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:
“Everything perfect in its kind has to transcend its own kind, it must become something different and incomparable. In some notes the nightingale is still a bird; then it rises above its class and seems to suggest to every winged creature what singing is truly like.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgement shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision.”
—Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855)
“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.)