Breakdown: Wig Out!

Welcome once again to Breakdown, where we chronicle the racial breakdowns of the shows we're seeing here at Parabasis (why? look here, here and then here). In this entry, we actually have a show with people of color in it, which raises some interesting quandries... how to identify artists of color?  Do we make distinctions between african americans, hispanics, asians etc. etc. and so forth?  for now, I'm just going to go with "person of color" which I'm going to say right not makes me very very squeamish. Why?  (1) It lumps all people of different races who aren't white into a kind of catch all "coloreds" pile and (2) The various demographic realities in theater are different for people of different races.  Many theaters produce at least one play a year by African American writers, very few make the same commitments to Hispanic writers or Asian writers etc. I'm not saying this is a problem necessarily, but rather just a reality that shapes the theatrical landscape.

At the same time, there are many overlaps in different communities.  Is a very dark skinned Dominican American Black? Latino? or, as a friend of mine self-indentifies BlaTino?  Who knows. And since I'm not going to presume to know what identity someone has chosen to own, it's safer to just go "artist of color". Although I'm open to counterarguments in the comments, should you feel so inclined. 

WIG OUT!

Writer: Tarrell Alvin McCraney (male / identifiably a person of color)

Director: Tina Landau (female / identifiably white)

Actors:

Erik King                        (male/ identifiably a person of color)

Nathan Lee Graham      (male/ identifiably a person of color)

Clifton Oliver                (male/ identifiably a person of color)

Joshua Cruz                   (male/ identifiably a person of color)

Glenn Davis                  (male/ identifiably a person of color)

Rebecca Naomi Jones (female/ identifiably a person of color)

Angela Grovey              (female/ identifiably a person of color)

McKenzie Frye              (female/ identifiably a person of color)

Daniel T. Booth              (male / identifiably white)

Sean Patrick Doyle         (male / identifiably white)

Andre Holland              (male/ identifiably a person of color)

Comments

[Elizabeth]

How about identifiably racially and/or culturally diverse?

And what about the audience? What was the breakdown?

I've also been looking at ages - what is the age make-up of the cast/crew/audience.

[jaime]

Not that I think there's a better term, but I've always chafed at the phrase "person of color." It connects too strongly to my jr. high and high school years at a *very* diverse school, being white and thus a minority, and every year's Multicultural Day - every ethnic heritage except mine was celebrated. Because basically, if you were white, you had nothing to celebrate. (The one year the dance club did an 'all American' swing dance - a damn good one, at that - they got booed off the stage.)

The of-color/white breakdown feels similar... like I'm being told I *don't* have something - color, culture. I know it's not the same exactly, but it is still breaking it down white/everyone else, when I'd much rather just be another color, albeit a pastier one.