Posted: 9/8/17 at 3:57pm
Oak is a complete diva and is entirely unprofessional, as are many Hamilton cast members. They've let it all get to their heads, but what they don't realize is that they're nothing without Hamilton behind them and Oak didn't want to hear that. He is partially responsible for the show closing so early. Yeah, the show was a tough sell, but it shouldn't have closed the way that it did.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 3:58pm
trpguyy said: "
Also, again, nice of Dave to confirm things I wrote here many many weeksago."
Cool
Posted: 9/8/17 at 4:08pm
hmph said: "SDV said: "Broadway Joe said: "The too long didn't read version of that article is Oak and his Twitterfriends suck. I won't be giving any of them my money for anything they do in the future."
Yes, that certainly seems to be the message Malloy was hoping to deliver."
Honestly though, can you refute any of it? Seemed pretty straight forward to me. His comments seemed mild compared to where he could have gone."
I certainly can’t refute his statements that Oak was unprepared. I have no knowledge of that situation either way. If that is true, it is unprofessional.
I am incredulous, however, at him saying that if the aim of Erivo, Cassal, Warren et al was not to shut his show down then he can’t imagine was it was. It was, Dave, to point out something they perceived as an injustice. To name it and call it out. To draw attention to something they hope will happen more infrequently. They are not twirling their moustaches wondering how they can help close down poor innocent Dave Malloy’s show.
I have also recently seen group cast photos as of the closing and was surprised at how…white the ensemble actually was. Perhaps there was a larger number of POC than in most ensembles, but it certainly looked to me to be overwhelmingly white. This article explained that a number of POC members left at some point and were replaced by white folks, so much so that cast members noted it and spoke up about it. The fact that that incident didn’t wake them up enough to handle the Oak situation more professionally is…surprising.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 4:23pm
The show had a number of POC as swings and musicians. It wasn't just the singing/dancing ensemble.
I think those going over the finances of the show's viability aren't taking into account the theater fan's perspective, which was that it was one of the most beautiful shows I've ever experienced. I don't really care that it didn't recoup. Neither did Follies nor a number of classic musicals.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 4:26pm
SDV said: "
I have also recently seen group cast photos as of the closing and was surprised at how…white the ensemble actually was. Perhaps there was a larger number of POC than in most ensembles, but it certainly looked to me to be overwhelmingly white.
Oh, wow, I don't think that's the argument you want to be making against Comet, in any incarnation.
here are some of the diverse cast members of Comet
- Denee Benton, Amber Gray, Nick Choksi, Paul Pinto, Shoba Narayan, Ashley perez Flanagan, Lulu Fall, Blaine Krauss, Azudi Onyejekwe, Heath Saunders, Sumayya Ali, Celia Mei Rubin, Brandt Martinez.
Also, in regards to the Oak defenders like Cynthia, etc, I think what he is saying is that it is naive of them to assume that they don't have power to close a show, regardless of their intentions (and he is correct). Cynthia, in particular, claimed to have "facts" which she never shared, insinuating that things were much worse than they actually were.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 4:29pm
SDV said: "hmph said: "SDV said: "Broadway Joe said: "The too long didn't read version of that article is Oak and his Twitterfriends suck. I won't be giving any of them my money for anything they do in the future."
Yes, that certainly seems to be the message Malloy was hoping to deliver."
Honestly though, can you refute any of it? Seemed pretty straight forward to me. His comments seemed mild compared to where he could have gone."
I certainly can’t refute his statements that Oak was unprepared. I have no knowledge of that situation either way. If that is true, it is unprofessional.
I am incredulous, however, at him saying that if the aim of Erivo, Cassal, Warren et al was not to shut his show down then he can’t imagine was it was. It was, Dave, to point out something they perceived as an injustice. To name it and call it out. To draw attention to something they hope will happen more infrequently. They are not twirling their moustaches wondering how they can help close down poor innocent Dave Malloy’s show.
