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Actors of color at OU reflect on lack of roles
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s callback lists for the OU School of Drama’s spring 2017 season came out last December, Ashtonn Thompson, acting sophomore, was disappointed that his name was nowhere to be found. The lists continued to be posted and Thompson soon came to realize it wasn’t just his name that was missing. All the African-American men in the school of drama remained off the lists as well. “We were confused as to why none of us got called back,” Thompson said. “We looked at it thoroughly before we tried to make any assumptions. A lot of us are the same type. A lot of us are fit and we look around the same age. So we took that for what it was, but it was very disheartening to see that none of us had got a callback for anything. It was like being punched in the gut.” When cast lists came out, four of the six black men in the program were cast in the student-directed play, “Everyman.” However, no black men were cast in the mainstage productions, and one of the two black women who were cast in a main stage show was cast as a prostitute. “I don’t think (the lack of black men called back) was on purpose,” Thompson said. “I think if it was on purpose, there’d be more of a war. (The faculty) do feel sorry for what happened. They don’t want to hurt us by any means. I feel like I can speak for everyone else when I say we just felt very left behind and swept under the rug when that happened.” Alexi Smith, acting junior, realized his chances at earning a lead role this semester were slim once the season’s shows were announced, he said. As a black man, Smith didn’t see many leading roles in the shows that were probable for him to be cast in since most of them had only been cast using white actors in the past. “Not saying all roles that could go to me should go to me, but there were more roles where I was like, ‘Maybe because I’m black I might be able to squeeze in there,’ and that’s kind of how it goes,” Smith said.
DEVIN HIETT • @DEVINHIETT
This is partially due to the fact that one of the shows in the season, “Biloxi Blues,” was not colorblind-cast. Colorblind casting is the process of choosing to cast ethnic minority actors in roles where race or ethnicity is not germane. Colorblind casting is gaining prominence in contemporary productions such as “Hamilton” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” Instead, “Biloxi Blues” was cast color-consciously, intentionally considering the race and ethnicity of actors and the characters they play, since a line in the script specifically states there were no black men fighting in the platoon when the show takes place during WWII. Amara Brady, acting senior, said shows like “Biloxi Blues” are important stories that deserve to be told but should be counteracted with another production in the season that has more opportunities for actors of color.
“I think one of OU’s problems as a whole is, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. If we don’t talk about it then it doesn’t exist,’ but it does exist.” AMARA BRADY, ACTING SENIOR “I’m not saying we want special treatment,” Brady said. “I’m just saying if you do color-conscious casting, and you cannot cast any black people in the show, I would propose we have something for students of color to be able to be cast in.” Acting senior Donovan Session agreed color-conscious casting must be balanced out with other shows that don’t have requirements based on skin color. “Don’t be afraid to colorblind-cast for every single role and not just the minor roles where people of color are specifically needed, like how they only called a black
woman back for the prostitute,” Session said. Judith Midyett Pender, performance and directing professor, said the faculty in the school of drama is committed to colorblind casting when the story permits it. However, some stories have specific racial components that are integral to the show’s plotline, she said. “Last year I directed ‘The Flick,’ and it very specifically noted that there are three main characters and one is African-American and the other two are not,” Pender said. “It’s plot point because the other two have moments of awkwardness as they try to address the fact this character is African-American, so it would not work casting any other way. Then there’s ‘Othello.’ You have to have an African-American man in that role (of Othello).” Another thing to take into consideration is that university performance programs have an educational mission to expose students to various genres and styles of theater, Pender said. Pender noted students of color often have more opportunities in contemporary-styled theater since modern playwrights often write roles that can be colorblind cast. However, the school’s mission to help students learn a variety of styles means they cannot exclusively perform contemporary work, Pender said. “We’re not perfect. No matter what we select in a season and how we cast, we’re never going to make every single actor happy,” Pender said. “I hope people understand there is a good faith effort to provide opportunities for every actor in the program.” Inspecting the program based on only one season of shows is not productive, Pender said. “(The faculty) cannot always perfectly balance one semester’s season, but we can and do balance over a year, two years and certainly over a four-year period,” Pender said. Smith agrees the professors try to provide students with fair opportunities. Last semester, the school offered a special studies course entitled African-American Plays. “I love opportunities such as
African-American Plays where it’s like, ‘we see you, we hear you and we want more of you.’ I think those opportunities are out there, but I think you have to go searching for them, and that sucks,” Smith said. “I’d love to see (courses like AfricanAmerican Plays) pushed forward and advertised more.” Although the school is progressing, there are still a few things that could be improved upon, Smith said. Thompson, Brady, Session and Smith all agree the school would benefit from hiring a professor of color, as there are currently no black professors in the school of drama. “I think a lot of white students, on OU’s campus in particular, don’t have an idea of what it’s like to not have a single professor who looks like you,” Brady said. “It’s not that I don’t think they (white professors) can’t teach us, that’s not what it is. It’s that there’s a shared experience of being a person of color and being an American that my white professors can’t get.” No applicants of color applied to the last faculty position that was available, Pender said. She believes a variety of factors contributed to this. “We’re a highly specialized field, and the people who choose to go into academic theatre who are talented professors of color get snapped up very quickly, and a lot of those people tend to be from more metropolitan areas, and Oklahoma seems like a barren wasteland,” Pender said. Smith agrees that being in Oklahoma is likely part of the reason professors of color do not apply to work on the OU campus, as the exposure to black arts in this part of the country is severely lacking, he said. “I’m sure if I go to the west or east coast, things will become a lot more heterogenized as opposed to just being middle of the Bible Belt in the Midwest. I think there are things we try to do here — the operative word is ‘try’ — but is it a priority? Doesn’t feel like it,” Smith said. Thompson, Brady, Session and Smith all said the first step to combating this issue is to talk about it more, rather than avoiding or
skirting around the issue of race. “I think one of OU’s problems as a whole is, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. If we don’t talk about it then it doesn’t exist,’ but it does exist,” Brady said. “That’s the only way that things will be fixed,” Thompson said. “When we can sit down together and say, ‘This is how things are, this is how things should be. How do we build this bridge and how do we make things better?’” The lack of representation of minority groups in the arts stretches far beyond OU’s campus. Growing up, Thompson was removed from all the programs he saw on television since people of color are rarely cast as the protagonist, the lead character or the hero, Thompson said. “Look at any TV sitcom ever besides ‘Black-ish.’ There’s no one that looks like me,” Thompson said. “There’s no one that looks like me on ‘Friends,’ on ‘How I Met Your Mother.’” Session believes this will only begin to be fixed when roles start to be cast based on the internal qualities of a character rather than stereotyping performers based solely on physical appearance. “Once I graduate I would like to be in productions that focus on the qualities and trials and tribulations of the characters themselves, because I feel like that’s what creates good art,” Session said. “That’s what creates strong artists, and I would like to see that happen here.” Brady says this may mean minority students have to go out and create opportunities and parts for themselves. “I don’t want to be cast as the fat black woman the rest of my life,” Brady said. “If my physical mechanism takes away from people’s ability to see me in ways I see myself, I have to create (opportunities) for myself. I’m hoping we start to actually make movements towards inclusion. I don’t want to walk into a room feeling I’m always counted out because of the color of my skin, and I’ve felt that a lot here.” Devin Hiett
hiettdevin@gmail.com
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
NEWS: Get to know Hans Butzer, who is now offically the architecture dean • 2
SPORTS: The gymnastics team got a visit from Olympian Simone Biles • 4
A&E: OU student Sunny Day on feminism and beauty pageants • 5