Staged Right: Diverse Representation
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- In this episode, we talk about representation of the musical theatre and why it matters. I also get to talk to Romeo Candido, Amir Haidar, and Vanessa Sears about their experiences in the industry and what steps can be made to make theatre more inclusive and developing future audiences.
Please be advised, there are images and discussions that may be sensitive and/upsetting to some viewers.
This video is meant to be informative and, as you can see, there is a lot
PEOPLE:
Ali Ewoldt, actor (1982 - ):
• Theatre Nerds Intervie...
Asian Riffing Trio, vocal group:
• Asian Riffing Trio Mus...
Bert Williams, performer (1874-1922)
• Bert Williams: Pioneer...
Eubie Blake, composer (1887-1983):
• Eubie Blake at 100
George C. Wolfe, director (1954 - ):
• A Homecoming: George C...
Jay Kuo, composer:
• Jay Kuo on his score f...
Romeo Candido, filmmaker and composer:
• Video
SHOWS:
Allegiance (2015):
• Broadway Video: ALLEGI...
"Here Lies Love" (2014):
• Video &
“Miss You Like Hell” (2018):
• The Making of MISS YOU...
"Prison Dancer" (2012)
• Prison Dancer: The Int...
“Shuffle Along” (1921)
• Shuffle Along B'Way:...
“Shuffle Along: (2016):
• Remixing ‘Shuffle Alon...
18:25, 'they were right, but it was the only place I was gonna have a job' - so painfully true. The lack of POC and specifically Asian or South-East Asian roles forces aspiring Asian performers to play these regressive roles in order to be employed. Fantastic quote.
This is a great piece and thought provoking. You should look into Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s diversity commitment and blind casting. They do an amazing job. A few years ago they did a queer Oklahoma with the full support of the Hammerstein trust. It was amazing!
Just a note - the 1st Tony Award for Lead Actor in a Play was won by Jose Ferrer (PUERTO RICAN) for his role in "Cyrano de Bergerac" in 1947
Thank you!
He also won the Oscar for the same role!
6:45 … young lady hit the nail on the head saying the show isn’t about race so bringing it up is adding unnecessary tension. Absolutely. The critics are the ones bringing it up which they are the ones making it the issue
Thank you for this episode. I’m a 50 year old latina, born and raised in California. I prided myself in “not seeing color” but seeing a person. Hamilton broke me. Haha! Having to explain to my 8 year old that none of those people were of color and, in fact, owned/rented slaves. Well, that broke me. I do want to see more diversity in musical theater but, I dont see how changing historical truths is somehow aiding in the representation of minorities. If anything, it’s just hiding our country’s ugly past. Instead of reinventing the past, let’s support local theaters and help a new generation bring in new stories.
If they ever revive Miss Saigon, casting an Asian American actor to play the male lead would be a fresh take. He just has to be an American soldier, not necessarily white American. Ellen could be Asian American too!
Or maybe a black man to play Chris, the male lead, there were a lot of black men who had children with Vietnamese women and there were a lot of black men serving during the Vietnam War
Honestly the plot of MS is unsalvageable. The sheer amount of white savior-ness crammed in a show that's about - of all things- the Vietnam war and its consequences. I do admit i like some of its music and the fact that it helped Lea Salonga become famous.
@@alexmg3648 also the lotus blossom/ submissive soft loyal Asian girl stereotype. It's an outdated musical. Like the fact that Kim commits suicide just for her son to live in America. It's ughhhh.
Late to the game but I agree. The only reason to stage that Madame Butterfly (which is worse) homage is to criticize it. Otherwise, it did it's thing. It can stay in the annuals
@@alexmg3648 I can understand that perspective, but my interpretation of the plot has always been that the American military failed their mission to "end the war" and ended up causing more harm than good, including killing innocent civilians and getting women pregnant and then abandoning them. The women are not portrayed to show that they enjoy their circumstances in any way. It instead shows them frustrated with the effects of war and patriarchy, but they do what they feel like they need to do in the moment to survive. While Kim could have further negotiated with Chris, Ellen, and John, she caught Ellen off guard, got rejected in the moment, and committed a desperate act to provide a life for her son that she felt she couldn't provide in Saigon or Bangkok. Ultimately, the show was stylized as a tragedy, so the ending was tragic.
