The Nightingale Casting Controversy
The choice to cast Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's new musical The Nightingale with only two Asian American actors caused significant controversy in 2012, culminating in a post-show public forum held by the Playhouse, during which Christopher Ashley and director Moises Kaufman apologized. However, one of the directors stated that the purpose and vision of the play was to create a multicultural environment where all races were included. However, the panelists at a forum argued that multicultural was another way of putting white actors in ethnic roles. Several panelists argued that the director would not have dared to put a white man like Bobby Steggert into the role of Othello, a role typically played by a black person.
Read more about this topic: La Jolla Playhouse
Famous quotes containing the words nightingale, casting and/or controversy:
“In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade,
Which a grove of myrtles made,
Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,
Trees did grow, and plants did spring:
Every thing did banish moan,
Save the Nightingale alone.”
—Richard Barnfield (1574–1629)
“This I do know and can say to you: Our country is in more danger now than at any time since the Declaration of Independence. We don’t dare follow the Lindberghs, Wheelers and Nyes, casting suspicion, sowing discord around the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt. We don’t want revolution among ourselves.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)