I have also recently seen group cast photos as of the closing and was surprised at how…white the ensemble actually was. Perhaps there was a larger number of POC than in most ensembles, but it certainly looked to me to be overwhelmingly white. This article explained that a number of POC members left at some point and were replaced by white folks, so much so that cast members noted it and spoke up about it. The fact that that incident didn’t wake them up enough to handle the Oak situation more professionally is…surprising."
That last comment is kind of puzzling. I can't believe this is being rehashed, but I wouldn't say overwhelmingly white at all. Also, some of the Hispanic members are fairly light skinned (like I, also a Hispanic person, am), so I'd be a little more careful with that if I were you. I think Azudi's response to this mess means more than anything that dolt Rafael Casal wrote, especially since this all went down without consulting the rest of the cast (no matter how many times Erivo writes that she did, the rest of the cast's responses kind of prove that wrong).
One comment from that NYT article that really struck me was Oak saying something along the lines of the bigger racial issue being bigger than his casting, and I couldn't believe he didn't understand that it absolutely was, but not in the way he meant. He was not the important part here, the overall (beautifully diverse) cast was.
And I really can't believe anyone would have foreseen this Twitter sh*tstorm when you have a chance to land Mandy fricking Patinkin.
I am kind of interested in who was replaced by whom that led to the conversation about more conscious casting. I really grew to appreciate practically everyone in the cast but didn't pay too much attention until a few months back, so I'm not sure whom they may have been talking about.
Updated On: 9/8/17 at 04:29 PM
Posted: 9/8/17 at 4:31pm
SDV said: "I am incredulous, however, at him saying that if the aim of Erivo, Cassal, Warren et al was not to shut his show down then he can’t imagine was it was. It was, Dave, to point out something they perceived as an injustice. To name it and call it out. To draw attention to something they hope will happen more infrequently. They are not twirling their moustaches wondering how they can help close down poor innocent Dave Malloy’s show."
They drew attention to race while it wasn't about that. So it was false injustice. That is dangerous to society, equality and in this case, to a show. If they are unaware of that it is even worse.
Updated On: 9/8/17 at 04:31 PM
Posted: 9/8/17 at 4:36pm
Great Comet is one of the few shows that had a diverse cast. If you want to complain about a cast that is "very white," go to Hello Dolly or Bandstand or Groundhog Day or Dear Evan Hansen, etc.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 4:41pm
PaulWom said: "SDV said: "
I have also recently seen group cast photos as of the closing and was surprised at how…white the ensemble actually was. Perhaps there was a larger number of POC than in most ensembles, but it certainly looked to me to be overwhelmingly white.
Oh, wow, I don't think that's the argument you want to be making against Comet, in any incarnation.
here are some of the diverse cast members of Comet
- Denee Benton, Amber Gray, Nick Choksi, Paul Pinto, Shoba Narayan, Ashley perez Flanagan, Lulu Fall, Blaine Krauss, Azudi Onyejekwe, Heath Saunders, Sumayya Ali, Celia Mei Rubin, Brandt Martinez.
Also, in regards to the Oak defenders likeCynthia, etc, I think what he is sayingis that it is naive of them to assume that they don't have power to close a show, regardless of their intentions (and he is correct). Cynthia, in particular, claimed to have "facts" which she never shared, insinuating that things were much worse than they actually were."
Not making an argument, just an observation. The first time I saw the show was New Year’s Eve and I remembered the ensemble as being much more diverse that what I was seeing in group photos when it closed. Now I know why – they replaced departing POC ensemble members with white ones. After all the crowing about the show’s commitment to diversity I was surprised at the actual make up of the cast at the end.
As for what Dave meant, his exact words were, “I don’t know what their end goal was.” Their end goal was to point out what they perceived as an injustice. To draw awareness to something that might otherwise go unnoticed in an effort to keep it from happening in the future. That is itself an end goal. Disappointed that Dave, which clearly sees himself as an ally, cannot understand that.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 4:50pm
Hold on a minute. Compared to opening night , the cast differences I remember were thus:
- Lost Erica Dorfler and Mary Spencer Knapp
- Gained Kennedy Caughell, Celia Mei Rubin, Brandt Martinez, Blaine Krauss, Shoba Narayan, Brad Giovanni.
