Globe All Seasons

Yeah I'm not sure what the difference is here with her acting instead of directing.

She's an actor, so rather than directing a show a year, she stars in one. Would we be having the conversation if she was directing shows on a yearly basis?

If that was depriving others of that opportunity, I would say so.

If you are AD, that it your primary focus. Directing or acting should happen only very occasionally.

She does not have lived experience of manhood either but no-one's complaining.

There is little historical evidence of Richard actually being disabled other than perhaps one shoulder being slightly higher than the other. He had a fearsome reputation as a fighter and given the type of fighting practised in those days plus the armour they war a significantly disabled person would simply have been unable to participate in serious fighting.

The idea if Richard being "disabled" is allied to his being labelled as "deformed" and a hunchback and is basically a Shakespearean slur on him because, let's not forget, Richard was the mortal enemy of the Bard's queen's grandfather. 

In any case surely if it is strict veracity what is required then the disability of the actor playing Richard should be the specific disability the fictional Richard was supposed to have. It would not be enough to have an actor missing, for example, a limb to play the part as he would not have lived experience of the type of disability which (the fictional) Richard suffered from.

Ps so you can’t perform a part of which you have no actual experience in real life? Gonna be v difficult to find an actor who is a murdering bastard and possibly disabled who isn’t either in prison or on the run?

English and BSL

I had heard of Michelle Terry and she had an excellent reputation as an actor already, before she was AD at the Globe. They are lucky to have her. 

I have huge sympathy for their position but it is predicated on one interpretation of the script and character. And on the idea that an actor must have lived experience of a particular characteristic in order to portray it on stage or screen.

Whilst I often much prefer to see gay actors play gay characters, I would never seek to insist on that.

Acting is not being. And it never should be.

I do not view having any physical disability to be a qualification to play Richard III. There isn't an actor alive today who can truly know what living with a severe form of scoliosis in 15th century Britain would have been like for a man born into the nobility.

We do, however, know that the historical Richard was a formidable warrior. We know that the historical image of him was created by Tudor propagandists and amplified by Shakespeare.

There is certainly a view that says physical disability is an integral part of the play. There are absolutely other perspectives on the character that can be theatrically interesting to explore.

There is space for both approaches (and many more)

But at heart of this is the fact that acting is acting.

What I find laughable is that when you advocate for inclusion and representation for so long, eventually you want to do something that upsets a group of people you’ve been advocating for

The Globe Theatre encountered this with I, Joan from women who see Joan as a figure head for them. And now they’re getting it from disabled people who believe a character should only be played by them.

Lesson: you’re not going to please everybody. And companies out there are starting to wake up to that.

Looking at the recent production history, actors with a disability have been cast as Richard on at least three occasions in the past couple of years or so.

So it is not right to say that disabled actors are being excluded from the role in professional theatre in the UK.

It is right to fight for representation and visibility.

But seeking to limit casting is not the right way to go about it.

Globe response. Seems reasonable to me. Won't be playing Richard as disabled