Theater for a New Era

By making theater more diverse and multicultural, we can make it more imaginative and compelling for a larger group of people. Last week, common casting at Harvard offered a perfect time to reflect in what direction we want our theatrical productions to take and to keep in mind how we can make theater more inclusive and relevant in future seasons.

Theater is not created in a vacuum but rather speaks to both our individual and social conditions. Kenneth Tynan, the influential English theater critic, wrote: “No theater could sanely flourish until there was an umbilical connection between what was happening on the stage and what was happening in the world.” For that reason, the goals of producing a show should be much larger than merely to create what happens onstage.

We should communicate social messages. Moreover, our theater productions must provide an educational experience—not only for the cast and crew of that particular production—but also for the audience and community that the production encompasses. Sam Linden ’10, during a question-and-answer session for the recent production of “The Laramie Project,” quoted a friend who commendably stated: “Theater is education disguised as entertainment.”
 
But we continue to forget what the essence of theater can be. In order to stage a show that “looks good” and “looks right,” we confine ourselves to precedent rather than liberate our ability to enable change. We tend to emulate the productions that have been seen in the past. In this way, we pass up an opportunity to theatrically create something entirely different and unique.

The quality of theater at Harvard is superb, but there is room for improvement. It should better reflect the community that it serves. The philosophy behind common casting, that anyone should have an equal opportunity for a role, is perfect in theory but relatively unsubstantiated in practice. Many lead roles are continually played by actors of the same stripe and who have always played those roles.

Recently, there has been much work to make theater here more diverse and more inclusive. BlackCAST, for instance, made a point of staging a gender-neutral and color-blind production this past fall. Hopefully, with the arrival of a new dramatic arts concentration and graduate school, and with more theater courses offered, formal training for more people will be more available and accessible.

However, this alone will not be able to resolve our problem of underrepresentation. More calculated risk-taking is needed, and better support in place to maximize the chance that cutting-edge productions can—and will—succeed. Simply, we should try to cast some actors who do not typically populate our major shows. For many outsiders, the world of Harvard theater is exclusive and relatively confined. It’s time to shake things up.

I do not wish for a theatrical bent of affirmative action. Rather, I propose that directors and producers reevaluate what qualities they seek when they cast their actors and actresses. They should take a chance on recruiting fresh new faces. Students of multicultural backgrounds, who are traditionally underrepresented in theater, should not be discouraged by prior experiences. Instead, they should be able to keep training and auditioning for theater shows if the medium is truly something that they love.

Cultural groups, if there is an interest, should host their own theatrical productions as a way to train talent and provide more theatrical experience for more actors. In staging their own shows, these groups may find that theater is a meaningful way to explore cultural identity as well as display to others their cultural contribution of art and artists. Cultural groups can provide support, as well as provide consistency, for diverse Harvard theatrical productions.

During “The Laramie Project” pre-show panel, a show that I was fortunate to direct, Reverend Stephen Johnson noted that “The Laramie Project” is a play performed around the world. The reason why “The Laramie Project” was so popularly produced, he stated, was that people have found that the powerful message behind this one show is not just confined to one group of people in particular, but to all who face stereotypes and prejudice. The show is more popular and meaningful because of the diverse groups that perform it.

One can find similar universality in almost any theatrical production. In choosing to make theater a more inclusive place, another dimension is added to the message behind the play and the production. Those involved in the theatrical productions at Harvard can connect with a greater number of the audience and make the theatrical experience more meaningful and significant.


Jason J. Wong ’10 is a social studies concentrator in Quincy House.