article written by austin zhuang.
In the past couple of years, the theater community has slowly, but surely, been improving. If you have been observing the point of ticket sales, both in local theater companies and companies located on Broadway. African-Americans and Latino-Americans have slowly expanded their pride in modern productions like Evita, West Side Story, and The Ritz. However, Asian-Americans have been so under-appreciated and so underestimated to the point that even in the realm of theater, we are barely seen upon the seams of the horizon. I gained inspiration upon reading this tweet from one of my sophomore theater friends, Gracie:
Despite the audience of the tweet as more towards the audience of women in the Asian-American community, this instantly sparked my inspiration to read more into why this is a recurring problem in our modern society. It then prompted me to come up with a few questions: Why are Asian-Americans part of the so-called “outlier” of Broadway and local theater? What are the true struggles the Asian-American community is going through, in terms of local and national-level theater? If stories were directed and written by Asian-American individuals then later premiered towards local theaters and potentially Broadway, how big of a difference would it make? How can we, as Asian-Americans, expose ourselves in the theatrical circle and showcase our talent?
Personal experiences and stories can go a long way when talking about these types of stories. I started noticing this pattern when I first auditioned for a professional, AEA-supported theater production of the Hunchback of Notre Dame with Lyric Stage in Dallas. The special collaboration between SMU and Lyric Stage was how it all started and got me into that special opportunity. Though I was part of the choir ensemble, there wasn’t a lot on our part that we had to do. But one thing I did notice throughout the entire rehearsal process was: Am I my own self? I feel like I am an American, but what about my skin color? I was given a rare opportunity to enter into something so special.
What I realized was this: theater, in general, is not an easy path to take. I realized that joining the AEA is not an easy process; it takes weeks on end of processed papers to be sent to the headquarters in New York City, and back. It also included years of hard work from the past.
However, the one thing I didn’t realize at the time was, I was actually the only Asian-American ensemble member in every cast that I was in. We can talk about THAT as a rare opportunity. A majority of the cast consisted of individuals with Caucasian or African-American descent. There were also quite a number of Latino-Americans as well. But the number of Asian-Americans in the cast? Yep. I was the only one in the cast by far, even on the bulletins. It also goes to show that theatrical opportunities should be stretched to students of Asian-American descent as well, as the inclusion would also help a lot. The same thing happened when I worked on an SMU May Term production of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” back in May of the same year. I had done a collaboration with five of my fellow colleagues, along with three professors: Lane Harder, Professor and Department Lead of Composition, fellow voice teacher Virginia Dupuy, and Sara Romersberger, associate lead and professor in the Division of Theater. A majority of the cast was white, as per usual, with me as the only Asian-American individual in the 7-person cast.
But when was the turning point? When did I realize that all of this was a situation that needed to be addressed?
In the final production of my freshman year, I had joined in on an opportunity to perform in Lyric Stages’ last production of the year, Guys and Dolls. This was a joint collaboration between not only the members of AEA, but also, individuals who were in the SMU Minor in Musical Theatre and TCU Musical Theater majors. I was very stoked to join this opportunity, because not it was my first time working with an even bigger cast, it was also the first time where I had worked with something I was similar with, something that I’ve sung from for high school auditions in the past. This was my opportunity to shine as an actor, having been put in the stance of the Mission Band in an advanced role.
Having auditioned for most shows that normally have white people audition for, being an Asian-American surely wasn’t easy. Despite the bigger cast, I was still the only FULL yellow-skinned person in there. That’s when I knew that not only was awareness needed in this aspect, but also, work needed to be done; this included coalitions, rallies, and constant contact and communication with a bunch of sponsors and organizations.
That’s where the 2018 Dallas Cultural Plan came into place.
Many of you might ask this question: What does the 2018 Dallas Cultural Plan have to do with the theatrical aspect of things?
If you’re not aware, the cultural and arts policy within the City of Dallas has been unmodified since 2003. On May 20, 2018, the City of Dallas adopted the so-called “modified cultural plan” into effect. Through this opportunity, it gave both the City of Dallas, including non-profit arts organizations and smaller businesses, a much better understanding of both sides, on a much deeper level. The City has opportunities to heed the thoughts of how much to fund each organization, while the organization(s) has/have their voices heard through panels and Q&As hosted by several companies in alliance with the City.
According to the City of Dallas’ Cultural Plan website, these were three objectives they had put into consideration:
The reason why the aspect of theater is such a critical factor is because most to all the inclusive community surpasses most to all objectives listed on here. While there remains a strong “support for artists” along with a “sustainable arts ecosystem,” there is no sufficient amount of equity, diversity, or communication. Throughout neighborhoods in Dallas, not enough awareness has been made within the City itself; only 0.1% was made up of the Asian population, roughly only 2,000 people inhabiting that specific population.
Opinions
While most of this information is from my own personal experience of pursuing my music major and minor in musical theater at SMU, I believe that it is in my best interest to also share a few points of research I have done during the past few days. Upon reading the article from South China Morning News, named “How Asian-Americans are fighting stereotypes to take on leading roles on and off Broadway,” I stumbled upon a few quotes that really helped to benefit what I wanted to explore about in terms of the topic in this area.
