What?
Came across befuddling remarks on The U of M's Backstage Pass Discussion Forum:
http://backstagepass.bigforumpro.com/dept-wide-spring-semester-2008-f1/the-wiz-diversity-t4.htm
According to this website,
Anonymous theater students addressing the Peers, a group who aims provide up-to-date information about the happenings of the Department of Theater Arts and Dance, recently presented two major concerns about The Wiz:
Question 1: "The Wiz? White cast? Not cool! Diversity please?"
Question 2: "Why is the Wiz being done with a predominately white cast? Diversity?"
First of all,
Who raised this question?
And second, where are they getting their information?
How did they ever get the idea that The Wiz is a white cast?
We're not.
We're not even a "predominately white" cast.
However, many of us are not theater majors or the usual faces one often spots chilling out in the theater building.
And thank god we're not!
Isn't it refreshing, perhaps even necessary, to remind our community that the theater department extends far beyond BA's, BFA's, and theater classes?
Shouldn't these elusive question posers take it upon themselves to get to know us and experience the art we're creating before they complain about how white we are?
Furthermore, our director Dominic Taylor already concentrates on what the Forum's William D. refers to as difference,
"meaningful change in the day to day discussion of race/sex/religion/thinking",
by continuously encouraging our cast to experiment with sexual identity and gender roles in a way that's still relevant to the plot.
It can even be argued that our show's a little too larger-than-life, that we're trying too hard to be "edgy", "urban", and P.C,
But we ARE diverse and we DO address difference.
Those aren't the problems!
Why aren't we talking about why Dominic wants The Land of Oz to symbolize The University,
OR
The reasoning behind his choice to feature jarring photographs from turbulent periods in African American history before the first act begins?
Peers, students, anyone, I urge you to attend rehearsals.
Sit in the audience, ask questions, engage actors in discussion during their breaks and downtime, see Dominic during his office hours, e-mail our stage managers,
Become directly involved before jumping to conclusions.
Comments
Just to clear some things up, the two comments you mentioned from the online backstage pass were generated from the Peers/the Sounding Board's "suggestion boxes" which are annoynmous. The Peers and the members of the Sounding Board decided to post all of the comments that the suggestion box generated in a public space so that they could foster a dialogue among students. So, the Peers (Briar, Ashley and Kendra) did not author those comments.
Posted by: Laura Lechner | March 25, 2008 01:22 PM
I appreciate your comments a lot about this issue and would like to raise one more concern that I have about the questions raised by this anonymous group.
Why is diversity only defined by race or ethnicity?
Yes, I realize that in some ways this may make us different from one another, but it's not the only way. Like you mentioned, not all of the cast are theater majors and they're all from different places and different families and different upbringings. Isn't that diversity too? If we only classify diversity by race or ethnicity, aren't we using the same tools as those people who are prejudiced to people of different races? It's a tool for classification.
I'm not advocating complete colorblindness. Race is another characteristic about an individual that makes him or her unique, but it's not the only thing. To assume that we are not a diverse group because we are "predominantly white" (another conversation) is similarly ignorant, as well meaning as it may be.
Posted by: Kristin | March 25, 2008 09:51 PM