The Fairy Princess is processing a few things right now –
First – sending good, healing wishes to John Cho, who has kneecapped the production of COWBOY BEBOP because…yeah, knee injury. Totally bad joke, please commence eye roll immediately.
Thank you for that.
TFP wishes a speedy recovery and painless PT to Mr. Cho – and extends her heartiest condolences to the Cast and Crew – and hopes they are up and running in the next 7 months, and not 9.
But…to quote Steven Lutvak, “it takes the time it takes”, so if he needs the extra few months – go for it. Good health to all.
Congrats to Justin Chon – because, well, he is Justin Chon, a relatively new Dad, and has announced his third feature as a writer/director entitled BLUE BAYOU which is co-starring Oscar Winner, Alicia Vikander.
In the category of Asian Familial Realness, which Justin has been serving with his previous films, GOOK and MS. PURPLE, BLUE BAYOU is about a KoreAM adoptee raised in the US who has to examine his past, and – as is happening in so many places across the country in real life – now faces deportation.
Also, super exciting to see TONY Winner, Ruthie Ann Miles as a series regular on the CBS show, ALL RISE – which is a cool show about a vibrant new Judge, and the courts of Los Angeles. One of TFP‘s other favorites, actor Reggie Lee, is also on there as the District Attorney.
TWO AAPI’s not related, on a show together?
Now, for the turd sandwiches of the week – first up – Dallas.
Not the Real Housewives.
TFP wishes.
She WISHES she wrote a blog about Real Housewives – but she doesn’t. She writes about inclusion.
For all peoples.
So here we go –
Let TFP get this straight – an Actress in the cast of IN THE HEIGHTS, had a fall and gashed her face. HER FACE.
Not a twisted ankle or anything that could be ‘taped up’ – she gashed her face. She hurt her nose, and they had a makeup artist cover it up so she could continue to go on.
This is egregious.
She was, quite obviously, feeling unwell – TFP does not know how she was able to sing with the injuries she had, however, in “the Big D”, they feel that they would rather have more elaborate sets and costumes.
One has to wonder – and TFP wonders all the time – what part race played in this drama. Did they not take it quite so seriously because she IS a POC? Seems off the charts crazy to put makeup on a gash and various facial injuries and send the person on the stage to sing and dance and be funny.
That is something TFP knows.
IN THE HEIGHTS takes place in Washington Heights. When TFP saw the Original Broadway Company, everyone was wearing modern clothing – and the set was lovely however it was Brownstone buildings with insets that reveal interior rooms and locations.
It did not require a barricade. It did not require a helicopter. There is no swinging chandelier – in short, it is not an over the top musical from the 80’s or 90’s. Not a dancing cat or indoor roller rink in sight. No car flies away to a 50’s doo wop. A plant does not eat a human. Puppets do not have sex.
You could have afforded understudies.
Over backdrops and sequins – you could have afforded understudies, Dallas Theater Center – your budget is over 10 million a year.
You could have afforded understudies.
Thanks AEA President, Kate Shindle for getting them to apologize.
100 smacks of the wand to Dallas Theater Center – IN THE HEIGHTS is one of your biggest sellers in years – diversity = dollars, but not at the cost of the actor’s safety or peace of mind once the accident had occurred.
Don’t do it again.
Which brings us to the next finger sandwich de turd – and here is what.
COMPANY – the new one, the gender bender one where Bobby becomes Bobbi – (not entirely a new thought, ask anyone TFP went to college with when ‘we’ did that production as written) has announced the full company and guess what?
No Latinx or AAPIs in the, well, COMPANY.
Phone rings, door chimes, in comes…..not AAPIS or Latinx performers.
There are two African Americans in the Cast – and TFP wishes them bon chance.
Now, this is not about the Cast per se – they did not cast themselves, and they are all very talented – TFP has seen them many times, in many, many shows.
She knows that some may feel ‘under attack” – but if you do feel that way, ask yourself, truly ask yourself how you would feel if you never or very, VERY intermittently saw any sort of representation of yourself on the stage, how you would have sustained your careers?
Would you have wanted to play the smaller parts, and only that- Ito in Mame, or the revivals that come around once every decade or so, that specifically revolve around or in fair proximity to your ethnic heritage?
Or would you be hoping that a show set in New York City would be available to you, as a resident New Yorker. You know, a place that HAS The Public Theater where the saying is ‘All are Welcome’.
So please, wear different shoes for the moment and realize that this is not an attack on white performers- after all TFP is 1/2 Caucasian, right now she is the Lorax, speaking for the trees.
And some of those trees grow in Brooklyn or the Bronx or Queens, and some are not White Elms.
Some might say ‘luck’ or ‘being the most talented’ – are ways to obtain a role- that definitely is a theory. However if you are unable to get in the room because the deck is stacked from the ‘go’ – that could Drive a Person Crazy.