Actor Jennifer Lim once said this, in an interview, “When I graduated from Yale I found most shows were not for Asians, and my white friends had auditions two to three times more than I did,” She is the lead actress in Chinglish and The World of Extreme Happiness. In Dallas/Fort Worth, this is pretty close to the depiction of what has happened, and is still a common occurence today. As previously mentioned, at SMU, a majority of the theater casts are still white and/or black; the minority are barely represented. While most opportunities for productions have begun to be widely open to the African-American and Latino-American communities over the past few years, the Asian-American community is often still forgotten within the theater community. While the demographic of the San Francisco Bay Area remains very diverse in terms of community inclusion, the DFW Metroplex is the complete opposite. There are many reasonable factors behind this: (1) Within the 4 counties (Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton) that make up the DFW Metroplex, the Asian population only makes up 5.9% of the 6.37 million people that live there. It comes to surprise how many Asian-Americans audition for a production in DFW, yet not be able to get in because of their so-called “lack of quality” reviewed by other experts who have worked in the theater industry for years. Such an opportunity to be in three productions, with a majority of the cast being Caucasian or African-American, is definitely not easy, neither is it easy for the photographers which are also white in majority as well.
Fortunately, though, not all citizens’ voices were unheard. The most perfect example is the fact that we have currently, is the fact that the AAPAC, or Asian-American Performers Action Coalition, exists. The mission of AAPAC is to expand the perception of Asian American performers in order to increase their access to and representation on NYC stages. Although this coalition is only limited to the Asian-American population within the New York Metro area, I believe that it has the potential to expand the coalition to other metropolitan cities, like Dallas, that don’t have coalitions like AAPAC.
Prejudice is definitely not alone in the process; there have been people who purposely go against the Asian-American community, uneducated of what struggles or pains we’ve gone through. This is explicitly mentioned in the article where “white actors were sometimes coloured yellow and cast in Asian parts. There were not many opportunities for genuine “yellow-face” talent.” This is where we, as an Asian-American community, have to draw the line; this is where a boundary needs to be built. Yellowface is not only cultural appropriation at its finest, but it is also an insult and a collapsion of the 150-plus year tradition that we, as Asian-Americans, have gone through. We laid the foundation for trade within the United States. We have gone through not only the 1876 Economic Depression, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and much more. The result of yellow-face talent on white actors gives a message that “those parts always seemed to exorcise or stereotype Asians.” Not only is the act of yellowface just discriminatory, but it adds on to the stigmatism and the inaccurate portrayal of Asian-Americans. It does not only not sympathize or create awareness for the Asian-American community, but rather, damages and annihilates the past years of tradition for all that we know. I’m sure if we did the same thing to Latino-Americans or African-Americans, they wouldn’t like it. They sure wouldn’t like the fact that their cultural experience is depicted or portrayed by someone that isn’t even their race.”
Meanwhile, we also face the issue when people of our own color, native Chinese people, come to the land of the free to seek for opportunities. One person from the article said: “When Chinese tourists come to see a Broadway show, they want to see something they consider to be American. When they think of America – they are a little behind – they tend to think of white America,” Believe it or not, this is a stereotype that is oftentimes inevitable to completely eliminate, especially our community within us. The “Chinese” community have a wired thinking of what they think about America, as a land of opportunities and a place where a bunch of white people reside. The lack of spreading awareness completely disregards and un-recognize the fact that an Asian-American community even exists. By not portraying it enough in the theatrical light, it paves way for our culture to be extinct, therefore letting the stereotypes take over other people’s thoughts and wire their thoughts into what the stereotype actually is.
Actor Lily Fan mentioned that “Asian people work hard,” and that they are not necessarily available at 7.30pm to go to a show. But unless our own people come out to support [us] and buy the tickets, it’s hard for us to argue that Broadway needs to increase its Asian representation.” In real talk, though, the next step is to really step up our game and increase the representation of Asian-Americans through local shows, which we will then expand the market and our audience to Broadway. The Asian-American community should rally and convince all surrounding arts councils of every metropolitan city for more funding in the arts, especially in the musical and theatrical aspect of subjects. There are so many opportunities and an array of things that can be done, to make sure our stories are heard.
There have been examples even within our community. For instance, Dallas Summer Musicals cast a Caucasian as King Mongkut in its production of The King and I before switching to an Asian actor after a stern letter from AAPAC. Not only did misinterpretation of characters happen in Texas, it also happened in the UK and on Broadway as well. British actress Tilda Swinton was chosen to play the Ancient One, a Tibetan mystic, in Marvel’s Doctor Strange, prompting an outcry from Asians against the Hollywood “whitewash”; and the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players cancelled its winter production of The Mikado after the white-for-Japanese casting triggered protests. Furthermore, for the second year in a row, Academy Award nominations have all gone to white actors.
There is one fact, and one fact only. It’s that Dallas Summer Musicals is used as an example here. It shows, in this opinionated editorial, that it clearly shows the discrepancy and cultural appropriation put on by actors who aren’t part of the Asian-American community, let alone not even part of the race. A suggestion that I would give to understudies is, if you have watched the musical many times, it’s probably not enough. You have yet to understand the context and location behind these musicals, the whole plot of the musical, when it happened, and the characters and their motivations behind it. We can’t reverse back time by not letting Sondheim or Rodgers & Hammerstein produce these musicals. BUT, by putting a character similar to our kind of race is not an excuse, neither is it an acceptable way of conveying the right message out to an audience.
Comments