A Strange Loop has given me hope that things are changing.
Gosh, I’d love to see it!
Yes I saw a strange loop twice on broadway and I love the representation.
Thank you for tackling this weighty subject. Lord knows, these issues are in great need of airing.
I thoroughly enjoyed that! Subscribed!
I’m loving this channel.
Interesting tidbit. There was a white actor who lied his way into the original cast of Pacific Overtures on Broadway. The great Alvin Ing was his dressing roommate and knew the entire time and was not happy about it at all. He played the older man in the song Someone in a Tree
I always wondered why there was a white actor when the original production seemed to care a lot about casting Asians in the roles. I can’t believe he lied his way in and took one of the few roles an Asian actor actually had a chance at landing.
Very well done. Objective, clear, and full of many voices (:
Thank you so much for this.Sharing!
I’d love to see a reimagining of Ragtime. I Love the score. But the show has some real issues!
Love your videos!
We need to admit that the ties came because there are people who would not allow a black person to have a very clear win. It has happened and sports as well.
The one thing I don't hear discussed enough about Hamilton is the female parts. It doesn't pass the bechdel test and the female songs are basically the only ones that don't rap. I know women as a group have it better than people of colour as a group. But it still problematic how shallow female characters are still in theater
The problem is that the test passes something like fifty shades of grey which we all know is not a good example of representation.
Angelica actually does rap a lot but she's tied down by societal woes.
I know that one criticism is that they're all tied to hamilton, but so is everybody else
This was so interesting - so many mixed feelings about all of it. I have a huge problem with historical characters who are white being played by people of color - in the same way that white people should not play people of color when they are actual historical people (I am not talking about Carousel, I am talking about Hamilton and shows like it).
Surprised you missed Geoffrey Holder for Best Director of a Musical AND Costume Design for the Wiz...
❤️
I still like some of the songs in Flowe Drum Song.
Pacific Overtures is returning to London 🇬🇧
When I hear someone use the word North American in daily casual speech I always think in my head "Oh you must be Canadian."
Okay.
@@StagedRight I only hear Canadians use that term on the regular in the news media, television, film even the Canadian tourists that visit the US. I rarely hear Americans use it. The usage of the term North American is a very Canadian thing. I don't understand why because clumping the US and Canada together like that is weird to me since the US and Canada are not one entity.
@@abandonedfragmentofhope5415 Yikes
@@peteradaniel that was also my reaction. Ughhhhhhh.
To fair in some countries it’s harder to find POC Actors.
I really appreciate discussing how the theater community hasn't been welcoming for diverse audiences. I've grown up in and around theater my entire life, but I so rarely see other Black people in the audiences. Of course, theater's history is entertainment for rich white people, and that is the true reason racism has been built into theater historically and why we still find its remains in modern theater. I think musicals like Hamilton (on the surface) or Wicked, for its subtle racial undertones, are the kinds of musicals that tell people of color that theater is made with them in mind as the audience. That, to me, is equally as valuable and necessary as putting people of color on the stage.
I’m curious as to how much within the culture for black people, that theatre is accepted within their community. I think that’s a part of the conversation that isn’t fully being addressed.
21:14 how did they do that set move like that ?
Growing up outside Toronto, I vividly remember that clip being played on their commercial when I was a kid and wondering that myself. I can only assume there was ample space backstage? If someone is in the know, do chime in
The irony is i didn't think of Lin Manuel Miranda as POC until you called it out.
Right.
Wow, 2 ties
I like the Flower Drum Song movie. By the way, the Engineer character is Eurasian, not just asian like you said, and surely you know of many mestizos/mestizas who can pass off as white people. So, no, i never had a problem with Pryce as The Engineer.
Okay but Pryce is white not Eurasian, it should be given to someone who is Eurasian descent not someone who is white or at least someone who is Asian, besides white people have a lot of roles for them Asian people and mixed race people don’t, not every role is for everybody and that’s okay
Sydney Hire only eurasian actors? Art that's literal is not art, just life. And not hiring white actors because they get all the roles anyway? You want social justice, then, not art.
