Gregory Doran steps down

If the role is ring-fenced for a disabled actor the play will be produced even less often than it is now. The Almeida and Arcola only produced it as a star vehicle for Fiennes and Hick, if they were barred from the part then the play wouldn’t have been staged at all so it’s not as simple as them “taking” the role from a disabled actor. The play will just drop out of the repertoire except at the RSC and Globe every decade or so.

You could say that about any play that has a lead role not a white able-bodied man. You could say that about any play that has a black lead, or even a female protagonist. Theatres still reject phenomenal plays for those very reasons today.

Richard III’s one of the most popular and frequently performed Shakespeare plays and has existed for over 400 years. It’s on all the bloody time. The idea that it’s just going to vanish and never be produced again because some bigots hate seeing anyone not an able-bodied white man getting to play leads is ridiculous. Besides why should we pander to what bigots want?

Hicks is a wonderful actor but he’s hardly a household name. He made his career and his name by playing those Shakespearean roles, rather than being a famous actor who was cast in those roles because of his fame. If Hicks can make his name by playing those roles why can’t a disabled actor do the same? Cast more disabled actors and as a result we’ll have more disabled actors who are famous enough to have star vehicles created for them.

Why don’t they deserve the same opportunities as any other actor?



That’s pretty much what the social model of disability is, and while personally I find SMOD problematic in some respects it’s the prevailing model in the UK and certainly omnipresent in the theatre industry. I honestly don’t know a single disabled actor who doesn’t at least partly subscribe to SMOD. People have really weird ideas about what disability is.

I am not sure that you can truly open up opportunities for actors of any physical type to play any role while at the same time saying some roles *cannot* be played by certain types of people.

You just end up with different types of exclusion at different times, depending on which ‘type’ is currently being favoured.

It’s not “dragging race into it” it’s pointing out that the arguments being made to support maintaining a bigoted system that historically has excluded disabled actors are the exact same arguments that are made whenever anyone brings up race in casting.

There’s still tremendous anger and rage whenever an actor is cast in a traditionally white role, like Hamlet or a role playing a real life historical figure. Look at the extreme fury incited by a black woman playing Anne Boleyn.

It’s very obviously just sheer racism, since whenever anyone had the audacity to suggest that maybe minorities should play minority roles people screech “IT’S ACTING/best actor who auditions should get the job/it’s acting not a documentary/theatre isn’t supposed to be completely historically accurate/well the script isn’t historically accurate anyway so why should the casting be.” Yet the second an actor who is a minority takes a role playing a character who’s not a minority, all those arguments get chucked out the window and suddenly people become very very concerned about theatre/TV being scrupulously historically accurate and suddenly the concept of “best actor who auditions should get the job” just magically no longer applies. It’s absolute unadulterated hatred of minorities and the hypocrisy sickens me.



No one thinks only Jewish actors should play Jewish characters, and the whole “Jewface” thing (which I was personally involved in) has been exploited and twisted by people with an agenda. The argument over Jewish representation was only ever about saying that plays that are overtly about Judaism and Jewish culture should have at least some Jews working on the show, regardless of whether that’s amongst the cast or behind the scenes. No one would ever tolerate a play about Islam being made by a 100% non-Muslim cast and creative team.


We are currently in a situation where extremely talented disabled actors are overlooked and not even able to audition for many roles yet mediocre or down right sh*tty actors are cast all the time purely because they have privilege. This is currently actively happening, yet people don’t care but would rather worry about the hypothetical possibility that a minority might potentially get something you feel they might not deserve.

Honestly this is all based on the unconscious bias of assuming that minorities are inherently less talented or able, and the age-old fear that minorities exploit identity politics to steal things that belong to white able-bodied people by right. When actually the opposite is true. The barriers to becoming an actor if you’re disabled are so high, only the very best and most talented disabled actors would ever be in a position to even get an audition for the RSC.



Nonsense, I’ve seen far more RIII’s starring non-celebs than those starring celebs.



Deciding that one actor fits a role better than another is not “banning” all the actors who were unsuccessful. If someone wanted to create a vehicle for a specific actor they’d choose a play that fits that actor.

Jeremy Herrin was firm in only auditioning disabled actors for his upcoming West End production of Glass Menagerie. People need to accept that it’s not 1950 anymore.

That is simply not true. Just because a performance is critically acclaimed doesn’t mean that racism magically vanishes. There have been plenty of angry comments on this forum from people who object (often using the same arguments being given here) to seeing a minority actor on stage, as well as plenty of hate and racism online and in the national press.

Just today the producers of Grease had to issue a public statement because they and their cast had received so much racial abuse over casting non-white actors in roles that are purely a work of fiction (ie not real historical people) but simply were originated in the movie by white actors. The Orange Tree theatre received racially abusive letters and actually had to ban one audience member after they cast a black actor in an historical play.


It’s very easy for white people to ignore or downplay racism but that indicates an agenda at worst, subconscious bias at best.


