March on Broadway!! (List of demands)- Page 3

Posted: 4/23/21 at 12:08pm

unclevictor said: "ctorres23 said: "I suggest you talk to POC cast members about cast diversity. Please don’t forget to say, “my personal eye test from just having seen a lot of shows is that casts tend to be pretty diverse these days."

Ok, good suggestion. I'll just dial-up all the POC Broadway actors I know.

Do you think that POC have less than 20-25% of Broadway roles? I don't have hard data on it, hence "eye test".

There are obviously some lilly-white casts, there are a lot of casts that are mixed with significant POC representation, and then there are a handful of casts that are majority POC.

[Dolly80]

Posted: 4/23/21 at 12:18pm

Did they manage to get their ‘LARGE sum of money’ ?

[RippedMan]

Posted: 4/23/21 at 1:10pm

unclevictor said: "ctorres23 said: "unclevictor said: "did you really type BIPOC are overrepresented onstage?"

You left off the last part. I typed "overrepresented on stage compared to the baseline population statistics".

In a perfectly colorblind society, the racial and ethnic breakdown of the population on stage would theoretically match the general population. So if a colorblind society is the goal (which, I assume, it is?) then matching or exceeding those baseline population numbers should be what "success" looks like in terms of diversity.

Again, I don't know whether that baseline is exceeded or not, if you ran the numbers across all company members of all shows in the last 5+ years. But my personal eye test from just having seen a lot of shows is that casts tend to be pretty diverse these days."

I suggest you talk to POC cast members about cast diversity. Please don’t forget to say, “my personal eye test from just having seen a lot of shows is that casts tend to be pretty diverse these days."

"

You do a lot of defending but not a lot of explaining. What is it that YOU want?

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 4/23/21 at 1:11pm

^ To graduate middle school. 

[sassylash3s]

Posted: 4/23/21 at 2:27pm

For what it's worth, we don't have to rely on "eye tests" - Actors' Equity has studied this, and the results seem to align with what ctorres23 is saying.  The percentage of white and black performers on the production contract is pretty representative of the country at large.  On the other hand, Asian and especially Hispanic/Latin American performers seem to be pretty underrepresented, and among stage management white people are highly overrepresented.  

Source: https://www.actorsequity.org/news/PR/DandIReport2020/diversity-and-inclusion-report-2020

I wonder if this movement would be more effective if it could focus on specific groups and areas where diversity could be improved.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 4/23/21 at 2:32pm

ctorres23 said: There are obviously some lilly-white casts, there are a lot of casts that are mixed with significant POC representation, and then there are a handful of casts that are majority POC."

I think it's difficult to quantify how it feels to be a BIPOC audience member or BIPOC actor performing in one of these shows whether lily-white (The Prom, Beetlejuice, Mean Girls, Come From Away, Dear Evan Hansen, Bright Star, Fun Home, An American in Paris, Something Rotten) mixed with significant POC representation (Hadestown, Jagged Little Pill, Moulin Rouge, Spongebob, Frozen, Waitress, The Visit), or majority POC (Tina, Ain't Too Proud, The Band's Visit, Hamilton, Shuffle Along). And YMMV on whether you feel the "significant POC representation" feels like one or two token actors or if a bunch of ensemble members in a story that centers whiteness feels like enough. Also, I do think the majority POC shows tend to be biomusicals or historical in some way. Of course, there are exceptions like The Color Purple, In the Heights, Aladdin, and The Band's Visit but when there are so many book/movie adaptations, you're carrying over the same representation problems unless you make the effort to change up the casting/characters in the adaptation. 

[unclevictor]

Posted: 4/23/21 at 7:08pm

sassylash3s said: "For what it's worth, we don't have to rely on "eye tests" - Actors' Equity has studied this, and the results seem to align with what ctorres23 is saying. The percentage of white and black performers on the production contract is pretty representative of the country at large. On the other hand, Asian and especially Hispanic/Latin American performers seem to be pretty underrepresented, and among stage managementwhite people are highly overrepresented.

Source:https://www.actorsequity.org/news/PR/DandIReport2020/diversity-and-inclusion-report-2020

I wonder if this movement would be more effective if it could focus on specific groups and areas where diversity could be improved."

You’re quoting actors equity? The mess of a union that doesn’t protect its members?  
mostly white people are employed according to that demographics and pie chart

[Playbill_Trash]

Posted: 4/23/21 at 9:11pm

The protest yesterday was completely misguided and everyone involved in it should be embarrassed and ashamed for being so publicly uninformed. Actor's Equity clearly explained how the "removal" of Scott Rudin really has nothing to do with them, but still the self-righteous actors who want everything handed to them chose Equity to blame. The victims of Rudin's abuse were his employees of his company- not the talent of his projects. So direct your anger on this issue away from Equity, and ask yourself what is a productive way to achieve what you want. If you don't, you only have yourself to blame for not being heard.

Casting directors are watching and listening and they have every right to dodge the bullet of every moron that marched yesterday. I hope they enjoyed their stroll down Broadway, because it will be the last time they will be on Broadway for a long time.

[pollster2]

Posted: 4/23/21 at 11:33pm

I totally agree. The March was an absolute mess.

[JSquared2]

Posted: 4/23/21 at 11:39pm

Playbill_Trash said: "The protest yesterday was completely misguided and everyone involved in it should be embarrassed and ashamed for being so publicly uninformed. Actor's Equity clearly explained how the "removal" of Scott Rudin really has nothing to do with them, but still the self-righteous actors who want everything handed to them chose Equity to blame. The victims of Rudin's abuse were his employees of his company- not the talent of his projects. So direct your anger on this issue away from Equity, and ask yourself what is a productive way to achieve what you want. If you don't, you only have yourself to blame for not being heard.

Casting directors are watching and listening and they have every right to dodge the bullet of every moron that marched yesterday. I hope they enjoyed their stroll down Broadway, because it will be the last time they will be on Broadway for a long time."

The “March” was made up of mostly non-Equity actors and a LOT of stans hoping to interact with actual Broadway actors. Gigantic waste of space and time. 

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 4/24/21 at 9:58am

JSquared2 said: 

The “March” was made up of mostly non-Equity actorsand a LOT of stans hoping to interact with actual Broadway actors. Gigantic waste of space and time."

Probably the same 20 yo children who appear on my video feeds asking that ushers at the Winter Garden protest/disrupt audience members at Music Man when it opens, or those who think any revival should never be produced on Broadway, because Beetlejuice closed, censoring the show's voice...okay, 

[sassylash3s]

Posted: 4/24/21 at 1:18pm

unclevictor said: 
You’re quoting actors equity? The mess of a union that doesn’t protect its members?
mostly white people are employed according to that demographics and pie chart"

I don't see how a union's ability to protect its members is necessarily related to their ability to compile statistics.

And yes, white people make up the majority of Broadway performers, but that appears proportionate to their numbers among the general population. What more should we want?

(As a caveat, the fact that roughly 11% of production contracts went to performers who didn't provide or preferred not to say their ethnicity complicates this somewhat, I'll admit.)