I really wish you had not used to word "woke" in that manner thats incorrect
Well isn’t Cameron Mackintosh a known bigot ?
Are people from Lebanon not white??
Lebanese people are of many different shades. I wasn't able to include it but Amir said as a fair-skinned Lebanese, he's been able to be considered for roles that are not exclusively middle-eastern. It's a privilege (his word, not mine) that many don't have.
@@StagedRight I mean, so are Italians, Spaniards, Bosnians. Race and ethnicity aren't the same thing. Idk. If Lebanese people aren't white, what race are they? Arabic isn't a race, it's an ethnicity
Not to be argumentative or anything
@@piperbrady8393 Hi, it’s Amir from the video. We’re Middle Eastern, not white. We belong to the same race as Syrians, Palestinians, Jordanians, and Persians (and, to a lesser extend but still strongly, other Arab countries like Egypt). Arab is not a race, you’re right. And Lebanon being a highly colonized country (from the Ottomans to the French), you will find a lot of skin shades within the population. All that being said, we are people of colour and identify as Middle Eastern. Thanks for your question 😊
@@amourah2003 I appreciate your response 😊 my nana josephine was lebanese and we always ate tabouleh at thanksgiving. a lot of good memories of lebanese food and maronite church as a kid, though i am not lebanese myself. i have to admit, im still confused, since no one has stated what race Lebanese people are if not white. but there is no doubt that people from lebanon face ethnicism in the US, and representation is definitely important
“By adding minorities you’ve made the show political” nah random critics, by complaining that the person on stage is a different race or gender than you expect, different from “the norm,” you’re making the existence of a human political.
That’s always been my least favorite bigoted argument because it’s about as close as you can get to just straight up admitting you don’t see minorities as equal to you
Any actor should be able to play any chaaracter of any other ethnic race besides their own.....that is what being an actor is all about...Example: Why couldn't Meryl Streep play a Geisha girl in makeup? This would be nothing negative.
Nope. There is absolutely no reason for yellow face to be happening at all. If you want a woman to play a geisha, cast a Japanese girl. You’re doing the bare minimum with just an Asian person. I don’t care how talented the actress if she’s white. Check out Be King Rewind’s RUclips channel. They did some great retrospects on this subject, especially in some videos called ‘Oscars So White’. Yellow face is historically about telling Asian stories without actually letting them tell it. It’s got serious white supremacy vibes. Not good. Just not.
@@StagedRighthow about opera? There aren’t enough Japanese sopranos in the Western world to cover all the performances of Madame Butterfly. Or always having an Ethiopian Aida.
@@Tolstoy111 I work for an opera company (in a non-artistic capacity) and have a lot of issues with the way the art form historically appropriates other cultures. First, of course. Opera is a European tradition. Of course there aren’t going to be an abundance of Asian or Japanese women. Puccini and Giacosa were also not writing interested in writing a Japanese story. It is an American story told through two Italian guys. Am I disputing the beauty of the music? No. But I think Hwang’s ‘M. Butterfly’ perfectly summarizes the West’s romantic and eroticism of Asian and Japanese culture. Jumping ahead to ‘Miss Saigon’ - you have two French guys taking that same story and flipping it into a Vietnamese parable. And historically, yes, not many ppl from this nation were being trained in music theatre. I think in that ‘Saigon’ doc, a woman auditions in LA (?) who was actually born and raised in Saigon. She calls herself one of the ‘boat people’.
I could go on. I guess the crux is: When there so many examples of people telling stories from outside their own culture, and then that interpretation becomes confused as an authentic perspective on said culture, is that right?
