EYES ON BROADWAY UPSTATE NEW YORK THEATRES GRAPPLE WITH DIVERSITY by Kelundra Smith s professional regional theaters lent on Broadway, with musicals and in Upstate New York prepared dramas including Suzan-Lori Parks’s Afor the 2012/2013 season, many adaptation of Porgy and Bess, starring artistic directors had their eyes on Broad- Audra MacDonald; A Streetcar Named way to determine which way the pendu- Desire, featuring Blair Underwood and lum would swing. According to Theater Nicole Ari Parker; Sister Act, the Mu- Communications Group, the umbrella sical, with Whoopi Goldberg; plus the organization for professional regional musical Fela! written, directed and cho- theaters, most theaters make their season reographed by Bill T. Jones and pro- decisions based on Tony Award nomina- duced by Jay-Z, Will Smith and Jada tions and wins. For instance, Good Peo- Pinkett-Smith. Ed Sayles, artistic direc- ple by David Lindsay-Abaire was nomi- tor of Merry-Go-Round Playhouse in nated for a 2011 Tony Award for Best Auburn, New York says that African Play, and is the most performed play of American music has always been on the 2012/2013 season. John Logan’s Red Broadway starting with Porgy and Bess won the Tony Award for Best Play in and moving on to Hello Dolly! starring Charles Erickson T. 2010 and was the most performed play in Pearl Bailey and Ain’t Misbehavin’ after the 2011/2012 season. a long gap. [Editor’s note: African This practice is justified by Peter American musicals have been on Flynn, former artistic director of Hangar Broadway since the turn-of-the twentieth Theatre in Ithaca, New York. “I feel like century—The Sons of Ham (1899) and In I have an opportunity as well as a re- Dahomey (1903) with the immensely tal- sponsibility to present a to community ented Bert Williams and George Walker, that is four and a half hours away from The Red Moon by Bob Cole and J. Roderick Covington as Oshoosi and New York City really quality, entertain- Rosamond (1909), and Shuffle Along Sam Encarnación as Elegba in Syra- ing, successful theater,” he states. “So in (1921), Eubie Blake’s big hit, to name a cuse Stage’s production of The Broth- bringing a popular name from Broadway few. Then, as now, White producers ers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney. I’m saying ‘Here’s what’s going on and became interested in Black musical work upper-class Black family that come into what’s popular and I’d like you to know for the reason mentioned by Sayles play while they are in their vacation what that is.’” below.] Sayles says producers started to home on Martha’s Vineyard. It is a rare In 2011/12 plays with Black protago- see that they could make money off of occasion for a Black director to have two nists and/or all-Black casts were preva- African Americans on Broadway, which shows on Broadway running concurrent- is why shows such as The Color Purple ly, something that probably has not hap- and Memphis exist now. pened since Lloyd Richards’ simultane- Kelundra Smith is a freelance arts jour- Director Kenny Leon, who is also ous productions of August Wilson’s nalist and currently the public relations artistic director of True Colors Theatre in Fences and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone manager at Syracuse Stage in Syracuse, Atlanta, had two plays on Broadway last in the 1980s. However Leon’s achieve- NY. She is a graduate of the Goldring season: The Mountaintop by Katori Hall ment has been scarcely acknowledged Arts Journalism master’s program at and Stick Fly by Lydia Diamond, with by mainstream media. Is this a sign of Syracuse University, and wrote this arti- musical composition by Alicia Keys. progress that his Blackness no longer cle during her time there. Her work can The Mountaintop is about the last night matters? Is this the Obama effect, where also be seen on BroadwayWorld.com of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life with a since we have a biracial President, other and in the The Charleston Post & supernatural interpretation of King’s Black achievements do not matter? Or is Courier, The Society of Stage Directors coming to grips with his impending it simply that no one cares? and Choreographers Journal, and other death. Stick Fly is a soap opera-esque regional publications. comedy about the secrets and lies of an (continued on page 8) Spring 2012 Black Masks 71 Regional Theater... (continued from page 7) Right now, there are no Black plays or musicals on Broadway, and the pros- pects for 2013 are dim. Motown, the musical written by Berry Gordy and di- rected by Charles Randolph-Wright, and a new version of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful, starring Cicely Tyson are due on Broadway in spring 2013. Mu- sicals about Nelson Mandela and Ray Charles are in development, as well as a musical adaptation of the film The Nutty Joe Schuyler Professor, but the