Musical theatre may have disappeared from Australian stages in the COVID-19 shutdown, but the industry has been anything but dormant.
In recent months, the culture of the industry has shifted: when something seems unfair or unjust, performers and fans alike are speaking up — and their discussions are creating change.
It started in August this year, when the Rob Guest Endowment (RGE), an influential scholarship program for emerging talent in Australian musical theatre, announced an all-white cohort of 30 semi-finalists for 2020.
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The response from the musical theatre community was immediate and overwhelming, with hundreds of musical theatre fans replying to RGE's announcement on Facebook and Instagram with posts that criticised the lack of diversity.
Even more unusual for a smaller industry like Australia, with fewer producers and limited working opportunities, artists themselves were speaking out.
Caribbean-Australian actor Lyndon Watts, who was recently announced as one of the leads in the highly anticipated Australian production of Hamilton, was one of many previous RGE finalists who expressed their disappointment on social media.
Watts wrote: "So joyous to see so much young talent in the country celebrated. It just seems like a misstep to not elevate young POC [People of Colour] actors right now. Our industry is changing and centering inclusivity moving forward, this group unfortunately doesn't reflect that."
The Endowment issued two rounds of apologies — and the semi-finalists made their own collective statement in support of the backlash.
In September, Vidya Makan (most recently on stage in the musical Six, at Sydney Opera House) issued what she called "a call to action to the entertainment industry for diverse representation and inclusion": a video featuring 101 Bla(c)k, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPoC) and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) performers, aged 18-25, singing an original musical number called I Need You to See Me, that referenced rallying cries from decades of showtunes.
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Speaking to The Stage Show's Michael Cathcart about why she created the video, Makan said: "Working in musical theatre as a woman of colour, this is something that has always been on my radar and has always been a part of my conversation."
"I guess this year, with the Black Lives Matter movement and [the fact that] we're all at home because of the COVID crisis, I think we've all had the time to actually sit and reflect — and I think that's why so many of these amazing movements and initiatives have entered in some ways the mainstream sector as well."
Momentum builds
Ultimately, the RGE organisers cancelled the scholarship for 2020.
But the conversation continued — and in October, another flashpoint emerged: the cast announcement for the Australian production of Pippin — the first commercial musical theatre production to return to Australian stages after the shutdown.
The decision to cast the Leading Player — one of the few main character parts in contemporary musical theatre played by a Black woman — with an actor from the United States, rather than a local performer, was criticised by some performers, including Prinnie Stevens (last on stage in a leading role in The Bodyguard).
Stevens, who auditioned for the role but was cut from the process after the singing round, told the Sun Herald: "Lead roles for a person of colour are few and far between".
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The Gordon Frost Organisation, which produced Pippin, told the Sun Herald:
It is not unusual for a production to bring in overseas talent when required, and in this case we sourced our Leading Player from overseas. All other cast are local. While we looked for a local BIPoC artist, we could find none who were available with all of the specific skills in singing, dancing and acrobatics to the level required for this role, given the time constraints.
Racial diversity isn't the only issue on which fans, artists and other members of the musical theatre industry are speaking out.
In November, the announcement that Packed to the Rafters actor Hugh Sheridan would star in a local production of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's 1998 musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch was met with a backlash on social media.
An open letter issued by the Queer Artists Alliance, which includes Wentworth actors Zoe Terakes and Daniielle Alexis, said:
The choice to cast a cisgender male as a transgender character is offensive and damaging to the trans community, and continues to cause genuine distress and frustration amongst trans and gender non-conforming performers all across Australia. Diversity is vital, and the value of genuine representation for transgender youth cannot be understated.
The producers of Hedwig responded by postponing the show indefinitely.
From backlash to movement
Amid the growing social media movement in support of change, Australian artists of colour and white allies are inventing new and fairer paths into, and within, the industry.
One of the key players in this movement is The Quarter: a group created by performers of colour, with a structure based on Black Lives Matter movements internationally.
The group took its name from an expression used by Rob Guest Endowment committee chair Graeme Kearns, in a statement to The Australian about the lack of BIPoC representation in the 2020 semi-finalist line-up: "We are not seeing a high number of entries from that quarter."
In recent months, The Quarter has been working with MEAA Equity Diversity Committee to develop inclusive guidelines and practices for companies within the industry.
As part of this, they call on companies to take a "pledge" to include "a minimum of 25% Bla(c)k, Indigenous, People of Colour, gender diverse, disabled and body diverse artists working in our companies and on our projects", as well as "working towards a minimum 25% of annually programmed work that is created and led by BIPOC artists".
The pledge also asks signatories to "stop programming works that feature racially insensitive characters and depictions".
To date, more than 2000 industry workers and six independent theatre companies have signed.
Another key player is the Artists of Colour (AOC) Initiative, launched by Ghanaian-Australian actor and musical theatre performer Tarik Frimpong in September.
As their first move, the AOC Initiative created a scholarship competition designed to provide financial assistance and industry support to six Australian performers who identify as Bla(c)k, Indigenous or as People of Colour.
In October, they announced their semi-finalists, in a similar manner to the Rob Guest Endowment: a tiled image showing 30 talented performers of colour.
In November, the winner of the AOC Initiative was announced: Canadian-born Eritrean-Australian performer Martha Berhane (ABC Me series Mustangs FC).
