Where is BLACK BROADWAY these days? — Page 3

Updated On: 12/19/06 at 05:09 PM

i know alot of black playwrights that would LOVE to have there works on broadway. where is the funding? where are the producers? where is the support? they all speak of how very few want to take the black story on. sad.

First off, can I just say how annoying it is when someone posts with the intent purpose to simply annoy people, unwilling to take into consideration both sides of the arguement and debate intelligently? I feel sorry for those on here who have taken the time to respond so eloquently to someone who won't even listen...

Secondly, I contest the point that "The Lion King" is not a "black" show. Whateverman, you argue that it is not because they are dressed as animals, and thus take it as an offensive statement. However, if you view the musical as an allegory (Hamlet right? I'm getting my Shakespeare mixed up...), then it is much more regal than that. I always enjoyed the quote by Julie Taymore "Broadway the American Musical" when she explains that Lion King is "all about race and not about race"-it is inclusive, yet at the same time it is powerful, because if an African American boy sits in the audience, what he sees is a king who is black... I always liked that explanation...

Money is what talks. Producers aren't racist, they just want to get rich. Apparently the producers who are fronting the bucks don't feel there is enough of an audience for "black shows" to put down the dough to produce them....either that or there aren't enough good quality "black shows" being pitched to them. Neither of these screams inherent racism.

And what EXACTLY are you concerned about? Are you looking for shows that tell the story of the black experience, or are you more interested in employing black performers. Because, as has already been brough up, the latter problem has been largely improved upon since the era you're touting as "black Broadway". Broadway was a much more segregated community, to get work as a black performer (unless you were a major name) you were usually relegated to black shows. Many of these walls are gone and shows are becoming multi-cultural and integrated communities. Norm Lewis playing a role like Javert speaks heavily to that.

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i know alot of black playwrights that would LOVE to have there works on broadway. where is the funding? where are the producers? where is the support? they all speak of how very few want to take the black story on. sad.

Are they seeing their works produced at all? Is there interest from off Bway or even smaller NY theaters? From regional theaters? Not everything needs to be on Broadway in order to find an audience, or be appreciated by critics, altho I realize the point you are making is about Broadway. In all fairness, I'm sure there are a lot of gifted white, Latino, and Asian playwrights who will never get their work produced on Bway. Hopefully talent will rise above racial lines and find a way to be seen/heard, but I know this is wishful thinking.

Actually, there were never that many black shows on Broadway at one time. You're pulling shows from 2 decades. Generally if there is a hit there will be more shows like it. Several of the shows you mentioned were reviews that happened, I think, after Ain't Misbehavin' became a hit. Broadway is not a place where theatre that seems risky happens. The trouble with Parks and some of the other writers you mentioned is that they don't write mainstream type plays. They may one day not seem so risky--but August Wilson's last few plays were not cash cows.

But, on the other hand casts are more integrated now than they were in the 70s and 80s. You see black actors in rolls they never would have been considered for back then.

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Actually, people are just past the all-black thing, it smacks of "separate but equal" but the reality is that separate has proven to be unequal time and time again, so what we are instead seeing are black actors in roles traditionally held by white actors.

It's called integration, it started a long time ago, but Broadway is a long long street, apparently, and it seems that this news travels slowly for some.

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Some people just love to audition for the role of victim.

You want a serious discussion? Here.

Black Broadway of three decades ago was a direct result of the Civil Rights movement of the 60s and 70s. That ephemeral thing called "Black Pride" became, through the miracle of capitalism and wntrepreneurship, a merchandising tool, which, granted, gave us some pretty cool shows like THE WIZ. It also gave us the all-black HELLO DOLLY, which some people, myself included, found a little distasteful because it was *imposing* a black sensibility on a work. If you think that's no big deal, imagine an August Wilson piece with an all-white cast and tell me it would have any where near the same feeling.

But face it: shows like THE WIZ and EUBIE and AINT MISBEHAVING were little more than late-20th-century versions of minstrel shows, comfortable, safe, easily digested. And after a while their "necessity", if indeed there was one, was eliminated when productions became more and more colour blind in their casting.

Probably not the answer you wanted to hear, but that's how it goes.

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it's insulting for you to consider LION KING a black show. they are effing ANIMALS for christs sake. think about your statement for a moment. The Wiz is NOT on broadway. im not talkin about a transfer in limbo that is uncertain to happen. im talkin about whats happening now and the serious decline in relation to the past.

If THE LION KING is not a black show then can you please explain to me why white people are only allowed to audition for Scar, Timone and Pumbu? the bad guy and the fat one???

Dare I say... The Lion King?

A quick check on some show sites including Lion King, Tarzan, Wicked, Hairspray, Mary Poppins, Rent, Chicago, Mamma Mia, The Wedding Singer, A Chorus Line, Spelling Bee, Drowsy Chaperone, Avenue Q, Spring Awakening, and Jersey Boys puts the number of African American employees on Broadway production contracts at 135 (even though some sites don't have pics of the swings or ensemble and therefore I couldn't count them). This is not counting Grinch, Les Miz, Company, Fame Becomes Me, The Apple Tree, Phantom, The Producers, Grey Gardens, Beauty & the Beast, any plays, or any production contract tours, so the 153.574 is more than covered.

Now everyone can sleep knowing that the math checks out and all is fair.

From wikipedia (not the most reliable source):

a fact is an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a theory, which is a explanation of or interpretation of facts

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