Downright fascinating. This story of excluding whites "prompts debate". But otoh using whites as actors would be dehumanizing, so there's that.
"The cancellation of a college production of Lloyd Suh’s play “Jesus in India” over the casting of white actors as Indian characters has prompted a war of words over diversity in theater, with Mr. Suh arguing that the production could send a “dehumanizing” message to minority students and the school countering that the student actors on its rural, predominantly white campus were being “punished for their race.”
The controversy broke out last week when The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Mr. Suh had withdrawn permissions for the production at Clarion University, a state institution in western Pennsylvania with a student body of about 5,400. It landed amid heightened national conversation about racial exclusion on college campuses, as well as ongoing debate in the theater world about how to promote greater diversity onstage.
In a statement posted online on Friday, Mr. Suh defended his decision, saying that going forward with white actors cast as South Asians would have subverted both the artistic intentions behind the play (which had an Off-Off-Broadway run in New York in 2013) and the broader cause of increasing visibility for minority theater artists.
“As a writer of color in a field where representation and visibility are ongoing struggles, I feel a responsibility to provide opportunities for artists of color to be seen,” Mr. Suh said in the statement, which was posted on the blog of the artists’ rights advocate Howard Sherman.
“The practice of using white actors to portray nonwhite characters has deep roots in ugly racist traditions,” Mr. Suh continued. “It sends a message, intended or not, that is exclusionary at best, dehumanizing at worst.”
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/cancellation-of-college-production-of-jesus-in-india-over-casting-of-white-actors-prompts-debate/?_r=0
