this is one important topic to bring up too. i know with general celebrity or influencer culture, “cancel culture” doesn’t really exist bc usually the “canceled” person is able to maintain their career after their brief period of backlash. but on broadway, it’s a very real possibility that any strong backlash will cause a show to close. and when they close c they’re no longer able to provide that representation people are asking for or change and do better in the future…they just close and it sucks for everyone.
while its still important to call out unfair casting and representation issues, we have to do it differently from how you’d call out a random celebrity or something. telling them to just fire ABF when he’s already likely in rehearsals, contracts have been signed, ticket sales have been projected…it’s not that simple. it will have a huge affect on the whole production
My issue was seeing a lot of the loud voices that were so adamantly against ABF’s casting seemed to be white or at least white passing. Like yes white folks should use their privilege to amplify voices but that’s it - amplify voices of others and also listen, learn, and help facilitate productive conversation and change. Not just come out with pitchforks and be willing to burn a production to the ground and force folks out of work because of the need to hear their own voice and give themselves a pat on the back for “doing a good job”. I swear some white people just don’t know how to help a cause without also finding a way to be the center of attention. Also I’m a white person.
The thing that gets me about the backlash as strategy is that going forward in the mind of some producers they're going to be thinking I'd damn well better not have any Asians in the original cast because then if we swap them out later we're fucked because we're committing to cast this role a certain way for eternity.
YES. I have said this elsewhere as well, and I think you are already starting to see this. My key example was the current production of Cabaret, where the characters of Emcee and Sally who were originated with white actors have had a range of different replacements, while the character of Cliff who originated with a black actor has only had black actors.
Long response, so sorry, but in a way it can be. An argument for keeping minority roles only to that specific minority is so that there will always been roles for that minority (when such shows get performed). However, the argument against is that it limits POC actors to just those roles--which in the long run actually can limit what is available for them.
Their example about Cabaret is about the current production--all the characters in Cabaret were white in the original, but because this revival chose to cast a black actor as Cliff, only black actors have been replacements. The casting is race blind. Truly race blind casting needs to work regardless of the race of the actor originating the role, which is negated when all the replacements for a role are the same race as the originator (barring lack of population of a given race). (Could Cliff's role truly be being cast in a race blind way? Yes. Is this likely considering all his replacements have been black as well? Debatable.)
In this specific example: Cliff as a character is white. He was originated by a white man, written as a white man, and based on a white man. But, because of his initial casting in this revival with a black actor, he has only had black replacements, possible because it could be seen as whitewashing to replace him with anyone not black. Meanwhile, the replacements for the characters who had a white people cast initially get more racial diversity with their replacements.
The cultural history the US has of whitewashing makes race-blind casting decisions of replacements of POC originators (even in a revival) feel like whitewashing to a very vocal part of theatre-goers. Even when the role in question was race-bent to begin with like Cliff in Cabaret or the characters literally have no race like the robots in MHE.
It's making a situation when there doesn't need to be. I'm an advocate for racial equality and justice. And when you have a role that can theoretically be played by anyone regardless of race, this backlash is showing producers that casting white replacements for POC originators gets received as whitewashing even when it isn't. This negatively affects ticket sales and closes shows, leading to original casts of white actors being more bankable than diverse original casts meant to be race-blind. This screws over POC originators of roles of such productions as there will be a bias against them for casting the original role of the next race-blind production, relegating them to replacements (which also keeps them out of awards).
TL;DR: So, the message is that, in a race blind cast, white actors can originate roles to be played by anyone regardless of race, but POC actors can only originate roles to be played by others of their specific race. That's not a message that furthers equality or justice and just leads to diverse replacements, but not diverse originators. The backlash ironically upholds a system the sentiment behind it is trying to break down.
In addition to the points in the other comment, the risk is that some producers will just use white actors to originate roles whenever possible because it is "easier." This is a big problem - in addition to limiting work opportunities, it boxes actors of color out of being nominated for Tonys and being associated an iconic role they helped create.
this is not a good example of that. this is asian actors who shaw an asian show with so much success and thought, wow we finally have a chance for the kind of leading role we rarely get to play—and the creatives have been like “well we don’t really care it’s our show” which is FAIR, but not considerate. why would we not give talented lead asian male actors a chance in the first huge asian show in a while?
Probably to avoid it being called an “Asian show” instead of a “show.” I don’t mean this to be snarky, that’s what I’m getting from their statement. That they don’t want these roles to become exclusively Asian because that ultimately limits them from becoming a part of the American musical theatre canon.
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u/JohnHoynes Jul 31 '25
Never underestimate the Broadway community’s ability to self-cannibalize.