Monday, December 20, 2010

A New Kind of Casting

Suppose that there were a fine acting company made up of white actors and black actors and Hispanic actors and Asian-American actors; women and men; young actors, older, and old; deaf actors and the hearing; actors with other special characteristics. And suppose that one assigned roles freely, without prediction from history or from one's old habits of thought. What if one took nontraditional casting as far as one could?
—Zelda Fichandler, American Theatre, May '88


This month's issue of American Theatre features an excellent essay consiering the gender debate from a more abstract and expressionist point of view. What if casting could be completely gender neutral? What is casting could be color blind? What if the age or a actor didn't matter? What if body type was also irrelevant?

Read the article here and let us know what you think.

From the article:
..."it would drive a wedge between actor and character, encouraging spectators and performers to critically examine interacting performance texts rather than assuming a simple-minded identification of the performer with the role."

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