Diversity in the West End

i think one of the main issues is that often people have only one watching mode, whether that be seeing how much it relates to them, how much it stimulates them, how ‘real’ it is etc. It should be easy to like and appreciate more theatre/TV/music etc. by switching between modes but I don’t get the sense that people have ever understood the necessity of it or even how to do that. To watch a play that is ‘not for you’ means adapting the gratification that you seek.

There's also the question of cost and who is in power to give things the nod - women, gay people and other groups still don't have much power in getting their stories commissioned for big budget platforms like mainstream movie theatres and TV, but can bring them to small venues or low budget independent films (where a lot of women are emerging at the moment, doing interesting work).

Here you go

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I live ten minutes walk from the Contact. Never been. Im not complaining, their stuff doesn’t appeal so I don’t go. I’m pleased they’re putting on what they do for the audience that likes it. 

I hear there was a kerfuffle at the WI when “The Year My Vagina Tried To Kill Me” was announced. 

Related: there seems to be a strong cross-over between theatre/musical theatre fandom and sci-fi/fantasy/comic book fandom.

I've always thought that the ability to suspend disbelief - or at the very least to delay disbelief and engage with what you are seeing on its own terms - was the key commonality there. But perhaps it's also the ability to do the interpretative work which you're talking about here - to say 'ok, so I know everything here isn't exactly as I expect it to be, but keep talking and I'll figure it out as we go along' - that is inherent with being an outsider trying to fit into a dominant social group.

I found myself thinking of this post when seeing The Comedy About A Bank Robbery again this evening. Between leads & understudies I've seen 8 different actors in the role of Cooper, 5 of whom (including the originator) have been white & 3 black. So there are roles that can & do move between ethnicities. Although I will say that the general casting in both TCAABR and The Play That Goes Wrong also backs up the comments on this thread that diversity often only seems to extend to black performers: there has yet to be anyone in any of the UK casts who isn't either white or black. I'm sure somewhere there must be some performers of Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern, etc. origin who can do farce!

It is about presence; black actors see other black actors doing farce, tragedy, Shakespeare etc they realise there are no barriers. I think East Asians are a group that really struggle to move out of roles written for their race. London had a real hard on for plays about Korea, China etc in recent years and they were well-written (on the whole) and gave glimpses into lives we didn't see on stage much. The issue is that you see the same actors in these roles. Is there a limited pool of East Asian talent? Possibly but worryingly you rarely see them cast in roles that are traditionally outside their race despite proving time and time again that they are excellent actors.

As much as I slagged off Macbeth at the NT I was delighted to see they had cast Elizabeth Chan, it is these minor steps that will convince any young actor of East Asian heritage that there are no barriers.

I do appreciate this, xanderl. But come on, the people in Pressure were white men and the people in Lehman were Jewish white men. You are suggesting we do a Hamilton for every show, every play?

Theatre is THE most non-naturalistic "sit down and watch as we tell you a story" art form there is, there is absolutely no reason to cling slavishly to "the real historical people were definitely all white in this particular incident so the cast will be all white too" when you've already made up the dialogue, created a set with an open space for the audience to sit, and rejigged the story so there's a hook just before the interval and some sort of narrative conclusion by the end. Embrace the non-naturalism and just go wild. Make them sing. Have them directly address the audience. Cast Beverley Knight as Emmeline Pankhurst.

It depends on the size of the cast, surely? If you're casting, say, fifty people it would be distinctly improbable to end up with all of them white, but with a cast of five it's perfectly reasonable. (In fact, in the UK population as a whole if you select five people at random there's an even chance they'll all be white.) To be fair you'd have to accept "It just turned out that way" as a justification, because anything else is a quota system being dishonest about what it is.

You seem to be implying that if a cast is entirely white it must be because someone is discriminating against non-whites. While that certainly does happen I really don't think that a guilty-by-default approach is helpful.

General question: Does anyone have an ethnic breakdown of actors currently working or looking for work in the UK? It would be interesting to work out the probability of an all-white cast happening just by chance. I can find figures for the ethnic breakdown of actors actually employed, but that's obviously no use for this purpose because it's the difference between the two that matters.

Nice thought, but reality is way too layered to give any meaningful results. How many non-white actors are in work? How many non-white actors are out of work? How many non-white actors graduated drama school? How many non-white actors auditioned for drama school, successfully or otherwise? How many non-white actors got lead roles in school plays or am dram, or received encouragement from drama teachers? And taking race out of it entirely, how on earth do you even quantify out-of-work actors? How do you know who's given up, who's between agents, who's genuinely resting?

Certainly what I hear from one of the leading non-London drama schools very much backs up kathryn's last point.

All of the BAME actors got agents very, very quickly. Not one of the white actors on the course did - at least not in the period immediately following their final showcase. This included those of the cohort who had won numerous awards and prizes during their course.

Some of the non-BAME students have finally secured representation - but far from all.

Clearly agents will only take on clients they believe for whom they can find work. But there is something wrong when the top male and female of the year didn't rapidly secure an agent.

Talent should be what matters.

Disability a similar thing. Despite not liking the play enough to see it out I did enjoy seeing actors on the stage who would not have made it back in the day. One of them is particularly talented.

As for colour diversity for want of a better expression, Emilia the character made the point in the play that she didn’t see people on the stage ( we're talking the original Globe) with whom she could identify. I find this very puzzling. There is no one in Hamlet with whom I can identify. But it is a play I am always moved by and always informed by. Plays about me would never get past first post. So how does that work then? I find it hard to understand this desire to see oneself on the stage or a representation of oneself. Thinking of the past, something like a Taste of Honey is so far from my experience I think I watched it with open mouth the first time and how powerful it was. ( I saw the movie version ) and its power was one of drama and taking me into feelings and ideas I hadn’t encountered. I wasn’t in it. I wasn’t even remotely in the same universe.

When I saw the wonderful Chinese drama at the RSC I was so moved and its emotions were universal. Again, the quality of the drama is what gave it power. Again a million miles from me.
I don’t care who does the acting and I don’t care if I’m not represented on the stage. Just let it be good.