‘Who Tells Your Story’: A Reflection on Race-Conscious Casting and the Musical

Thuraisingam Robbins, Hannah

Abstract

This think-piece reflects many of the current conversations on race-conscious casting in stage and screen musicals in 2022. Drawing on the author’s lived experience as a ‘mixed-race’ fan and researcher of musicals, they consider how we position the questions we ask about diversity and inclusive casting through racist precedents. They argue that conversations about historical authenticity and inclusion are framed in the assumption that performers who are racialised cannot inhabit British or American roles in historically informed performance. Meanwhile, the monopoly of storytelling that privileges white fantasies has fundamentally shaped sector and audience expectations of commercial musical theatre. Our dialogues about race-conscious casting assume whiteness as the default identity and do not seek to address the absence of our stories and histories in the United Kingdom and the United States. Meanwhile, the underlying influences of racist entertainment in musical theatre history allow creators to mine cultures they don’t belong to for stories-without consequence. Minoritised creatives and performers are forced to accept representations of self and of our cultures through the lens of the other in the name of progressive storytelling.

Citation

Thuraisingam Robbins, H. (2023). ‘Who Tells Your Story’: A Reflection on Race-Conscious Casting and the Musical. In R. Gordon, & O. Jubin (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Global Stage Musical (893-913). Oxford University Press (OUP). https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190909734.013.33

• Online Publication Date: Oct 23, 2023
• Publication Date: Nov 30, 2023
• Deposit Date: Oct 31, 2024
• Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 893-913
• Series Title: Oxford Handbooks
• Edition: 1st
• Book Title: The Oxford Handbook of the Global Stage Musical
• Chapter Number: 32
• ISBN: 9780190909734
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190909734.013.33
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/27070186
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/52508/chapter-abstract/421553467?redirectedFrom=fulltext