Share the Stage

Hi Andrew,

I have many stories, some absolutely mind blowing, like the time that Turtle Gals were about to perform some songs from our show The Scrubbing Project and the sound man asked us why we wore glasses “because being an Indian and wearing glasses is like a Frenchman with red hair, it just doesn’t compute!” I applaud your commitment. As the Co-Chair of the Diversity committee at ACTRA Toronto and National I hope that we can assist each other in these initiatives. I was hoping to produce a one pager of stories to distribute to industry professionals. If people are willing, perhaps we can use the ones you collect for that purpose. All the best. Jani

Hi Andrew,

I don’t think we have ever met formally. But glad to meet you on cyber space. I hope to meet you in person one day soon…I am the founder of Alameda Theatre Company, Canada’s premiere professional Latin American theatre company.

I started out as an actor over ten years ago (maybe 15 now) and am very sad to say that because of the state of our industry, I no longer do what I was so passionate about once. I worked in mostly film, because in theatre school I was told I had to get rid of my accent. (And when auditioning for theatre it was like pulling teeth. No body took me seriously.) I made a living in in the film industry. Got bit parts here and there (mostly American garbage). I got sick, physically, of the industry, the stereotypes I had to deal with, the anger was buidling.

I decided to do something about the status quo and so I formed Alameda Theatre Company because I got sick of being sent out for the hooker or the maid or the gang banger’s girlfriend, or the drug dealer’s girlfriend- and always with a thick Latina accent. I was also so sick of not being cast in plays specifically about the Latino experience because AD’s didn’t think I had enough experience. The parts would always go to a Caucasian girl or an Italian girl, or a Greek girl because she had brown hair and brown eyes and she could put on a relatively realistic accent. But never , ever was I seen for plays about a “Canadian” family (aka white) because I looked Latina and that was just not right. I also got so angry at the fact that parts for Latinos were always the sidekick, or the supporting role. Never, ever the leading role. So, I don’t care so much about not getting cast in plays at Shaw or Stratford. Those theatres put on plays that have had their time on stage. They are classics, yes, but what about work written by people who I can relate to? What I care about is creating a place, a foundation in present day theatre, using our own words, our own experiences to create a theatre that is relevant, that speaks to my (our) experiences and my (our) reality. Theatre that speaks about the world that I live in now, today. I have created the first Latin Canadian playwrights festival in the history of Canadian theatre. I have started El Barrio, an online network of Latino artists from across the nation (there aren’t many of us yet, but I’m working on that as well.) We will be producing the infamous Refugee Hotel in the fall of 2009 with Latino actors playing the Chilean characters. I am also working on a youth program to get Latino youth interested in the arts and to start using theatre to explore who they are and to banish the stereotypes. I think I have found my calling. I feel vindicated and so alive when I have a young actor call me and tell me that they finally have something to believe in in canadian theatre. I feel that I am beginning something quite special and powerful here. One of these days I want to be able to name five great canadian playwrights and I want more than one of them to be Latino. I want to be able to go see a play at any theatre in this country and I want to relate to the play because it speaks to me as a Latin American- Canadian woman AND as a human being. I want there to one day not have a need for the Alameda Theatre Company’s, the Obsidian Theatre, Native Earth, Fu-Gen, Carlos Bulosan etc. Because it really is about great theatre right?

I applaud what you are doing, but I think the real energy needs to be spent on creating theatre that is relevant. Like your plays. Dead white male theatre is starting to not be relevant. I personally think people place to much reverence in these institutions, institutions which are just now beginning to open their eyes about diversity and casting actors of “colour” in their plays. (And what year are we in?) I say, “who cares”, it’s not relevant. Create your own work. Be the next Shakespeare or Shaw with your own work. The more powerful our voice, the more opportunity we will create and the more relevant Canadian theatre will become. That’s my two cents.

In solidarity,

Marilo

The first thing to say is that I’m a white male actor/playwright/director – I hope that doesn’t automatically disqualify me from participation in the conversation.

Obviously I can’t comment on personal experience of discrimination or racism, but I do have an observation on the whole idea of color blind casting, triggered by this conversation and also, believe it or not, by a memory of Star Trek.

Without going into huge amounts of detail, there was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which the right of the android Data to choose his life path was put on trial.

At one point in the debate, there was a speech about “whole generations of disposable people” who did the dirty work for those in power.

An effective and evocative speech in its own right, but to me it was made even more powerful by the fact that it was spoken by a black woman (for the record, Whoopi Goldberg). In short, the speech was full of resonances simply because of the individual who spoke it – the actor, not the character (whose race and gender, by the way, was never an issue).

Over the last few days, I’ve wondered whether there might be similar value to be mined in non-white casting, not just at Shaw but in theatre in general in this country …

For example, having just seen Mrs. Warren’s Profession at Shaw, I wonder whether Kitty Warren’s passions about women’s independence might carry even more weight if they were spoken by an African-American/Canadian or Chinese woman …

Or thinking in terms of other Shaw plays, would there be useful, moving, and valuably contemporary resonances if St. Joan, Ellie and Mazzini Dunn (Heartbreak House), Eliza and Alfred Doolittle, Candida and her husband or Proserpina Garnett (Candida), the exploitive landlord father and daughter in Widower’s Houses …

… if they were played by actors of color?

Or is that exploitation?

I don’t know …

… but I do know I’d be interested to know how actors of color would respond to this idea.

Thanks for listening

Gordon