populated by Latino gang members, he said:

“One of the impulses that went into the writing of Heights was, like, I don’t see a world in which I can play a part in musical theatre. There’s nothing existing. In the Heights was my way of writing something that had lots of roles for Latinos.”

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In the struggle for equity in arts, across gender, racial, ethnic, disability and other communities which have seen choices default too often to white, Eurocentric males, there are many traditions, habits, practices and in some cases outright discrimination to be addressed. Exploring a single situation at a small theatre in Chicago is not meant to vilify that company, but only to highlight how challenging it seems to be for so many to move to a place of true diversity and equity, where stories that involve race and ethnicity are told with those elements intact, in addition to welcoming diverse artists into the telling of stories that were originally created by and for white artists. Only by looking at what has happened in the past and what is taking place today can we find our way to a fairer future – and a future where the voices of those creating work for today and many tomorrows can be heard and respected, even when they’re not in the room or even on the phone, checking to see that their intent has been understood and properly represented.

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Addendum, July 27, 4:00 pm: Arts Integrity received the following statement from Porchlight Music Theatre, approximately five hours after this piece first went online. It reads, in its entirety:

To our colleagues in the Chicago Theatre community, please know that we at Porchlight Music Theatre have been intently listening to and have clearly received the messages of concern regarding our upcoming production of In the Heights. 

The thoughts that have been expressed are accepted with the utmost seriousness and consideration, and we humbly wish to contribute to this needed conversation.

In the casting of In The Heights, as with all productions at Porchlight, we did not invite nor require potential employees to state their racial self-identification as part of our casting and hiring process. All actors who attended were considered based solely on the content of their audition.

Our continual objective is to create and encourage an environment of inclusion in all our work here at Porchlight Music Theatre.

Moving forward, we are committed to expand our efforts in regard to inclusion and representation as well as furthering our relationships with the diverse talent and institutions that make up the Chicago Theatre community.

Addendum, July 29, 2:00 pm: In the wake of the casting conversations about the production, Michael Weber, artistic director of Porchlight, provided the following expanded statement to the website PerformInk, elaborating on their prior comments. Jason Epperson, publisher of PerformInk, told Arts Integrity that the site already had a four-part series on In The Heights in the works, with the first part always planned to focus on casting, when the controversy developed. This statement is reproduced with PerformInk’s permission.

We at Porchlight Music Theatre, as a company and as individuals, are deeply committed to being inclusive in all aspects of the organization. We acknowledge and apologize to the Chicago theatre community and the Latinx community as a whole for disappointment in the hiring of our IN THE HEIGHTS cast and production team, and for frustration that has been caused by the slowness of our fuller public response. We agree that we could have done a better job in making a public statement more quickly. We have been carefully paying attention to the conversations and assimilating them with the utmost consideration. During this time we have also been actively implementing many of the constructive ideas and suggestions that have been offered to us through social media and by email.

From the beginning, our casting approach was to hire an acting company that genuinely represented the community of characters as described in the play. We advertised in a transparent way with the intention of especially inviting actors who identify as Latinx to audition. There was an extremely large turnout, including many actors who had never auditioned at Porchlight before.

As is common knowledge, in the casting process we found ourselves at the heart of the challenge of how to hire a potential employee without crossing legal or privacy boundaries that would result in someone being denied employment based solely on their race. We found ourselves at the epicenter of the debate, “how can you know for sure when you cannot ask?”

There has been much conversation around the suggestion to do research and “ask around.” Prior to auditions, we did reach out to several noted Latinx artistic leaders in the community for guidance. All suggestions on avenues to post our casting notices were implemented. All suggested actors were invited to attend auditions. And during the audition process, we did ask around regarding actors we were interested in casting, but whose ethnicity we were unsure of, in order to gain as much insight as we could. However, that information often proved inconsistent and thus unreliable, with the only definitive means being to ask the actor directly as a condition of employment.

So, at the moment of decision, when an actor is in front of you, giving an excellent audition, and of whose ethnicity you are just not precisely sure, what do you do? From the information we were able to gather we moved forward with the actors who gave the best auditions, believing we couldn’t absolutely know their definite ethnic heritage without violating a boundary. We know now we could have done better.

Only post hiring did we learn conclusively that not all cast members self-identify as Latinx and that the fine actor playing “Usnavi,” Jack DeCesare, is actually of Italian descent. We want to be very clear that the responsibility for hiring Jack is wholly ours, not his. This excellent young actor merely showed up for an audition. And he did his job well. Our job was to assemble a company for a work that has unique casting responsibilities. We fell short.

We absolutely stand by the cast and creative team that has been hired for this production, but we recognize that more must be done to assure a truthful dramatic representation of this work, as well as how we at Porchlight approach diverse and representative casting in the future.

To this end we have reached out again to diversity and cultural leaders, including The Chicago Inclusion Project, The Latina and Latino Studies department of Northwestern University, The Latin American and Latino Studies Department at DePaul University, Latinx theatre professionals in our community, and others to obtain suggestions of cultural consultants that we can add to the creative team to assure the best representation of the nuances of the work and the community being represented in it.

Further, we plan to expand our already planned post-performance discussion series by inviting many of the voices who have expressed themselves on social media or to us directly to join in a prominent way in this needed and continuing national conversation. And we welcome this production being a point of example and learning for not only Porchlight but for other arts organizations who, like us, may face the same challenges. We look forward to creating forums where we can move forward, and closer, together.

IN THE HEIGHTS is not only a play about community and gentrification, it is a catalyst for conversation about the way things are and ways they can be better. This production has become a source of valid controversy and conversation in our community and an important source of increased understanding and growth for Porchlight Music Theatre. We acknowledge and accept the response our decisions have caused. We deeply regret that our actions have caused offense to our friends and colleagues in the Chicago theatre community, and beyond. We truly are embracing this as an opportunity to improve our artistic processes and we sincerely hope that we can once again earn your trust and respect as the inclusive organization that we have always striven to be.

We welcome further conversation both in public forums and directly via email.

Porchlight Music Theatre
Michael Weber, Artistic Director

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.

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.