1) Reverse racism isn't real so let's just shut down any discussions around that.
2) I left a theatre company recently for a variety of other reasons, but one of the kicker being that the artistic director (latino gay man) wanted to do a version of Company with a multi-ethnic cast (after we'd already talked about wanting to do only new works that season among one of which was a docutheatre about student protestors I loved), and his reason was that "we don't see enough POC in love on stage", which, yes--fine, but Company to me was not going to achieve that goal. There were much better new work choices that posed those questions and would achieve that point he was trying to drive home harder. Plus, I love Company, but I don't like to see it half-assed which due to the budget we had would've been the only way to do it. Again, I was by no means opposed to the idea of "diverse" casting, but it just didn't seem like doing this would've achieved what he was trying to do, honestly and that Company has been ageing more and more as every year passes--not that I don't enjoy the score.
3) I would really love to get to a point in our society where we don't think of "diverse" casting (meaning, diverse to white people--because white people are always the default race in theatre, and a large demographic of its audiences) as "re-envisioning or re-conceptualizing the work". It should just be. Most musicals are not told in realism. It always annoys me when people say "WELL HISTORICALLY {insert reason why POC cant play roles in musicals}" like so fahkin' what? Yeah Assassins is based on history but they're all dead in a circus in hell! Gypsy isn't even totally accurate to Gypsy Rose's life. In Follies act 2 takes place in like, a dream sequence that barely makes sense to me. If it takes you out of the moment that what would've been "white" characters played by POC, I suggest you are the problem. By seeing a play, we are dramaturgically entering an agreement that what we are seeing is not real, but a reenactment. It's a play. We are pretending. If we can believe grown @$$ adults are playing kids in Charlie Brown, why does it matter if a POC is in a lead in a role traditionally played by a white person? Why can we "believe" one choice over the other, especially if race is not a part of the story? White is always the default race in honestly maybe 90% of musicals for the most part. And at the day, it's better to cast with people of color than not unless it's literally a piece about slavery or institutional racism where race is a built-in part of the play. Period. Leah Salogna describes this view really well here at 3:53
4) The wording here--"black version"--suggests that a doing a version of the show the regular Follies with all white people is the "normal version", therefore instilling the idea that white is the default race. I agree with an earlier poster here that in this day in age, it makes more sense to do multicultural versions of classics as opposed to all one race.
5) If you are to do a show with just one race, you need to have a good fahkin' reason for doing it. If the company is only made up of members of a certain race in the cast/creative (which there are several companies that are like this), then it makes sense to me, and it would have to come from a director of said community. But doing it for the sake of doing just one race of people does feel racist, and if not subconsciously, implies that POC should be separated in their own version of the show--that the POC world can't possibly mix with the white world. It's got to be one or the other.
6) RE: Pearl Baily's Dolly--that was at a totally different period in history where POC were just started to really become mainstream in MT. It made sense then. I highly doubt it would fly now.
7) There are also tropes within "diverse" casting as well of POCs and what roles they are playing. What does it say if all the protagonists are white, and the antagonists black? What does it say if the role of an abusive lover is played by a black man, and what does it say if a sharp-tongued "angry" female character is played by a black woman? These are also things one must keep in mind. That's not to say that it can never be done, but it's something to be really conscious of.
Updated On: 7/4/18 at 03:57 AM
