Griffin Matthews’ Post — Page 3

latitudex1 said: "I need a lot of time to collect my thoughts on that, but I will say that neither the commercial theater industry, Broadway, nor the audience that enjoys it deserve anything more than a speck for granting Hamilton a Best Musical award. Especially in comparison with two of the most racist and misogynistic industries in human history.

Everyone has blindspots. Everyone has areas in which they need to learn. Everyone needs to listen until this is truly heard: Broadway is racist.

Any industry consumed by a predominantly white audience, funded by overwhelmingly white men, and created by predominantly white people is going to have blindspots. Broadway is not a safe haven."

Reducing it to an award ignores that it was produced, brought to Broadway, and is running. All of which happens to very very few shows ever. Same for Hadestown. Not to mention every show with color-blind casting (which is every musical on Broadway, as far as I can tell).

latitudex1 said: "CATSNYrevival said: "I worry some people are confusing racism with racial insensitivity."

It is all one.

Both from the sociological definition of racism to the impact that insensitivity has on people of color (not just black people) as they try to navigate the experience of doing live theater professionally for a living.

Racism is a spectrum of learned and observed behaviors and experiences that lead to negative behaviors. It is not necessarily hate. It touches everyone's viewpoint. And, again, everyone has something to learn through experiences like Matthews'."

It isn't all one. They are overlapping issues, but not identical, and not "one."

Just how post-racial America after Obama was a myth, so is the idea that we're in some post-racial wonderland thanks to Hamilton, and I'm so thankful that so many actors and creatives are taking this moment to step out and speak up. Take a look at this graphic from Ensemblist and tell us we're not still having issues with casting? I mean, WICKED doesn't even take place in a real world and look at that large white box.

How many black Elphaba's have there been? That is a role in particular that could and should be regularly cast with black female actors with strong voices. I would love to hear that score with a POC vocal timbre.

Yeah, those are the only two I can think of, and as mentioned, they were only standbys. For non-black POCs, I can think of Lindsay Mendez and Mandy Gonzalez. Besides Glinda and maybe Morrible, I believe there have been many more POCs cast in all other principal roles.

Remember just a few years back (around peak Hamilton time) when theatre was lauded as the one medium that was diverse?

(Also that is a terrible graphic from the Ensemblist. Why are the bars different sizes? Someone just threw that together in MS Paint...)

Tag said: "Remember just a few years back (around peak Hamilton time) when theatre was lauded as the one medium that was diverse?

(Also that is a terrible graphic from the Ensemblist. Why are the bars different sizes? Someone just threw that together in MS Paint...)"

All the bar sizes are different to reflect the sizes of each cast. Lion King and Wicked have large casts, so they both have longer bars.

VintageSnarker said: "joevitus said: "Was this ghost written by whoever did Lia Michele's?"

Why would you say that? They have completely different energies. You can question whether she's sincere but the language at least takes much more responsibility and promises to do better."

Denial and apology. If you don't own what you did (or are accused of doing) wrong, what worth has the apology?

QueenAlice said: "But this issue moving forward shouldn't be 'how many ethnic performers can we jam into existing, long running traditionally white Broadway musicals just to prove how diverse we can be" -- we've tried that and it hasn't worked. The answer is to champion more writers of color - to champion more stories about diverse communities and to allow performers new opportunities based on that."



Exactly that.

I mean they aren't mutually exclusive, and one is 100x more challenging and longer-term than the other. In any case, I'm not sure we really have tried enough as the discussion about Wicked has clearly shown. And, in general I would hope that the vision for a diverse Broadway is not just to segregate people into shows written for certain backgrounds (as appears to happen far too often now) - but to help ensure people have opportunities to play different roles regardless of their background.

Updated On: 6/6/20 at 06:09 AM

Tag said: "Remember just a few years back (around peak Hamilton time) when theatre was lauded as the one medium that was diverse?

(Also that is a terrible graphic from the Ensemblist. Why are the bars different sizes? Someone just threw that together in MS Paint...)"

I remember that. I think the Oscars didn't have any people of color nominated that year for the acting categories whereas on Broadway people of color were well represented in all the Tony award acting categories!

QueenAlice said: "But this issue moving forward shouldn't be 'how many ethnic performers can we jam into existing, long running traditionally white Broadway musicals just to prove how diverse we can be" -- we've tried that and it hasn't worked. The answer is to champion more writers of color - to champion more stories about diverse communities and to allow performers new opportunities based on that."

I completely agree and I think there are up and coming playwrights of color out there. I absolutely loved CHOIR BOY from last season and I think it was doing well but unfortunately it was still a short limited engagement that closed in February or March rather than in June/July post-Tony awards.

I also enjoyed watching ECLIPSED and SWEAT from a few years ago and both were written by playwrights of color. I understand the examples I provided are plays and most last 3-4 months.

JennH said: "qolbinau said: "How many black Elphaba's have there been? That is a role in particular that could and should be regularly cast with black female actors with strong voices. I would love to hear that score with a POC vocal timbre."

Very few. Tothis day, it's a damn crime that Saycon was never full time. I've only seen videos, but she was BALLER. And almost everyone who's said they saw her live saysthesame."

I know it's been years (2006?) since Saycon was the stand by and I have no clue how old she is but she would probably still kill it as Elphaba. Bring her back.