@@StagedRight
Western artists have always tried to imagine what's "beyond". The Odyssey etc. Marco Polo's accounts of the court of Kubla Kahn were hugely popular. It's something fairly unique to this culture. Other cultures were more insular and didn't care. But the idea that it's wrong to "appropriate" other cultures is something very new and comes from a Marxist conception of culture...an oppressed class is being alienated from their cultural production. Needless to say, I don't see it through that lens. It's a historical fact that Europeans loved to tell stories about the far-away. They always have. Anyone interested in the actual culture should seek it out. Puccini was very concerned with authenticity. He met with the wife of the Japanese ambassador to Italy to learn Japanese musical traditions. Cio-Cio San may very well be the fullest developed character in all opera. She's like a character from a Chekhov play. She has a genuine arc that's unique in opera where characters are often static. She's only a victim in the traditional tragic sense. I don't see her as eroticized at all. Rather she is used by the callow American. Interestingly, one of the biggest changes made in Miss Saigon was to make the separation of the couple something out of their control. In Butterfly, the American officer is a complete cad who goes into a marriage with Geisha knowing full well that he will abandon her. The tragedy is that she regarded the marriage as real. I mean I'm American and not offended by Puccini's amusingly skewed take on America in La fanciulla del West. He saw the American "Wild West" as just another exotic other-place.
Well done. I learned a lot about some shows I've seen and others that I know would like to see.
And BW still hasn't done enough in response to the #broadwayisracist wave of complaints! I hope it's a different story once things open up again. More BIPOC on stage and behind the scenes is necessary!!
Maybe any complaints based on an inspid hashtag isn’t worth taking seriously?
This is so important.
Fantastic video. Another exceptional job.
I hope you talk about Latin Americans too
Like Chirs Rivera
Sorry of i butcherd that name 😅
Yes this is very importen, but you are forgeting one group here - people with handicaps like autism - when will a person with handicaps be accepted on the stage and there story be told in a true way. If we see how handicaps storys are told - its form no handicaps point of view - here is also a person with colur how is handicap and is trans - how can we make that person be seen. If we talk about repreentation we most also see to them how have a handicap.
Thank you presenting a nuanced view of a delicate subject. It did help me learn things that I didn't know about race, diversity, and theatre. I can't believe that it took me this long to find your channel.
Dreamgirls and The Wiz was it for the black girls I grew up with we all knew it
This was great. Thank you! And I will forever regret that I didn't get to see Shuffle Along 2016.
Out of curiosity, especially since I saw the reference and its one of my favorite musicals, but what is your opinion of Ragtime when it comes to diversity or telling the history of this nation.
I'll tell you I've never actually seen a staged version of 'Ragtime'. I do love the score and I will say I am astonished at how deceptive the depth is in McNally's scene work. Maybe after everything that's happened in last year with Breonna Taylor and George Flloyd (and solely based on how I hear it on the cast album), I feel the ending reads a little too earnest and romantic about the future of America's relationship with people of colour. The sentiment is in the right place but I'm not sure about it's success. Just me, though. I find a lot of 'Ragtime' thrilling and I think it's a piece we should see again in the future. Just maybe re-evaluate the ending? Does that make sense?
@@StagedRight I know bootlegs are controversial, but given that the original run was in 1998 I think its ok? If you are interested there are recordings of the original run available here.
Yeah, actually that all makes sense. Actually it kinda sums up most of my feelings on the show as I've reevaluated it. Like its a very 90's rose tinted view of how things can go forward for relations in this country. Tho I'd admit that the thing that made me initially reevaluate the plot was Coalhouse Walker's plotline, though I've recently rethought that part again since a lot of feelings with that comes from the movie.
@@btomimatsucunard No comment :P
@@StagedRight All good! XD
@@StagedRight It does make sense, and its based on the original novel of the same name. And you posted and talked a little about caroline or change, and that was written by a white jewish man who grew up in the South, and is view point of their house worker and her kids who were his friends, and it was his point of view from his childhood, I cant remember if he had said he wrote a book and adapted his book or if it was just taking his journals from his childhood and bringing them to the stage? but the Director of the original productions was a african american Director, and the composer was female and white., I agree with allot of whats in this video, and what your interviewees had to say, especially on we need to get new stories from these community's and diversity told and produced instead of just reviving everything under the sun and just throwing divers casting onto it unless it has a creative way to open up the story, i haven't seen the new Oklahoma, but i did find out that their was a production company that did do the research and did a all black production of it and from what I saw on line it looked respectful to the mitireal, and made little changes but did a great job with it. i have always been for respecting the writings of others here or gone from us, and not to just change things cause we can or feel we need to, when there are allot of other stories and fairy tales that have not even been told yet. Do we really need another all white Music man just cause Hugh Jackson and Sutton Foster are in it? really? But I think your video was wonderful and cant wait to see your others.