Thats one person of color lost , and of the new hires, 4/6 were people of color. Where exactly is the diversity problem, especially compared to the rest of Bway?
Posted: 9/8/17 at 4:54pm
PaulWom said: "Thats one person of color lost, and of the new hires, 4/6 were people of color. Where exactly is the diversity problem, especially compared to the rest of Bway?"
Once again, the people who think only in color are the problem. They complain about color in situations where there is nothing to complain about. This behaviour is the root of maintaining inequality.
Updated On: 9/8/17 at 04:54 PM
Posted: 9/8/17 at 4:58pm
SDV said: "PaulWom said: "SDV said: "
Not making an argument, just an observation. The first time I saw the show was New Year’s Eve and I remembered the ensemble as being much more diverse that what I was seeing in group photos when it closed. Now I know why – they replaced departing POC ensemble members with white ones. After all the crowing about the show’s commitment to diversity I was surprised at the actual make up of the cast at the end.
As for what Dave meant, his exact words were, “I don’t know what their end goal was.” Their end goal was to point out what they perceived as an injustice. To draw awareness to something that might otherwise go unnoticed in an effort to keep it from happening in the future. That is itself an end goal. Disappointed that Dave, which clearly sees himself as an ally, cannot understand that."
First, I'd just like to point out that members of the cast, most notably explicitly stated by Azudi, consider him an ally. Did you ever read Azudi's response? It was really fascinating and a much more responsible and thoughtful reaction than what Casal, et al., put out. It also seems to give weight to Dave's response to comments about more conscious casting in the next round. One huge thing to note, Erivo wants people to believe that she never mentioned race and was just expressing concern for the cast (who really didn't seem to need her brand of concern!), so you can scratch her off the list of people seeking to right that kind of perceived wrong. Let's be real here, they went off without knowing the facts and this got way out of hand.
Seriously, show me a cast member that signed off on this. It's kind of weird how people who were not involved with the show felt the need to do this without consulting the minority members of the show. Did Nick Choksi or Shoba's responses to Casal make it seem like they were consulted at all? Ask Sumayya how she feels about it! Blaine even went so far as to say that he felt left out of the conversation. That's inexplicable to me. The people they were presumably trying to help were left out of the conversation and actively hurt by the fallout. That's ridiculous.
I'd really like to know who was replaced by whom. Again, the overwhelmingly white comment is really inexplicable.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:01pm
I'm not sure the article added too much to my understanding of the situation. But here a few reactions:
- I was a little surprised that neither Malloy nor Rachel Chavkin was around when Onaodowan was fired. If they had any sort of relationship with him, and maybe they didn't by that stage, it seems like a bad time to be absent and unavailable to talk. Then again, I don't know that it would be typical for creatives to be so closely involved in that sort of unpleasant decision. But, Malloy tried to reach out later, and he says he was rebuffed.
- Malloy's remark about Onaodowan, that he wasn't prepared and blamed the show for that, is quietly damning. Onaodowan was hired in February and he wasn't ready in July, forcing Malloy back into the show on short notice.
- Nothing in the Vulture story persuades me that the show would have lasted more than a few months longer, at best, if the mess hadn't happened. And Malloy's earlier, too-honest tweets establish that advance sales were a major problem and that the show was about to close without Patinkin - a very short-term solution. Malloy seems to acknowledge this, though he's not pressed on the point and it wasn't his decision anyway.
- I agree with those who believe it's possible to talk about two things at once. There's the romanticism of art that draws people to theater in the first place, and then there's the business part. So I can love the musical while acknowledging that it had a seriously flawed business plan that required everything to go right to recoup.
- Bad news for me: The possibility of a tour sounded a lot more tentative in this story.
- Malloy has been so honest, open, and well-intentioned that it's impossible for me to criticize him. He's a talented artist who created what turned into a big, expensive Broadway musical that featured an unknown, African-American actress starring as a Russian countess. Next time that happens? How about never.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:02pm
Another day, another thread of color-counting. I hope y'all realize how inherently racist that is to begin with.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:02pm
As a black woman myself I'm starting to get sick of people thinking that diversity refers to how many black people are in a cast. Racial diversity, gender diversity, age diversity, and religious diversity are all important. The Great Comet was a TRULY diverse show. I'm sick of "I don't see enough brown people in a backstage cast photo, so the creative team must be ignorant and racist." You don't know the background of every cast member. Don't make assumptions about people based on the shade of their skin.