Make no mistake, demanding the continuation of a bigoted system that ensures minorities are oppressed is not in the slightest bit “liberal”. Positive discrimination is essential to even start to level the playing field.


Acting is a harsh industry and a thousand factors go into the decisions what actors the CD is told to look for, wording of casting breakdowns, and decisions on shortlisting. Giving a CD a specific criteria and telling them to only consider actors who meet the criteria for the casting breakdown is a standard part of casting that every show does, it’s not “banning.”




Realistically, ringfencing minority roles for minority actors is the ONLY way to even begin to do the work needed to overturn decades of systemic discrimination. Disabled actors face far higher barriers than able-bodied actors to even enter the industry, and a lot of CDs and producers won’t even consider disabled actors for roles not specifically written as being disabled. That’s without even going into the huge wars that disabled people have to fight to get basic access needs met (read some of the literature from the recent UHC launch or read personal experiences from actual disabled creatives who regularly are put in positions where they’re forced to crawl due to lack of wheelchair access, forced to go hours without liquids due to no toilet access, or turn up to auditions having spend hours of prep and are turned away because the prodco forgot to book an accessible audition suite and even the biggest audition venues in London aren’t accessible). This happens all the time even on productions specifically looking to cast disabled roles. Look at Jack Thorne’s statement about his own personal experiences that whenever he writes something with disabled characters, he’s given a fraction of his usual budget and often has to make those TV series through fringe programming. There’s no reason for such a huge disparity except for bigotry. And when one of the most famous and successful TV screenwriters working today is saying how bad anti-disabled bigotry is, what do you think it’s like for regular non-famous disabled actors?

Anyone who was truly liberal would be getting upset about the thousand occurrences of extremely talented disabled actors being “banned” from auditioning for roles they would be amazing in, purely because of bigotry. Yet no one cares about that.

Clearly racism within theatre is a problem if theatres run the risk of potentially having to deal with hate mail, ban audience members, and issue public statements whenever they cast actors of colour in these roles. And is it only an insignificant minority? The furore over a black Anne Boleyn was huge. National newspapers wrote articles complaining about the RSC casting black actors.

Study history. These tropes are not new. These tactics and arguments are age-old, as are the fears they represent. Unless someone is a minority they have no idea how widespread and deeply entrenched systemic privilege, entitlement, and the conscious or subconscious belief that minorities are inherently not as good/clever/talented as able bodied white people.. Spend a few years seeing how frequently people assume a person who looks like you can’t possibly have landed a job or role or uni place or scholarship via talent but only due to positive discrimination and maybe you’d think differently.


Look at the comments here. People read one director!s opinion about casting disabled actors and instead of concluding “great this will result in more talented disabled actors finally getting a chance to audition and demonstrate their talent” they conclude “this may result in people who can’t act being handed roles just because they’re disabled.” Why would you even think such a thing, unless consciously or subconsciously you just don’t see disabled people as equals and as just as talented as non-disabled actors? Do people really think there’s such a shortage of talented disabled actors?

I see Tom Littler is off to the Orange Tree so that's him off the list

Sam West is an interesting one, he's got family links to Stratford with his parents having worked extensively there like he has done. I don't know what his upcoming TV acting work is as that could be a sticking point.

That would rule him out as Siegfried is a big role and it is a good quality drama.

While the world-famous Crucible Theatre was closed for its modernisation, Sam West wanted to temporarily transfer its producing functions to the Lyceum Theatre next door, which is normally a receiving house. The board decided otherwise, so with nothing for him to do for two years, they went their separate ways.

I wonder if Rob Hastie has applied. It doesn't seem like it, but this is his seventh year in Sheffield, so may feel like now is the time for a new challenge.

The RSC has appointed from within the last couple of times too Greg had been in running when Michael Boyd got top job and Michael was a fellow associate with Greg under Adrian Noble. Adrian had been an associate too but had left for a bit prior to getting top job in early 1990's. So Erica looks like she fits the bill.

I think they should really go for an outsider this time or maybe you make the AD terms shorter to freshen things up. Greg had already been at the RSC well over 20 years before he took the top job, Michael had been there several years, Erica has been there 8 or 9 years already. So have they particularly in the case of Greg used up a lot of their better ideas by the time they get the top job. Maybe the ideal appointee would be what happened with Adrian a few years at RSC then go away and come back for top job in due course.

The idea of limiting AD term to say 5 years would keep things fresh and allow people to work with RSC and then do other stuff before returning to top job. If you have a long serving AD the likes of Erica might only have this one shot at the top job.

Josie Rourke has burnt too many bridges to get another AD job.

Really ? Have you heard the names of anyone applying ? There must be several candidates from regional theatre I personally haven’t heard of.

The commercial/freelance sector isn’t necessarily a comfortable place to be at present - 5 years guaranteed work on a big salary might tempt some to return to the subsidised sector.

Probably depends who you are, Grandage for example likely gets nice royalties from Frozen so he's unlikely to go back to the subsidised sector and Cooke's production company Fictionhouse is involved in a number of shows such as The Music Man on Broadway.