Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance Volume 19 Shakespeare and/ in Europe: Connecting Voices Article 3 June 2019 Cross-Cultural Casting in Britain: The Path to Inclusion, 1972-2012 Jami Rogers Follow this and additional works at: https://digijournals.uni.lodz.pl/multishake Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Rogers, Jami (2019) "Cross-Cultural Casting in Britain: The Path to Inclusion, 1972-2012," Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance: Vol. 19 , Article 3. DOI: 10.18778/2083-8530.19.03 Available at: https://digijournals.uni.lodz.pl/multishake/vol19/iss34/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts & Humanities Journals at University of Lodz Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance by an authorized editor of University of Lodz Research Online. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance vol. 19 (34), 2019; http://dx.doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.19.03 Jami Rogers Cross-Cultural Casting in Britain: The Path to Inclusion, 1972-2012 Abstract: This essay uses three productions to chart the progress of the integration of performers of African and Afro-Caribbean descent in professional British Shakespearean theatre. It argues that the three productions―from 1972, 1988 and 2012―each use cross-cultural casting in ways that illuminate the phases of inclusion for British performers of colour. Peter Coe’s 1972 The Black Macbeth was staged at a time when an implicit colour bar in Shakespeare was in place, but black performers were included in the production in ways that reinforced dominant racial stereotypes.