What do you think of "color blind casting?"?

Question

Personally - I think it's a bad idea. If you're doing a production of Streetcar Named Desire - and Stella is Asian - it just doesn't work for me. I work both onstage and off - an spend LOTS of time getting just the right prop or just the right set piece so it looks believable for the period or the setting. Why in the world would you put a person on the stage who is going to make it more difficult for the audience to believe what's going on!?!?!?!? I understand that in some theatre companies - there needs to be more roles for minority actors. So PLEASE do plays that call for other races.

Color blind casting works for me sometimes. I loved the latest Rogers and Hammersteins Cinderella where the races were all mixed up - but that's a fairy tale - and requires me to extend my belief anyway.

I'm a very light complected white woman - but I swear - if these companies don't stop this oddball casting - I'm going to show up for "A Raisin in the Sun" auditions.

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

Years ago I directed a production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and I cast a Black George and a white Martha. I was not making a statement - they were far and away the best actors for the roles.

It was a very strong production - a coupe of people walked out, I don't know if it was the casting or the language in the play. We began to notice how many times she calls him "Boy." We left it in.

It added an interesting dimension to the tension between them.

I don't think there is such a thing as color blind casting - who a person is as an actor is important - and your heritage is part of that. Who the character is is also important. Does the casting work within the context of the play, and/or the director's concept of this particular production. I have seen mixed casting in Shakespearean productions that works well - but heaven help the director today who tried to cast a white man as Othello.

They key is to be sure you don't only cast "white" actors for roles in which it makes no difference - and so on along the line. (I don't care how good you are, I won't even read you for Raisin.)

Answer 2

It sounds like you mainly work tech, so my guess is you probably have no idea just how difficult it is working as an actor under the stereotypical type-casting system. Thank goodness today no one will keep you from auditioning for a traditionally white role if you're not Caucasian. I think the theatre community is finally waking up to the fact that a role should go to the actor who is best qualified to play the part. I say if a black chick can sing and act the socks off of "Marian" in The Music Man, then let her sing it... and so on. It's time we move past the prejudicial casting systems spawned by racism and bigotry and focus on the art form if we want to keep theatre viable in our culture.

Answer 3

The opera world has been doing it for years and years, with hardly an objection raised anywhere. As some of the other writers noted, however, occasionally the character must be of a particular race, or the work absolutely does not make sense. But the "Virginia Woolf" example is excellent--why couldn't one of the characters be African-American, Asian, Hispanice, etc.? I don't believe the stage directions say "Martha, a 50 year old white shrew." I've seen modern and classical drama, including a lot of Shakespeare, with "color blind" casts, and I can't remember a single case where it seemed to throw everything out of kilter.

Answer 4

Actually, this is the first time I've really heard of such a thing. I mean, I'm all for Civil Rights, non-discrimination, and all that but Affirmative Action and the like sometimes goes too far. In your example (A Streetcar Named Desire), I'm assuming that Stella is Caucasian (never seen it, so I have to guess). If the script says or implies that a character is Caucasian, of African descent, East, South or Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, etc. then you best be going by the script. If you absolutely must have an Asian play a Caucasian, there'd better be little or none of them available. Otherwise, well... I'm sure you get the idea.
*NOTE* Don't assume that I'm racist because of what I said. I'm all for having different races in a play or whatever, but make sure that it either fits in with the time period and all or that it's like a fairy tale.

Answer 5

There is a time and a place for color-blind casting. "Raisin" doesn't work with white actors. However, "Streetcar" isn't about race. Why not put an Asian actor in?

I think you underestimate both the number of jobs available for actors of color and also the audience's ability to suspend disbelief. They know they're not really in New Orleans or in an un-air-conditioned tenement house. For that matter, they are probably not seeing Southern actors with homegrown Southern accents. Why wouldn't they also buy Stella being played by an Asian woman?

And how scary to think that minority actors should only do minority roles. Guess we'd all better get ready to do "Flower Drum Song" for the next hundred years. The fact is, many "minority roles" suck. If the playing field were level--if it were as easy or as fulfilling for our minority colleagues to make a living as it is for us white folks--then I might agree with you. (And we know that is it NOT easy to make it as a working actor. Imagine adding race to that challenge.) But as it is, if you limit any actor's roles, then you severely limit her ability to survive, to grow as an artist, to get to do ALL of the really meaty, wonderful roles out there.

And since when did whiteness become the American standard, the "neutral" race? Who's to say that a (diverse) audience watching your hypothetical Streetcar is going to identify with a white Stella any more than an Asian Stella?

Answer 6

I think it most cases it's great. I always want diversity when I direct. However, in certain plays it simply would not work. For instance, in Driving Miss Daisy you simply MUST have an African-American man in the role of Hoke. The play's historical references and dialogue will not work otherwise.

Answer 7

It's Political Correctness run amuck!

Answer 8

I agree, it's just stupid. It takes you out of the story. PC run amok.