CAROUSEL Broadway Revival Officially Set for Spring 2018 — Page 10

somethingwicked said: "That is a blindingly white principal cast for a production with an African-American actor playing Billy Bigelow.

What a disappointment."

somethingwicked said: "That is a blindingly white principal cast for a production with an African-American actor playing Billy Bigelow.

What a disappointment."

I mean, to be honest, I kinda have to take this person's side here. I'm not saying this is intentional or that it's gonna ruin the production, but it does feel a little tone deaf to cast the ONLY African American man in your otherwise all white principal cast as the most notorious abuser in the musical theatre canon.

Lenk's performance in The Band's Visit is entrancing. No matter how much I love Jessie Mueller, I think Katrina Lenk's already award-winning performance is a tough one to beat. She has strong buzz and was snubbed for her wonderful performance in Indecent this past season.

With Henry as the only person of color in the principal cast, it does seem like this production will certainly be about race. They have to tread carefully because of the subject matter. It might be very uncomfortable if not done right.

Call_me_jorge said: "With the 6 week preview period, maybe they're working the show to not make Billy as bad as he is??? But. If Joshua Henry doesn't have a problem with it, I don't. I'm just here for the score and casting anyway."

Yeah, if they were doing any rewrites, they definitely would have announced that by now. And even if they were, there's only so much you can do to that character cause, I mean, the whole point of the show is that he's a bad guy. We'll see though. As skeptical as I am about pretty much every aspect of this production so far, I'm still holding out hope it'll end up being something really new and interesting.

I genuinely wonder how in 2018 audiences are going to react to "Soliloquy".

It's only a matter of time before people are boycotting and/or protesting the show claiming it's 'problematic', transphobic and reinforcing sexist stereotypes. Is the show going to create a safe space for audience members that find the song an aggressive attack from the patriarchy?

https://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/carousel/soliloquy.htm

Are you talking to me? I don't believe I have ever mentioned trans people on this forum except in four instances 1. how awfully they are treated by religious people and this is one reason we need to continue to criticise religion (i.e., expressing my genuinely liberal viewpoint as opposed to the hypocritical conservative viewpoints here), 2. To parody the controversy surrounding casting a white woman as a historically white woman in Evita ("I won't settle for an Eva who is anything less than a transgendered African American Muslim.", 3. How (in a completely different note/context) it's interesting that some people will accept someone's personal/subjective identity to be 'true' in the context of gender but not religion, and 4. I would have thought OOTI would appeal to the "PC types" given the diversity in cross-gender casting (gender blind casting and transgender casting, which I might add were among my favourite casting decisions made in the show) and racially diverse casting - yet of course someone finds something to complain about. To say I am "constantly attacking" trans people is an absurd statement and completely false. I don't believe I have once. I am now glad we have had this discussion because the claims you make expose the kind of absurdity we see in these times.

But yes, I do think we need to continue to criticise the way PC culture is taking over the theatre. I hope I am wrong when it comes to the reaction towards this show. But nothing surprises me anymore. Of course, I do genuinely think the song was written in another time and warrants some criticism - this is why I think it might happen. I just hope the criticism is not overblown.

The other thing to keep in mind is, like many of my posts here - I am obviously joking/making fun here of the emerging ultra PC types we are starting to see more and more. No need to take my post (or most of my posts for that matter) so seriously.

Now, all this being said. If a PC-type wants to partner with me and petition to make it legally mandated for all Broadway musicals to star a woman aged between 45-99 (the most talented yet underrepresented group on the Broadway stage) I certainly would have no objections.

Updated On: 2/14/18 at 01:32 AM