Last week, we called out a "semi-professional" theatre company in Queensland, Australia for casting white and non-Latinx performers in Latinx roles in the musical In the Heights. Given the fact that the article was shared on Facebook alone, over 13,000 times, there was intense backlash against Matt Ward Entertainment, the producing theatre group. 

In response to the controversy, it was announced today that Matt Ward Entertainment has canceled their upcoming production of In the Heights. They have also deleted their Facebook account. 

When I was growing up, and before I became involved with theater, I had injured my hands and wrists. I have had an issue since birth which is the cause of the injuries, it turns out. I also had thumb surgery on top of it all. So, needless to say my hands/wrists are super weak and I can easily injure them which causes pain faster than it takes for you to read this sentence. One wrong move and I can be out of commission for at least a couple of days. But I have always been able to figure out how to rest and relax in order to give my hands enough time to get better.

For many performers the audition process is a tiresome, nerve-wracking and endless process. It's a task plays with our emotions and exploits our insecurities. So I'm basically saying, it's tough enough already, it doesn't need to be made harder by the behavior of those behind the table. 

This is usually a time where college seems to be on everyone's mind. Whether it's incoming freshmen getting ready to move into their residence halls or high school seniors preparing their applications, college is a constant discussion. 

For theatre students, where you attend can certainly have an impact on your career with the type of training you receive. It's also important to note that while each school listed here is excellent, a college degree doesn't guarantee success nor is one required to become successful in this industry. 

It’s only fair to allow actors to do the same without demanding that they come visit fans when they have no energy to do so. They need time to rest. Emotions are exhausting. Making sure that the actor recovers safely from their performance is also crucial – some actions and emotions that result from those actions can overwhelm the body, and the body doesn’t know the difference between an actor’s behavior as the person versus as the character. Making sure the body recovers and the actor is safe is important.

Walking through Times Square the other day, I saw the SpongeBob SquarePants signs on the marquee of the Palace Theatre, and I was reminded: oh, yeah, Nickelodeon is coming to Broadway. About bloody time. Now, while I wish SpongeBob luck, as I do any musical just starting out, if I’m honest, it’s not what I would have chosen for Nickelodeon’s Broadway debut. I grew up and did my Nickelodeon watching in the 1990s (the best time, in my opinion, to have been watching Nickelodeon), and while I caught the beginning of SpongeBob’s amazingly successful run, I was a bit too old to become the kind of fan I was of Nick’s other shows. This is why I have given some thought, of late, to which of those shows I think Nickelodeon should turn into musicals.

"I wrote For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday as a gift for my mother,” says playwright Sarah Ruhl in the program notes for the current production of For Peter Pan, currently playing at Playwright's Horizons. Later she mentions that Peter Pan author J.M Barrie wrote the classic book for the five children that inspired the story. The Peter Pan parallels begin in the program notes and continue all the way until the end of this 90-minute play.

Before I start, I want to make it clear that I do not believe these styles of playwrighting are either superior or inferior to more naturalistic or traditional styles. What I want to do is share the exciting aspects of some of the stylistic elements I have encountered and use in my own writing that I think are worth being used more widely. I shall list three in this first part, and then another four in the next. So here we go. 

Evita is rock opera of contradictory proportions: the music is a hypnotic collision of songs that range from intricate and soaring to just plain weird; it is hailed as one of the greatest woman-centric musicals of its generation, but upon closer examination, uses the male gaze to place its supposed heroine on a shallow pedestal; it introduces Americans to a blind spot in contemporary world history, but ultimately dilutes the political and social climate of 20th century Argentina down to a superficial Cinderella story. In short, it is the quintessential example of two white men putting their words into the mouths of marginalized historical figures, a colonized story camouflaged under a smattering of pretty dresses and songs.

With the rise in popularity of Hamilton and everything Lin-Manuel Miranda, it's no surprise that many theatre companies are rushing to perform his work as much as possible. In The Heights is easily one of the most produced musicals in the world. 

What makes this show such an obvious choice for many theatres is its name recognition but also that it provides an opportunity for performers of color to take center stage in a musical that celebrates the Latinx culture. While many theatres understand this and cast it right, many others fall short and cast white performers in the roles. This is a term we affectionally call, "whitewashing"