Plenty of hope
On stage in Western Australia this month, director and producer Richard Carroll (Calamity Jane) managed to make the existing musical theatre canon more inclusive in his new production of the 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma!
His production, for Black Swan State Theatre Company, was the first to feature a woman in the leading role of cowboy Curly.
Stepping into those boots was Tongan-Australian performer Emily Havea.
"When I was trained in music theatre, it was very, very clear to me what the box was [for me] in this world, and I didn't feel I fit into it," Havea told ABC.
"I wasn't the African American belt-y girl that my skin colour told them I had to be. I tried so hard and failed so hard to be that."
But in a role that made fellow Australian Hugh Jackman a star in 1999, Havea (who also performs as a drag king) said she had found her truest musical theatre self.
Her co-star, Stefanie Caccamo — who played Laurie, Curly's love interest — agrees, and told ABC she relished Carroll's emphasis on queer love and contemporary sensibilities.
Carroll is a board member of In The Pipeline (Arts) Ltd, which runs the influential musical theatre incubator Hayes Theatre Co, and he says that leaders in the industry need to be "actively anti-racist".
"We all have to take individual responsibility to do our part; to be humble enough to know when we have not done as well as we should have, and try to do better next time."
He describes the recent controversies as a dam breaking.
"And I think people just got to the point of saying 'enough is enough'."
Oklahoma! is on a far smaller scale than shows like Pippin, which tour Australia's biggest houses and generate collective revenue in the hundreds of millions each year ($400,199,798 in 2018 according to the most recent Live Performance Australia data).
But Carroll believes creatives in his part of the sector have a responsibility to model how musicals can be cast and re-imagined to be more inclusive, and to prove to commercial producers that it makes work "more interesting and alive".
More than a moment
Michael Cassel, the Australian producer of Hamilton, is leading the shift to diversity and inclusion in the major commercial musical space.
"We started to change our audition process in 2017 when casting for the Australian production of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child," he told ABC.
Cassel's company, the Michael Cassel Group (MCG), were committed to seeing performers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, First Nations and LGBTQI+ performers, for principal and ensemble roles.
"On Hamilton, our casting brief encouraged us to go even further," says Cassel.
"[Casting director] Lauren Wiley and the whole US creative team did a phenomenal job in seeing an incredibly diverse range of talents, engaging with schools, groups and industry from across the country."
The production, set to open in Sydney in March next year, announced its cast in November: fully diverse, and majority Australian.
Carroll said the cast announcement was an exciting moment for the industry.
"And hopefully some of the less imaginative producers in the industry will see that talent on stage and realise, 'Actually I've been acting on my own prejudices and assumptions [in casting], rather than what's actually out there.'"
MCG approached MEAA, the industry union, to negotiate a new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) for performers working across their productions, and to create a 'cultural consultant' role within the team.
MCG's new EBA includes paid cultural and ceremonial leave to First Nations employees, covering a broad range of situations, including Bereavement Sorry Business, Birthing ceremonies and Women's Business.
MCG engaged Typecast Entertainment, co-run by theatre and film creative Tony Briggs (Yorta Yorta/Wurundjeri) and producer Damienne Pradier, as cultural consultants.
Pradier says their role with the Hamilton company includes "being there for the cast and crew to come to us if they have an issue, so we can go to the company about it. And to provide a safe cultural space."
There are multiple cultures represented in the Hamilton cast, and Briggs and Pradier say they are committed to advocating for everybody.
An actor, writer and producer across theatre and film, Briggs is perhaps best known as the creator and writer of the original stage musical and subsequent screen adaptation of The Sapphires.
"I've been around the traps for a long time so it's a lot easier for me [to speak up]," he says.
"They're a young cast and this is a really daunting project with a lot to live up to, so you want them to have peace of mind, and you want the company to not be tip-toeing on eggshells when it comes to cultural issues."
Change from within
Chloe Zuel, who has been performing in musicals for a decade, will play Eliza in Hamilton.
Zuel shared her experiences of discrimination within the industry on social media in the wake of the Rob Guest Endowment line-up announcement.
She says she has been pleasantly surprised by what has unfolded in the months since then.
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"My hope is that things will change in rehearsal rooms. And that's not just diversity, but with things being inappropriate when it comes to sexual assault, and other things like that."
"I hope that now people would feel like they could speak up and that they would have support around them, and not be fearful of losing their jobs, because things are shifting."
She says meaningful change across the industry will take time: "It's about slow steps forward for change to stick."
Briggs agrees, but hopes that MCG's work on casting Hamilton, appointing cultural consultants and redeveloping their EBA sets an example that others follow.
"I want to see this industry get to a place where people of colour, and First Nations people in particular, don't feel culturally unsafe. I want to see a theatre space across this country where everybody can walk through those doors and feel completely at home."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTEyLTIzL2hhbWlsdG9uLW11c2ljYWwtY2FzdC1kaXZlcnNpdHktc2hpZnQtYXVzdHJhbGlhbi1tdXNpY2FsLXRoZWF0cmUvMTMwMDIyNzLSASdodHRwczovL2FtcC5hYmMubmV0LmF1L2FydGljbGUvMTMwMDIyNzI?oc=5
2020-12-22 18:59:00Z
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