expected dates have not been released. The trickledown effect of fewer shows featuring actors of color on Broadway leads to fewer opportunities for Black actors to go on Equity audi- (l. to r.) Jeannie Jones as Black Pearl, a prisoner whose voice and knowledge of tions and therefore receive Equity roles Black slave songs capture the attention of Susannah Mullahy, a Library of in professional regional theaters. Despite Congress ethnomusicologist played by Jessica Wortham in Capital Repertory’s some forays into non-traditional casting production of Black Pearl Sings. by some theaters, an article titled “Color- blind Casting or Color Consciousness?” Parker (Showtime’s Soul Food) and which are separate issues in themselves. written by Dominique Morisseau on The Wood Harris (The Wire). These numbers account for working Public Theater’s blog recently incited a Since many theaters also employ Equity actors and stage managers, but do lot of discussion about opportunities for directors of color when they stage their not account for the 20 percent of mem- actors of color. Morisseau wrote that one Black play, this means opportunities bers who choose to withhold their racial “there is an unspoken rule in the theater are also limited for Black directors. In a identities altogether. that no one is talking about. Character Q & A by Gretchen Michelfeld in the Still, if the usual patterns held, with descriptions in plays, which may eventu- November/December 2011 newsletter of all the Broadway Black productions in ally be shared in casting breakdowns, are The Stage Directors and Choreographers the previous season, the 2012/13 region- coding a tone of racial inequality in the Society (the professional union for direc- al seasons should be teeming with Black theater. Unless race is specified, we ac- tors and choreographers working on shows and opportunities for Black actors tors of color (yes, I am also one of them) Broadway and in professional regional and crews. But, Black stage profession- know that we are most likely not going theaters in the US), Sharon Jensen, exec- als are haunted by the number one. to be seriously considered for the role, utive director of the Alliance for Inclu- That’s the number of plays with African because ‘no’ racial specification usually sion in the Arts, said: “The issue is also American casts that appear in the sea- translates to ‘[W]hite.’” what messages we send about who sons of most professional regional the- Another barrier for Black actors is counts, about what stories deserve to be aters. The plays are usually by Lorraine the tendency to cast celebrity on Broad- told….If the purpose of the theater is to Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun) or Au- way. The Mountaintop starred Samuel L. illuminate the capacity of the human gust Wilson (Fences, Gem of the Ocean, Jackson, who is sixty-three, as a thirty- spirit, the theater (of all places) is a place Jitney), or maybe George C. Wolfe (The nine-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. and to include and reflect the full spectrum Colored Museum). Angela Bassett, fifty-three, as the young and dimension of humanity.” There are some exceptions to the rule maid in his Memphis hotel room. Stick The lack of representation is addi- of “one.” Geva Theatre in Rochester Fly starred Mekhi Phifer (ER), Dulé Hill tionally problematic because it desig- staged A Raisin in the Sun and Superior (Psych), Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Amer- nates the arts, specifically stage direct- Donuts by Tracy Letts in its 2011/12 sea- ican Gangster) and Tracie Thoms (Rent), ing, acting and writing, as being a pro- son. Syracuse Stage produced Tony although the standout performance was fession reserved for White people. Ac- Kushner’s Caroline, or Change and The by the youngest and lesser known cording to the 2010/2011 Actors’ Equi-ty Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney Condola Rashad, daughter of Phylicia annual report, 7.3 percent of members in their 2011/12 season. Capital Rep in Rashad (Clair Huxtable on The Cosby identify as African American, while 84.6 Albany staged three Black-themed pro- Show). Likewise, A Streetcar Named De- percent identify as Caucasian. The num- ductions: Uptown Downtown, Leslie Ug- sire starred Blair Underwood (The New bers are even less for Latino and Asian Adventures of Old Christine), Nicole Ari representation in American theater, (continued on page13) 8 Black Masks Spring 2012 1 Regional Theater... Theatre on Broadway last April. Syra- Black talent on stage or behind the (continued from page 8) cuse Stage and Hangar Theatre also con- scenes. When Sayles is casting, he says sidered Stick Fly, just as Capital Rep he has always looked for the best voices, considered The Mountaintop, but decid- regardless of race, even before non-tradi- gams’s one-woman show, Frank Hig- ed otherwise.