Where is this bit of Hamilton news? — Page 4

seaweedjstubbs said: "JM226, are you also upset about the BRIGHT STAR casting notice that said "All characters are Caucasian"? Or are you only mad about HAMILTON?



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did they publicize that actors of color would not be considered? did they not include any kind of equal opportunity disclaimer on the notice? i am legitimately asking. if the answers are either "yes" to the first and/or "no" to the second, then yep... i DO find that disgraceful and illegal. it should also be investigated and talked about!!

JM226, I feel like you're just going to argue with everything anyone says, but anyways, yes, technically they put that "all ethnicities encouraged to attend" bullSH*T at the end of the notice. So yeah, my black ass could've auditioned for it if I wanted to, but why would I waste my time when the FIRST thing the casting notice says is that all characters are white? That's all the folks at Hamilton were trying to do - not waste people's time. And I will say one final time that nowhere in that notice did it say that white people would not be seen at the audition or considered. Only you and people looking to stir up sh*t seem to think so.



I also must ask if you oppose "typing" at auditions? In case you or anyone else reading this is unfamiliar with that practice, it's when a casting director goes through the head shots of the actors at the audition before seeing them do anything and decide if they will be seen at the audition or not, purely based on their look. Is that wrong as well? As an actor, I appreciate things like typing and specific casting notices. Although it kinda hurts to be typed out, at least I don't end up wasting my time. Which is what this whole discussion has been - a waste of time.

I have no problem with the way either Hamilton or Bright Star have cast their shows. If a character has a particular ethnicity, or there is an artistic concept that calls for a character to purposely be played by an actor of a different ethnicity from that of the historical figure being portrayed, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with letting people know ahead of time what is being sought. It saves people from wasting time and/or getting their hopes up, while still saying something like 'audition if you want to be seen, and maybe if you're highly talented we'll remember you later for something else that isn't doing open calls and invite you to read for that, but don't start counting on getting cast in this particular show'.



On the other hand, is there a difference between saying that a character has a particular ethnicity, and saying 'an actor of any ethnicity other than _____' could play this character. The latter specifically excludes one particular ethnicity, but not because the role has to be any one specific one. So saying (for example) that Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray is a black character is different from saying 'anyone of any ethnicity except Asian can play her'. The former is a specific character requirement, while the latter seems more exclusionary than character-specific. But i get that in Hamilton, it is the difference (from the whiteness of the historical figures) that is being sought, and not any specific ethnicity for the main leads, for all the reasons that have been discussed on here already. So there seems to be more of an artistic argument to be made for it here than the exclusionary wording of the original casting notice would suggest.

Updated On: 3/30/16 at 11:07 PM