Updated On: 9/8/17 at 05:02 PM
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:04pm
PaulWom said: "Hold on a minute. Compared to openingnight , the cast differences I remember were thus:
- Lost Erica Dorfler and Mary Spencer Knapp
- Gained Kennedy Caughell, Celia Mei Rubin, Brandt Martinez, Blaine Krauss, Shoba Narayan, Brad Giovanni.
Thats one person of color lost, and of the new hires, 4/6 were people of color. Where exactly is the diversity problem, especially compared to the rest of Bway"
Do I really have to cut and paste the entire paragraph from the article that spells this all out? Did you skip that paragraph?
Of course they're more diverse that the rest of Bway (with the exception of Hamilton). Kind of a low bar there. They were still well over 50% white.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:06pm
Malloy says of the people who didn't *intend* to close the show, "that means they didn’t realize that what they were doing could close the show, and they didn’t realize the power that they held, and that feels grossly irresponsible to me.”
Updated On: 9/8/17 at 05:06 PM
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:07pm
Well the general population is more than 50% white. There are more white actors working then there are actors of color. There are usually going to be more white actors in shows simply because there are just more of them.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:12pm
PaulWom said: "Then perhaps you don't need me to cut and paste the paragraph where Malloy says of the people who didn't *intend* to close the show, "that means they didn’t realize that what they were doing could close the show, and they didn’t realize the power that they held, and that feels grossly irresponsible to me.”"
I read it. I just don't agree with it. I don't think that they closed the show. There were several factors, including that, you know, the show was not making money.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:13pm
SDV said: "Do I really have to cut and paste the entire paragraph from the article that spells this all out? Did you skip that paragraph?
Of course they're more diverse that the rest of Bway (with the exception of Hamilton). Kind of a low bar there. They were still well over 50% white."
This is kind of an inane argument. You're jumping on that concern of the cast, and barely recognizing that the cast felt comfortable enough to discuss that concern and that Dave's reaction was so positive and welcoming. That seems to give credence to Azudi's post. You're really barking up the wrong tree here for some reason.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:20pm
hmph said: "SDV said: "Do I really have to cut and paste the entire paragraph from the article that spells this all out? Did you skip that paragraph?
Of course they're more diverse that the rest of Bway (with the exception of Hamilton). Kind of a low bar there. They were still well over 50% white."
This is kind of an inane argument. You're jumping on that concern of the cast, and barely recognizing that the cast felt comfortable enough to discuss that concern and that Dave's reaction was so positive and welcoming. That seems to give credence to Azudi's post. You're really barking up the wrong tree here for some reason."
You're absolutely right. It does say something that the cast felt comfortable speaking up and that their concerns were heard.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:28pm
The thing that's so frustrating is that it was a beautiful show that didn't deserve the way it ended. It deserved to close without all that ugliness that came from people not associated with the show. It deserved to have the cast's perspective considered. It deserved to be met with a sense of fairness and good faith. That it had to close at all was an unfortunate financial reality most people recognize, but the way it went was just bizarre and shameful.
The saving grace here is how lovely the cast was. They really did make the last few weeks exciting and fun for fans of the show with all the Instagram takeovers and Live sessions.
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:37pm
hmph said: "That it had to close at all was an unfortunate financial reality most people recognize, but the way it went was just bizarre and shameful."
I've heard it is already considered one of the most controversial, embarrassing flops in all of Broadway history!
Posted: 9/8/17 at 5:41pm
SDV's response, conceding a small point even though it was made heatedly, was perfect. Kudos.
The tragedy is this show isn't that it closed, or that it didn't come close to recouping, or didn't last a few more months on Broadway. The tragedy is that it ended ugly, and I'm not really sure the 'winners' - to the extent that any exist - will get what they hope to achieve as a result.
