Good Morning Plano by / Guest Author

Marissa Wolf, the artistic director of Crowded Fire Theater, has a history of directing plays that address race in controversial ways. Last March, she directed Young Jean Lee’s "Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven" for Asian American Theater Company and Crowded Fire. This March, she is directing Thomas Bradshaw’s "The Bereaved" for Crowded Fire’s Matchbox Reading Series. In this blog post, she reacts to the Plano Children’s Theatre’s recent controversial all-white staging of "Hairspray."

By Marissa Wolf

A recent children’s production of "Hairspray" at the Plano Children’s Theatre (PCT) in Plano, TX featured an all-white cast of young actors. At the heart of "Hairspray"’s narrative is a civil rights message about gaining equality in the 1960s, as a band of friends (black and white) fight to integrate a local TV dance program. (Full disclosure: For all my secret musical theatre tune-humming, I’ve never actually seen a production of "Hairspray.")

Plano Children’s Theatre production has sparked a national conversation, fresh on the heels of a similarly rotten smelling all-white production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s "The Motherf--ker with the Hat" at TheaterWorks in Hartford, CT. PCT’s "Hairspray" choreographer Darius-Anthony Robinson notes in "The Dallas Observer" that originally there were several black kids in the ensemble, but they each “dropped out for various reasons” within the first few days of rehearsal. However, PCT’s board president, Darrell Rodenbaugh, has been quoted saying that no black children auditioned, and that he feels the white children cast in the show are nonetheless “learning a good lesson.”

It’s precisely this lesson that the young folks in Plano, TX are learning that I find most upsetting. That minstrelsy, even well-intentioned, “We just want to tell this great story,” minstrelsy, is alive and well in this country. For white kids to act out the stories, songs and voices of these black characters carries forth an insidious naturalization of white appropriation. If the show’s heart and power lie in the embodiment of black and white bodies on stage together, singing and dancing with joy and conviction, then to cast the show with all white actors erases the very marrow of the libretto’s meaning. PCT’s production undermined the very core of the show’s message, depriving young actors of the opportunity to wrestle with the play’s themes in meaningful and relevant ways with a diverse group of fellow students.

I believe, as Lorraine Hansberry said, that “Everything is political.” Therefore, the staging of any show, from "Macbeth" to "Seven Guitars" to "Grease," carries with it political resonance. It becomes crucial, therefore, to ask ourselves, as theatre practitioners, “What does this show mean to us now?” "Hairspray," produced in a small Texas town whose demographics include a population that is 16.8% Asian, 14.7% Hispanic and 7.4% African American (according to the Plano government official website), could be a ripe and exciting place to use this musical as a jumping-off point for dialogue and deep community engagement around race, economics and social justice. Shame on PCT for upholding and normalizing the city’s social problems with a musical that’s meant to dismantle a racial divide, and for abandoning a crucial opportunity for outreach and genuine engagement for all children and their families.

The views represented in this Chatterbox Art & Opinion post are those of the individual author, and do not necessarily represent the views of Theatre Bay Area or its staff.