In 1975, Saigon was full of white bar girls — Page 3

Taz, I agree with your full post, except that I do think that even in high school productions there should be an understanding of the race politics that concern a play/musical. As I said earlier, there are so many shows, good shows that lend themselves to teach students about acting and theater in general, that do not call for roles to be cast with a specific race or ethnicity. MISS SAIGON is not one of them. I think the contrast between the Vietnamese prostitutes and the white soldiers reflects a certain history of oppression and imperialism that is completely lost when you cast a bunch of white girls for the roles.
I feel the same way if it's the other way around. For example, I think AUGUST: OC is a show about white people. I don't think Violet's comments regarding Native Americans (and by extension Tracy Lett's comments regarding whites relationship to Native Americans) will come across as intensely when Phylicia Rashad takes over.

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And just to be clear, I'm referring to roles where the ethnicity
is a fundamental motivation for a character's actions.

Unless, of course, it's intentionally reversed to make an artistic statement-- like Patrick Stewart as Othello, with an otherwise all-black cast.

So if someone did an avante-garde production of Ragtime where all of the actors were black except for characters like Coalhouse, Sarah, and Booker T. Washington, that'd be one thing, but all-white? That's a little much.

Granted, there are shows, like Little Shop of Horrors, where you can conceivably have Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon played by white girls even if that's not how the role was originally intended, and in Les Miserables, casting actors of multiple races was pretty successful-- the only time it felt weird to me was when a child character "grew up" to be someone of a totally different ethnicity.

When I was little, I used to watch the version of Cinderella with Brandy, and I never really thought of the fact that the characters who were supposed to be related were different races(though I was still frustrated that Cinderella wasn't blonde-- ha!), but I think if I was older when I saw it for the first time, it might have been distracting. (Victor Garber + Whoopi Goldberg = Paolo Montalban?)

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More that he's American Alton Fitzgerald White, an African-American, was an understudy for Chris in the Broadway production, according to his website.

Alsom interestingly enough, late in the run, Margaret Ann Gates became the first Asian woman to play Ellen. I never saw her, but I bet it added a new dimension to the act 2 confrontation scene between Ellen and Kim in the hotel room. It also probably made Ellen's line about mistaking Kim for the chambermaid very odd.

"discussing color blind casting... i truly believe that it's meant for minorities to play white roles and not the other way around"

LOL

I was actually wondering earlier: could Miss Saigon work with an Asian-American Chris? Is it more that he's white, or more that he's American?

It's been done -- Cliffton Hall is half Filipino.

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"it added the level that perhaps Chris was looking for a replacement for Kim since he wasn't over her yet or even that Chris has a "type." It actually made his pain seem deeper in a weird way."

That sounds extremely effective, actually.

When I was in college, my theater group did Othello. I was on the reading committee when it was proposed. Our group didn't really have many talented African-American men audition on a regular basis, so we were concerned about this. However, the directors has decided to go in a different direction by setting the show in the middle of the Afghanistan war (fatigues were a large part of the costume design). Othello was Arab in their vision, not African-American. Of course, a very white guy was cast, but make-up was beefed up, hair changed, etc and they pulled it off, I'll admit.

so you put him in blackface basically, huh, jig?

We worked with what we had talent-wise to convey the message of the piece. I wasn't involved in the production itself, so I'm not sure exactly what the make-up folks did. It looked and worked on-stage, however, and I was definitely skeptical going in.

I didn't; I'm pretty sure he was the principle Chris only on the Asian tour (and DeeDee Lynn Magno, currently Nessarose in SF's Wicked, was Kim - they're now married). He was in the ensemble on the US 2nd nat tour, though.

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Falsettos was boring!

How about an all white production of Color Purple?

I'm not strongly one way or the other on this one. But what about (say) a town where most/all of the people interested in performing are white? I don't think that they should miss out on experiencing the many great musicals that deal with race. And such a 'white-bread' community might benefit more than most from the messages within those shows. As long as talented, interested performers of the correct race aren't being overlooked.