Away, you Ethiope!
When you ask most theater artists why they got into the profession in the first place, many will tell you that it was the one environment where they felt safe to be exactly who they are. Theater is often pegged to be a place where it doesn’t matter if you’re gay or weird or different - you are accepted and valued as an artist no matter how you identify. But in the professional industry of theater, how true does this reign? While the business of theater is full of liberal minded people self-proclaiming to be inclusive and “woke,” the truth lies in that a long history of cutthroat, sexist, ableist, and racist casting have majorly the way theater is made today. For decades, nay centuries, the profession of acting was exclusive to straight, white, skinny and pretty people who, even so were often forced to give up their identity with a complete name change (an example being Francis Ethel Gumm to Judy Garland). But this trend of white actors dominating the stage is definitely not a thing of the past. Only in the past 5 years or so have I noticed some real steps forward being made when it comes to non-traditional casting with the arrival of Hamilton, Black Panther, and The African Mean Girls Play. According to a report by the AAPAC (Asian American Performers Action Coalition), 66.8% of the roles offered on Broadway during the 2016 -2017 season were played by Caucasian performers (1). Unfortunately, there is not a lot of data available when it comes to the demographics of American theater because the theater in this country is privately owned. Most of the statics found is only in context to the New York theater scene which is not representative of American theater at large. This differs from the UK, who’s theaters are primarily publicly owned, the Arts Council England is able to release accurate and thorough reports on theater demographics. According to the most recent 2018/19 report, 45% of actors were people of colour, an increase from 33% in 2017/18 (2). This is great! Shocker - we can learn a thing or two from the UK. If only there were statistic like this available in America. So while the idea of diversifying a cast is super sexy right now in our industry, the reality is, the efforts being made are simply not enough.
In order to figure out why this is happening, let’s take a closer look into the structural and systemic racism that has trickled its way into our theater for so many generations. In America, the spawn of racist theater starts during with the spawning of minstrel shows during the 1840’s after Thomas Darmouth Rice popularized his character “Jim Crow” in his whimsical sketches about life as a slave (3). Thus was the birth of black face and many years of very racist depictions of African Americans. Indeed, the birth of great American drama is rooted in discrimination like so many other industries in the modernized world. It’s not only black people that were/are demonized and ridiculed on stage. As America continued to diversify, and discrimination within theater became normalized, it did not take long for offensive portrayals of Asians, Native Americans, and Latinx people to appear as well. This behavior is certainly not unique to America. It did not take long for the UK to catch on with the minstrel shows and black was all the rage.
This five-part blog series is going to closely examine three of Royal Shakespeare Company's productions with a racial equity spyglass. I will be watching three plays and analyzing the casting choices they have made in terms of equitable and diverse opportunity. Through this, I will then asses how the choices the company have made, affects the audiences perception on the show. The last post of this series will dive into different solutions and next steps to further diversify theater and create equal opportunity for minority actors. It’s useful to provide some brief history of racism in Shakespeare before we dive right in. It’s probably no surprise to anyone that the original cast of Shakespeare’s plays were the farthest from diverse as you can get. Granted, racial equity in Elizabethan England was not on the forefront on most people’s minds. Indeed, the original casts of Shakespeare’s plays were made entirely of men and white men for that matter.
The Royal Shakespeare Company (or RSC) is known for their seemingly unlimited budget and hiring the most elite team of theater artists in the world to put on the most awesome Shakespeare you have ever seen - well at least this is how I know the RSC. Located in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, people travel from all over the world to see productions amidst the small village in England. I chose this company as the medium not only because of the accessibility of their digital theater database, but also because of how reputable and influential the company is. In 2018, the RSC posted a page on their website laying out their 5 year plan to further diversify their theater. This includes a list of goals and formulating a Board Level Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee. The mission of this committee states, “We want the RSC to be a diverse and inclusive organisation, accessible, welcoming and truly representative of the population of the UK, offering equality of opportunity to our current and potential audiences and workforce (4).” These sort of committees I think really set the standard for other theaters and lead by example by implementing this kind of work.
There are two definitions moving forward that are important for this topic and they are the difference between “color blind casting” and “color conscious casting.” According to an article written at Penn State University, color conscious casting is defined as “ the belief that actors and actresses in major motion pictures, television series, and on stage performances of the theatre ought to be cast in a manner which intentionally considers their race and ethnicity in order to prevent the continuation of the racist traditions of show business that were once completely acceptable (5).” Whereas colorblind casting is defined as, “a practice which involved casting characters without regard to the actors’ race and ethnicity (5).” We as theater artists need to move away from color blind casting and disregarding an actors race while considering them for a role, and instead move toward color conscious casting, being considerate on how an actor’s race affects the audiences perception of the piece and what the actor’s race mean in context to the story you are telling. While it would be lovely to just cast anybody of any race willy-nilly, the historical and systemic racism that has oppressed those of color and simultaneously shaped the views society has for people of color, we are unable to effectively do this.
This is important because theater, in my opinion, is the closest art form to reflect the human experience. It is more influential than people give it credit for. Not only does theater have the power to change people’s minds and think critically about issues this world faces, but implicitly, it has the power to enforce, challenge, and shape the biases we come to adopt.
Bloomquist, Jennifer. “The Minstrel Legacy: African American English and the Historical Construction of ‘Black’ Identities in Entertainment.” Journal of African American Studies, vol. 19, no. 4, 2015, pp. 410–425., doi:10.1007/s12111-015-9313-1.
https://sites.psu.edu/cragercivicissue/2017/02/01/color-conscious-casting/
