Download a PDF - Stage Directions Magazine

Feature
|
By Iris Dorbian
Harlan Taylor
David Ryan Smith, Daphne Gaines, and William McNulty in Actors
Theatre of Louisville’s 2008 production of A Christmas Carol.
Telling Stories with Everyone
The rewards of color-blind and non-traditional casting
When Joseph Papp, founding artistic director of
the seminal Off-Broadway house, The Public
Theater, began casting African-American
actors, such as James Earl Jones, in roles normally
reserved for white actors, such as William in Henry V,
50 years ago, a revolutionary act in theatre was taking
place. Seeking to create a theatre representative of
the racial and ethnic diversity in which it was operating,
Papp became a pioneer and champion of both
color-blind casting, which relates to issues of race, and
nontraditional casting, which affects race, gender, age
or physical challenges.
Now what was once so radical is commonplace in
American theatre. And The Public Theater, under the
artistic direction of Oskar Eustis, is still leading the charge
in this area; but several questions linger: What are the
“Racial identity is an insufficient
category to describe a human
experience.”—Oskar Eustis
rewards and pitfalls of color-blind and/or nontraditional
casting? When does it enhance a production and when can
it detract from it?
Eustis, who’s been at his current post since 2005, doesn’t
feel it can ever detract from the casting of a show because,
according to him, the audience is color-blind and willing
to suspend belief while watching a theatrical production.
“No sane being thinks that they’re actually watching
King Lear,” he insists. “Theatre is about creating fiction.
What we have is an affirmative action policy toward
casting: We want the players to mirror the composition
of the culture in which we’re performing.”
For instance, Passing Strange, which was produced
at the Public in 2007 before transferring to Broadway
in early 2008, featured a mostly black cast in the roles
of white Europeans. Eustis said this was a conscious
artistic decision to play up the fact that the story was
being told from the perspective of a black man. The
show, an autobiographical musical about a young
black musician’s coming of age experiences in Europe,
featured a book and lyrics by Stew and music by Stew
and Heidi Rodewald.
“It was the right lens with which to look at it,” says
Eustis, who previously served as artistic director of the
Providence, R.I.-based Trinity Rep. “Most of the artists
know that identity politics has its limit; racial identity
is an insufficient category to describe a human experience.”
Showcase the Actor
Often the power of an actor’s talent can cause a
director to cross gender or race during the casting
process. When actor/director and college professor
Lori Adams was casting a production of Anna Deveare
Smith’s Fires in the Mirror earlier this year at the St.
Louis-based Mustard Seed Theater, she simply was
looking for the best actors and not seeking to make a
political statement.
20 August 2010 • www.stage-directions.com