A Black Glinda? — Page 5

"I want to watch Alec Mapa and BD in The Odd Couple...unfortunately they're both Felixes."

No they aren't - they are the Pigeon Sisters.

Here is an interesting thread.

Casting by race:

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=877058&boardname=bway&boardid=1

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Looks like there was a thread on Derrick Williams as Fiyero..but it was deleted...at least the thread disappears when you click on the partially posted responses.

Here is a good one on Sheila Goodwin as Sheila

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=905866&boardname=bway&boardid=1

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I once ran the children's auditions for a production of SOM back in the 80's and I had a very hard time trying to explain to an African/American mother that her child wasn't right for the part.

SOM is one example where color blind casting doesn't work.

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I agree, Jersey. I've had the misfortune of seeing him each time I've seen Wicked (and in different cities). Can't stand him in the role.

Here's a thread about an hypothetical all-black production of Follies that made people crazy.

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardid=1&boardname=bway&thread=939120

Back to Mapa and Wong:

THE LITTLE FOXES. Wong as Regina, Mapa as Birdie.

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"Henceforth and forevermore, any actor of any race or skin color may play any character of any race or skin color, without any regard whatsoever to the race of skin color of the actor or character, including Othello, Scarlett O'Hara and G(a)linda."

So, next time I do Sound Of Music, I should have one African-American child among the white folks?

How about African-Americans as Nazi's? Or maybe a few Jews?

How about a Asian Motor Mouth Mabel in Hairspray?


It's a nice thought, but it doesn't always work.

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Yeah, we never saw any black folks in ol Mel's PRODUCERS, by the way. Ken Page as Max, anyone? Only Ulla seems perma-white (and even that might be a hoot). A black Leo and a white Max?

I still say, a black Cassie in CHORUS LINE might turn her into something even deeper. Her career regrets and disappointments would resonate for all African-American women who are typed out.

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Yeah, and as I've posted elsehwere (maybe in this thread), Joe Papp never messed with his Broadway cash cow. He and Bennett never, ever, broke the characters out of their rigid racial boundaries during the long run ... except that many a non-Latina payed Morales. (I remember seeing at least two.)

We never even saw a dark-skinned Paul, which would at least track with a huge percentage of the Latino population. It was a blatent act of hipocricy, running the Public Theater as a bastion of progressive casting policies, but funding it via a show that never, ever demanded that the audience look past the sometimes overly stereotypical roles in CHORUS LINE.

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Well, I make the rules now, on Broadway and in Hollywood, and I decree: RACE NO LONGER WILL BE A DETERMINATION IN CASTING. HENCEFORTH AND FOREVERMORE.

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For some, the willing suspension of disbelief comes to a crash when it comes to skin color.

Whenever this subject comes up on the board someone inevitably says something like "Well, how would you like a WHITE Queenie in Show Boat or a white Lena Younger, etc?" and I always think they're missing the point. You could argue that "black" roles are specifically about the black experience, while roles that are traditionally "white" roles are that way not because they are about the white experience, but because culturally the white experience is the predominant experience. I think Rent really missed the boat on something with its Benetton Ad casting. I wish over the past ten years they'd kept such a diversity of race, but mixed up how they were cast. A black Roger, a white Angel, etc, etc. Most of the roles in that show have little to do with race yet it still keeps most of those characters in really tight racial boxes.

People burst into song, cats sing and dance, AIDS patients get visited by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, kids in the late 1800s sing a style of music that hasn't get been discovered, characters talk directly to the audience and on and on and on and that's all swell, but ponder a darker face in a place you're used to seeing lily white and you'd think I'd suggested Cate Blanchett play Bob Dylan or something!

No more. PalJoey hath decreed. And sure we can have white actors play black characters--but we have to balance it out with 2 or 3 decades'worth of black, Latino and Asian actors playing lily-white parts.

That will balance out all those decades of blackface and yellowface and Larry Blyden and Marlon Brando and Rita Moreno and Juanita Hall as Asians.

So on January 8, 2028 or 2038, white actors can play Othello, the Emperor Jones and the loud, fat one in Color Purple.

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