Dooo Do Do Doooo.
Which is why the announcement of this casting IS driving a few of us, well…crazy.
Being in a show every season on Broadway is how one becomes a polished and seasoned professional. They all have proven track records and nominations behind them – and perhaps that was the qualifier to be offered a part in this star studded redux.
Would that all had the same kind of opportunity.
However a show set in New York City, about an eligible single gal which virtually eliminates two ethnic groups that this city is known for – that is kind of hard to swallow in this day and age.
It is almost 2020.
As much as everyone loves – and yes, LOVE is the word to describe the way TFP sees Patti LuPone – the fact that this is ANOTHER revival with only two POC and a hint of bisexuality is…an issue.
The fact that there is a bisexual female as the focus of the show does not excuse it’s whiteness. It does not solve any issue for People of Color, however they identify – to be shut out of a story dealing with bisexuality or being a New Yorker or any combination thereof.
How many POC were called in? How many would have met the ‘multiple TONY nominations” requirement? Not the AAPIS. We only have 3 winners for performers and they all “only’ have one, each: BD Wong, Ruthie Ann Miles, Lea Salonga.
David Henry Hwang has 3 TONYS for Playwrighting – 1 for M. Butterfly, 1 for the new Book in the Revival of Flower Drum Song, and 1 for Golden Child.
If he could sing and dance, perhaps he would have gotten a call to come in and sing Sondheim?
(Go see SOFT POWER at THE PUBLIC)
COMPANY is a show that sells itself. It always has. A story about a 35 year old that cannot commit – without being too on the nose, that is 100 people on each subway car deliberately not clocking the other 100 people, about every 3 minutes, or 75 on the weekends.
With the last Sondheim revival being the fearless revisiting of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, which starred, among others, Manu Narayan – who btw, was one of the leads, it is not that anyone is saying AAPIS cannot sing Sondheim.
PACIFIC OVERTURES was revived in 2004 and again Off-Broadway in 2017. Clearly, ‘we’ sing Sondheim – and Sondheim himself knows this. Angel Desai was in the LAST revival of COMPANY just a few years ago…and she had to sing and play the damn piano!
Well, she went to Oberlin.
This is something else. This is the unseeing. This is the repetition of the ability to laser focus on one issue – in this case, bisexuality, and don’t spare the horses. To choose when to be open minded, and when to not listen to input from other people who may know a city better than you.
This is growing up NOT seeing AAPIs and therefore allowing yourself to continue to NOT see AAPIs or Latinx people – of which, again – is part of that 2.2% of those seen on TV in the U.K., and part of the 38% of the BAME people seen on the West End. Of those 38%, 85% of those are Black Performers – as they call it in the U.K.
We do not need to import that mindset.
Was not casting – Cindy Tolan cast many an AAPI – she likely has a folder on her laptop that has nothing but Christmas Eve as the title, and nothing at all about the holidays within it.
So this falls directly at the feet of the Director, two time TONY Winner, Marianne Elliott. Ms. Elliott hails from the U.K., her Father was the Director and Co-Founder of the Royal Exchange Theater of Manchester. A strong familial theatrical tradition, and begun in England – a land where, according to a report East Asian Actors make up 3% of the casting in the West End, and South Asians 7%.
Not a lot. NOT A LOT, U.K. – pretty damn shite-y.
Right, Baga? Innit?
However New York City, AAPI’s are 14% of the population – roughly a million people.
In a city comprised of 20+ million, give or take, it is fairly simple to say that when and if Bobbi met people at a party, friends of friends, who she’d never know – she might meet…one or two AAPIs.
SOMEONE could have mentioned that when offers were being made.
Not like Ms. Bobbi is fanning about on British TV where the BAME representation is absolutely abysmal and getting worse…2.2 % of the characters on television?
Latinx population in New York City is estimated at 29% of the city’s population – or around 2.4 million.
So for sure, even if, by some remote chance, Bobbi was unable to meet or be friends with even ONE AAPI in her life, she would – for certain – have double the chance to have a Latinx friend or lover.
For real though.
Marianne Elliott is a wonderful director.
TFP is fairly sure this will be a wonderful production – it has, after all, truly gifted people in the cast, but it is not the beautifully multi-culti NYC that TFP knows.
This is not the COMPANY that would make her feel like a New Yorker.
TFP might as well travel back to 1970 and get her Stritch on.
After seeing the announcements for MUSIC MAN, this is just too much…
It burns.
TFP did this show in Uni. It has a place in her heart and her repertoire.
She played Joanne.
LIKE A DAMN BOSS!
Now, she is just thinking about this show and….
500 Whacks of the wand for deliberately excluding New York from a Musical ABOUT New York.
How do you not see us?
Aren’t you exhausted from having tunnel vision?
If you don’t see color – HOW DO YOU DRIVE (ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD)?
TFP out.
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