A Black Glinda?- Page 5

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/7/08 at 8:09pm

"Let's just plow forward and DO IT."

I love it when you talk dirty!

Seriously... you're so Tracy Turnblad. It's cute.

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 1/7/08 at 8:46pm

"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.

[Izzie2]

Posted: 1/7/08 at 10:47pm

I will be perfectly fine with FULL colorblind casting the moment that my pasty white self is cast in The Color Purple!

Careful what you say....I'm sensitive to racism

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 12:58pm

Here is an interesting thread.

Casting by race:

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

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 2:15pm

I started reading this thread not realizing it was old and was floored. Then I realized I was floored well over a year ago when I commented on it quite a bit. I love threads being brought back from the dead.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 2:46pm

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

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 2:56pm

Another goodin'

Can Maria (Sound of Music) be black?

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=933078&boardname=bway&boardid=1

Updated On: 1/8/08 at 02:56 PM

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 3:00pm

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.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 3:04pm

I didn't have a problem with Derrick as Fiyero because of his race. My problem was that he was horrible.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 3:06pm

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

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 3:17pm

Don't all Fiyeros overact really badly?

Those threads are what made me sick of this whole damn question.

Which is why I issued the PalJoey Color-Blind Casting Decree:

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.

Talent and what is communicated by the actor's ESSENCE will be the only determining factors in casting, not what is communicated by the color of the skin.

If any audience members continue to have a problem with this, they are racist swine and must suffer until they get over it or DIE, whichsoever comfort cometh to them first.

So PalJoey hath spoken and so it shall be.

Updated On: 1/8/08 at 03:17 PM

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 3:22pm

Back to Mapa and Wong:

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

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 3:24pm

omg! if they cast a black as the good witch i will totally never ever see the show again!

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 5:00pm

"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.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 5:02pm

Yes, to all of the above. Henceforth and forevermore.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 7:01pm

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.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 7:04pm

"I still say, a black Cassie in CHORUS LINE might turn her into something even deeper."

There's a great idea!

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 7:10pm

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.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 7:16pm

And I'd crawl through broken glass to see ANYTHING Ken Page did!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 7:29pm

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.

[geaj]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 9:07pm

Hey, if a black woman can sing and knock my socks off, hook her into the cherry picker and hoist her up, I want to hear it! Color doesn't matter.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 9:38pm

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!

[LadyRosecoe]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 9:47pm

And for the epilogue to that great post, those who actually wound up seeing "I'm Not There" KNOW what she brought to the role regardless of the vagina. However, I'm not sure that a non-white actress could plausibly pass off the Bob Dylan experience. Discuss.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 9:48pm

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.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/8/08 at 10:08pm

K thx PJ!