The Broadway musical “Hamilton” is fantastic. At least, that’s what everyone says. I wouldn’t know because it’s really hard to get tickets for the production. But not as hard as landing an acting role in the spectacle—especially if you are white.
The show features a diverse cast to tell a story about the life of Alexander Hamilton and the founding of America. Now that it must hire replacements for departing cast members, the show recently placed an ad that read: “Seeking NON-WHITE men and women, ages 20s to 30s, for Broadway and upcoming Tours!”
You can easily see what the notice emphasizes. You can also easily see where this is headed.
“You cannot advertise showing that you have a preference for one racial group over another,” civil rights attorney Randolph McLaughlin explained to CBS 2 News in New York. The Broadway union Actors Equity also criticized the ad, saying that it violated a policy that acting jobs should be open to performers regardless of race or ethnicity. (“Hamilton” claimed that it had received approval from the union to run the ad. The union claimed otherwise.) Bowing to pressure “Hamilton” promised to revise its casting call.
“As an artistic question, sure, [the producer] can cast whomever he wants to cast,” McLaughlin also pointed out, “but he has to give every actor eligible for the role an opportunity to try.”
In other words, a casting call can call for non-white characters but not non-white actors. Does that make sense? It sounds more like semantics to me.
Putting pesky legalities aside, I have no problem with a job, any job, specifying a desired race, or gender, or age—as long as such criteria are critical to the position. In most cases, these characteristics bear no relation to a job. In this case, though, the show’s producers can probably make a good case for excluding white actors from certain roles. Indeed, the producers said that they “regret the confusion that’s arisen from the recent posting of an open call casting notice for the show.” But “it is essential to the storytelling of ‘Hamilton’ that the principal roles, which were written for non-white characters (excepting King George), be performed by non-white actors.”
What I find most sad and annoying are some of the comments on social media backing the producers for the wrong reason. A common theme was that people of color don’t have many acting opportunities as is, so why take this away from them too? Except this isn’t, or shouldn’t primarily be, about the job applicant. It’s about the role itself. The real problem is more likely producers and others in power who fail to envision anyone but white actors in many roles. Let’s focus on changing that instead.
And by the way, I didn’t read any cries of ageism given that “Hamilton’s” ad cites an age range.
