VIEWPOINTS – Afraid You Don’t Fit the Mold? Not to Worry, Today’s Broadway is a Good Place to Be (Finally)

If the 2014/2015 season was the year of the Brits on Broadway, then this season happily promises to be the Year of Diversity on the Great White Way, particularly when it comes to musicals. Thus far in the early summer months of the 2015/2016 theater season, the two musicals to have opened on Broadway both feature multi-racial casting. First and foremost is Lin-Manuel’s color-blind musical sensation “Hamilton”, which brilliantly recounts the life of Alexander Hamilton through the hip-hop vernacular. Then there’s the bland if well-meaning “Amazing Grace”, which tells the improbable tale of the creation of the famous hymn that gives the show its name. Of course, some shows technically necessitate multi-racial casting due to unavoidable plot requirements (like “Amazing Grace”, “Miss Saigon”, and “The King and I”). However, unlike film, the genre of theater blatantly asks its audiences to suspend disbelief, and it’s nice to see that theater-makers are finally taking this tenet to heart on a more consistent basis as it relates to their casting choices. Furthermore, diversity on Broadway is not restricted to ethnic casting in the current season; various types of diversity are being embraced (e.g., young performers and performers with disabilities are also being represented, in addition to people of color), even by well-established long-running hits.

 

The 2015/2016 season embraces people of color

This season on the Great White Way, an unprecedented six musical productions (that I currently know of) will feature casts predominantly comprised of people of color. Beyond the aforementioned “Amazing Grace” at the Nederlander, which features a half Black cast, and “Hamilton” at the Richard Rogers, which represents the Founding Fathers as revolutionary Latinos and Blacks, this Broadway season promises further multi-racial casting via the following shows:

–        “On Your Feet” (performances begin October 5th at the Marquis), which chronicles Gloria and Emilio Estefan’s rise in the music world, will feature a mainly Latino cast.

–       George Takei’s childhood is the subject of the new musical “Allegiance” (performances begin October 6th at the Longacre), which will feature an Asian cast, including Tony Award-winning Lea Salonga.

–       John Doyle’s intimate, retooled revival of the musical “The Color Purple” (performances begin November 10th at the Jacobs) will feature an all-Black cast, including pop music star and Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson.

–       “Shuffle Along, or, The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed” (performances start March 14th at the Music Box), directed by George C. Wolfe and starring the legendary Audra McDonald, will recount the story behind the first Broadway musical to feature an all-Black cast.

 

Broadway’s long-running hits have joined the bandwagon

Even long-running musicals that originally opened with all-White casts have recently adopted color-blind casting:

–       The current, already color-blind revival of “Les Misérables” at the Imperial will become even more diverse when it introduces Montego Glover (Tony nominee for “Memphis” and recently of “It Shoulda Been You”) as Fantine starting September 1st. Note also that last month, understudy Kyle Jean-Baptiste made Broadway history twice in one performance when he played the role of Jean Valjean — the 21 year-old became the youngest actor and the first African-American to play the daunting role.

–       Broadway’s longest running musical, “The Phantom of the Opera” at the Majestic, recently joined the bandwagon when the magnetic Norm Lewis became the first African-American to don the mask earlier this year in an acclaimed performance (big-voiced James Barbour now plays the Phantom).

–       “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” currently stars Taye Diggs in the titular role, as well as Rebecca Naomi Jones as his frustrated sidekick. This scintillating duo of color is slated to be the final Hedwig/Ytzhak team; the hit rock musical shutters on September 13th.

–       “On the Town” welcomes superstar ballerina Misty Copeland (a newly minted Principal Dancer at American Ballet Theatre, the first African-American woman to hold that title) in the dance-heavy role of Ivy for a very limited run starting September 6th. She closes the show on September 6th.

At long last, it’s a good time to be an actor of color in New York theater.

 

Beyond Broadway

Additionally, it looks like network television is on the same wavelength as its Broadway brethren – after the great successes of presenting live renditions of the classic, albeit Caucasian-centric musicals “The Sound of Music” and “Peter Pan” over the last few years (although Audra McDonald did play a superb Mother Abbess in the former), NBC is planning to present “The Wiz” this December (for those of you who don’t know, “The Wiz” is the all-Black soul musical adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s ever-popular “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”).

 

Kids continue to invade Broadway

Move over “Matilda”, young performers are getting even more opportunities to shine on the Great White Way. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s kid-populated, family-friendly “School of Rock” (an adaptation of the film starring Jack Black) is getting ready for its first day of class on November 9th. Allegedly more than a thousand kids showed up for an open call audition at the Winter Garden for a chance to perform on its hallowed boards. Not to worry, kids. It’s rumored that Sam Mendes’s musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is coming to Broadway in the coming seasons (the huge show is currently a rock solid hit in the West End).

 

Signing to a standing ovation

One of the most unusual and heartwarming announcements in recent months was the news that Deaf West’s production of Duncan Sheik’s Tony Award-winning musical “Spring Awakening” is being revived on Broadway this fall (performances start September 8th at the Brooks Atkinson). This continues the trend started a few seasons back when Roundabout successfully remounted a unique production of “Big River” (also courtesy of Deaf West) as part of its Broadway season. Let’s hope that this recognition of the endless possibilities of inclusive theatrical storytelling, particularly in the competitive, sink-or-swim environment that is today’s Broadway, continues and thrives.

Categories: Broadway, Theater

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