The Fairy Princess tries really, REALLY hard to ignore a good, let’s say eighty per cent of ‘the stuff’.
Because it is overwhelming.
Sometimes she cannot, and that is what today’s piece is about.
There are some things for AAPIs to be happy about – Wu Assassins on Netflix is doing great…
Many people in the cast, Byron Mann and Lewis Tan have been announced for very exciting upcoming projects…
Justin Chon has a new film coming out later this month, MS. PURPLE, and he is quite the film auteur – take a look…
And then there is Broadway, also known as The Great White Way.
Now, yes, very exciting that shows like HADESTOWN is holding it down with a few AAPIs including the lead, Eva Noblezada and one of the feature players, Kaye Trinidad as one of the Fates.
BEETLEJUICE – selling out – with TFP‘s buddy and frequent BroadwayCon panelist, Kelvin Moon Loh, doing the whole undead thing in a show about death.
Maryann Hu is holding down the role of the Queen in FROZEN, while the former Queen, Ann Sanders is appearing as Mrs. Murphy in DEAR EVAN HANSEN.
Off Broadway is moving forward with the very exciting NY Premiere of SOFT POWER by one of our Greatest Living Playwrights, David Henry Hwang – and starring a cavalcade of AAPIs – which, hey TFP is gonna pull from the website – so you know their faces:
Not JUST for AAPIs, but for everyone – why she went to see ANNIE GET YOUR GUN out at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, and you could have knocked her over with a feather to see a talented, inclusive cast. Somehow, they sidestepped all the problematic issues with that show because, TFP believes, they had a woke Director, Sarna Lapine, and they made it a point to be specific and inclusive in the casting of the show.
Take a look: Alexandra Socha as Annie Oakley opposite Matt Saldivar as Frank Butler. The cast also featured Jennifer Sanchez as Dolly Tate, Jonathan Joss as Sitting Bull, George Abud as Charlie, Isa Mooney as Jessie, Meaghan McInnes as Nellie, Oge Agulé as Pawnee Bill, Orville Mendoza as Buffalo Bill, Stephen Lee Anderson as Foster Wilson, and Will Hantz as Little Jake.
In SAG HARBOR.
So with all the positive movement on and Off Broadway, and even at the tips of Lawn Guyland, and with all those POC now available since the closing of several shows on Broadway in the late summer, with more coming up – could someone in the name of all that is banana pudding with a vanilla graham crust topped with Cool Whip, explain to TFP why the cast of the upcoming Broadway revival of MUSIC MAN is so….so VERY….
Ivanka-friendly?
It is universally acknowledged that Jackman is friends with the Kushners, and as much as TFP loves the Jackman as a performer, as a fellow Aussie, this makes her soooooo uncomfortable – it is like sending a Bat Signal to the KKK in song and dance.
It dismisses all the progress that has been made. Frankly, with Jackman and Foster heading it up- that is kinda all you need in terms of ‘wattage’.
Why is this happening? This chock o’block prevention of access by anyone with pigment- what are ‘we’ learning from this?
It tells us, the POC of Broadway, that we are there merely to set the stage for the prevalence of Caucasian dominance.
When we – and by that, TFP is including ALLLLLLLLL the POC of the Broadway – the eight show a week, don’t call out, miss the birthdays and the holidays because the show sets the schedule, the folks that spent half their childhoods in class, those folks – look at the casting of MUSIC MAN – where not ONE ROLE in a supporting capacity has gone to a Performer of Color, we see what is thought of us.
The following is a comment by Producer Scott Rudin on the current announced production
‘In a Golden Age way’ aka ‘In a way that is all Caucasian’- this is the Production that will #MakeMusicalsGreatAgain.
We are the ‘soy sauce’ – (to quote the very bold and brave Screenwriter and TV Scribe, Adele Lim, who walked away from CRAZY RICH ASIANS 2, when she found out about the pay disparity between her and her co-writer.) for the productions.
Hashtag Not All Productions.
No, not all.
But a lot more than should be.
The POC of Broadway are feeling some sort of way about that…..
Jackman, who has been super inclusive and supportive on his solo tour just, what…got too busy to realize that Keala Settle could have Gingold-ed Mrs. Shinn to the DEATH?
Here is a reminder of who we could have seen as Mrs. Shin(n).
There is no reason, in 2019, almost 2020, that Performers of Color need to continue the fantasy that we are only here to ‘frame’ a white hero.
There is NOTHING wrong with being in the Ensemble – it is a proud, noble, theatrical tradition and role – but it is NOT all that ‘we’ can do. “We” have been in many, many productions where ‘we’ have been included – enough so that this casting of MUSIC MAN should be shocking enough to audiences that they should have to wear shades.
Many will say “In 1912 in Iowa…there were no People of Color” which to that, TFP says…
There were People of Color across the United States by 1912.
There were Native Americans, in Iowa.
Literally Iowa is a Sioux word, and the name of one of the Tribes.
Tribes in Iowa include the Illinois, Iowa, Nez Perce, Pahodja, Pawnee, Winnebago, Missouria, Moingwena, Omaha, Otoe, Ottawa, Peoria, Ponca, Potawatomi and the Winnebago (also known as the Ho-Chunk Nation). Other tribes included the Chippewa, Dakota Sioux, Fox and Sauk.
According to the Journal Of Negro History by James L. Hill, on pages 289-303, while the state was not a primary path west for The Great Migration, Iowa did have African Americans, and by 1912 – which is when the MUSIC MAN is set, they had a solid population.
Read that again, 5,762 by 1870…and 1912 is still…let TFP do the math….42 years in the future!
They had 42 years to increase the African American Population in Iowa from when that number was taken.
Wow.
In fact, the AAPI population in the Midwest was almost nil, because of course, of the Exclusion Act of 1882, and for subsequent laws prohibiting Asian land ownership – but a gal can dream, can’t she?
TFP has never met a non-Asian person named Shin.
She is aware that in the show, the character name is Shinn and has Irish heritage, but because she is…well…HER…she knows that Irish Asian people actually EXIST, and some of us went to really great schools that are known for stellar performers.
Hispanic populations in the Midwest can be explored thusly:
TFP doesn’t even need to CITE anything, use your eyes!
Three states away from Mexico you find Iowa.
The likelihood of Hispanic presence is HIGH, isn’t it?
The answer there is no matter what brand of Caucasity you indulge in, you cannot erase People of Color, and by extension, Performers of Color from anything occurring in 1912.
Cannot be done.
EVEN IN IOWA!
People of Color do not have to prove we belong in this country, and yet, y’all keep asking us to. Each time, TFP has been able to do it because there have been scholars determined to show that America is made from the bones of those who came before – and those bones do not belong to one group.
Stew on that for a while, won’t you?
500 Smacks of the Wand to the upcoming Broadway Production of MUSIC MAN and it’s Producers (who are honestly ducking that #MeToo movement like it’s dodge ball).
TFP is not buying a ticket. She has a choice, as does everyone else, to put her money behind projects that support the people she admires, people who see PEOPLE.
All KINDS of PEOPLE.
No matter how much you love the performers in this revival as Artists, she is hoping that you, Dear Reader, ‘vote’ with your ticket – if you want to support growth in front and behind the table, why not use that outrageously priced ticket you were going to indulge in, and go see…HADESTOWN, HAMILTON, MOULIN ROGUE, DEAR EVAN HANSEN, SOFT POWER…in short…literally anything else.
Because if you do not, then this kind of thinking is going to linger and expand – and we will be back to where we started, as adjuncts to American stories where we belong in lead roles.
Do not reward it by making it a ‘hit’.
TFP out.
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