Flower drum song and Miss saigon are some of my favorite musicals
I hope post-pandemic, we can get a revival of flower drum song. If you know Barlett Sher, he’s the director of two R+H revivals, 2008’s revival of south pacific, and 2015’s revival of the king and i, both winning the tony award for best revival, and himself for best direction of a musical for south pacific. He was able to integrate a large asian cast for the king and i, with the exception of kelli o’hara, who, in the musical portrays a british woman. Hopefully he can do the same for flower drum song, because it has a very underrated, soaring score, beautiful choreography, and generally probably the most “fun” out of all the r+h shows. I say the most fun, because no one dies (oklahoma- jud fry, carousel- billy bigelow, king and i- king of siam, south pacific- lieu. Cable, sound of music is about war), and it deals more on family and heritage, rather than what the bigger shows have to offer
as someone who is filipino, i wouldn’t say we’re naturally empathetic, more culturally.
Thank you for this episode. Yes, it is an ongoing conversation.
no links for individual women -- just saying I noticed. Thanks for doing this wonderful series
Please don’t blame Jonathan Pryce.
Thank you. Thank you. TAHNK YOU!
BLESS THIS CHANNEL. SUBSCRIBED!
So will they be doing blind casting when they stage Porgy and Bess the next time?
No.
This is an issue that I have a few problems with. I admittedly (strongly) prefer opera to musicals, and that's sort of a different beast. In general though, I feel like they get it more right. Mostly, the right actor is placed in the right role for their skills. Would a black woman be a eighteenth century Italian aristocrat in real life? No. Does it work in opera? Sure. Can a white woman be an ancient Chinese princess? If her voice can carry over a zillion piece orchestra, why not? I feel like in opera essentially colorblind casting tends to work well because there's already an element of fantasy, and there's rarely any point being made about race. No one is putting on Tosca, with a black lead and making a point about fetishizing and sexualizing different races. It's almost always, "She was the best for the part."
I feel like Broadway generally doesn't do as good a job with that. When people of color are added into a white narrative, it's very frequently "A Thing." It's like, "Let's do West Side Story, but we'll update it, and make the Latino characters Black." *facepalm* Or it's like Hamilton, which I hate on seventeen different levels, but I feel like they go out of their way to be like, "Look at all of the people of color in the cast!" instead of just presenting them as the people who rose to the top in the casting process. To me, it's feels almost like tokenism. More diversity on the stage is a great thing, but almost making it part of the show's branding leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Especially when the audience is predominantly white.
I think it's sad that there aren't more musicals about POC with a really broad appeal. Things in the realm of Dreamgirls, which really embraces Black subject matter and elements of Black culture like Motown and Gospel singing, while not being expressly about race. I'm as white as white gets, so it's not really my place to say, but I imagine POC in theater don't necessarily like only being able to really celebrate their culture in works about race and racism. To me, one of the best ways to combat racism is to expose people to foreign cultures in authentic ways. You don't see a ton of that.
(Having said that, why isn't there a musical about Josephine Baker? She would be the perfect subject for a very modern musical. You get a fascinating woman, glitz for days, with feminism and civil rights. Why aren't twelve people writing this right now?)
I am not an opera fan, but as a Japanese person, there is a recording of a production of Pacific Overtures by an opera house with an all white cast performing with stereotypical Asian accents that really bothers me. I hated that they went out of their way to go that route when no one original Broadway production spoke or sang like that.
Cush Jumbo wrote a one woman play about Josephine Baker like a decade ago. I think it was on Broadway, not sure. I do wonder where there aren’t more contemporary stories about Josephine Baker being told, especially given how popular biopics are with production companies.
There actually was a musical about Josephine Baker years ago but it never came to broadway Deborah Cox starred in it
a few years ago, a group of Asian actors and singers vigorously protested a musical revival of The Mikado for casting non-Asians in their production.