Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    College Advising
    Serving Higher Ed
    Chronicle Festival 2025
Sign In
Commentary

How Racial Politics Hurt My Students

By Marilouise Michel November 13, 2015

The theater program at my small, rural state university was producing a new and controversial play by an Asian playwright. In the playwright’s own words, the work was “universal” and “for everyone … about humanity.”

Upon seeing a publicity tweet showing our non-Asian student actors playing the Indian roles, the playwright sent me a vitriolic email ordering me to shut down our production unless we immediately recast the roles with Asian actors. Our entire university is 0.6 percent Asian, mostly international students, with none enrolled in theater. So, despite months of student and faculty work, research, building, and creating, we shut down the production, one week before we were set to open.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

The theater program at my small, rural state university was producing a new and controversial play by an Asian playwright. In the playwright’s own words, the work was “universal” and “for everyone … about humanity.”

Upon seeing a publicity tweet showing our non-Asian student actors playing the Indian roles, the playwright sent me a vitriolic email ordering me to shut down our production unless we immediately recast the roles with Asian actors. Our entire university is 0.6 percent Asian, mostly international students, with none enrolled in theater. So, despite months of student and faculty work, research, building, and creating, we shut down the production, one week before we were set to open.

A recent and well-publicized production done by Kent State University’s department of Pan-African studies of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop was vilified by that playwright for its “race revisionist” double-casting of the role of Martin Luther King Jr. A white man and a black man played the parts on alternating nights. The African-American director, Michael Oatman, stated on the production’s website that he “truly wanted to explore the issue of racial ownership and authenticity.”

“I didn’t want this to be a stunt, but a true exploration of King’s wish that we all be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin,” he continued. “I wanted to see how the words rang differently or indeed the same, coming from two different actors, with two different racial backgrounds.”

What is our purpose in higher education if not to push boundaries and ask questions?

What is our purpose in higher education if not to push boundaries and ask questions? Isn’t it our job to teach our students to think, probe, and look at all issues from varying viewpoints — or dare I say every possible viewpoint? And then invent some more? While I might not consider casting a Caucasian or Asian actor in the role of Jim in the Huck Finn story, it is not at all unusual for university programs and other professional and nonprofessional theaters to use “color blind” or “nontraditional” casting as a way to open up opportunities for all students and performers regardless of race, ethnicity, and even gender.

Certainly a playwright has the right to place limitations on productions of his or her work. However, I purport that without those specific hindrances, theater artists can and should have as much artistic freedom as the playwrights themselves. Perhaps Shakespeare would wince at a Western-style production of The Taming of the Shrew, but he never told us we couldn’t. He never said Petruchio couldn’t be black, as he was in the 1990 Delacorte Theater production starring Morgan Freeman.

Neither Ms. Hall nor the Asian playwright with whom we worked mandated in the script or in the production contract that the productions be cast with ethnic specificity. When the show we were producing was done off-Broadway, there seemed to have been East Asians playing Indian roles, but somehow that is acceptable where Caucasian and African-American actors were not.

Those of you who teach can probably imagine the heartbreak of sitting down with a group of undergraduate actors, designers, and technicians who had put blood, sweat, and tears into the production for months, only to tell them that their work was unacceptable to the playwright because the actors were not Asian. While the playwright’s agent suggested that this should be a learning experience to educate the students in the erroneousness of casting non-Asians in “clearly Asian” roles — in a play that was neither centered on nor even hinted of racial issues — this lesson fell flat.

I have intentionally left out the name of the playwright and the piece that we were working on as I do not wish to provide him with publicity at the expense of the fine and viable work of our students. We will continue to strive, as most educational theater programs do, to provide as many and varied opportunities for our students as we can, and to judge our performers on the content of their character and skills, not on the color of their skin or their ethnic heritage.

Marilouise Michel is a professor of theater at Clarion University of Pennsylvania.

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Tags
Opinion
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

University of California, Berkeley chancellor Dr. Rich Lyons, testifies at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on July 15, 2025. It is the latest in a series of House hearings on antisemitism at the university level, one that critics claim is a convenient way for Republicans to punish universities they consider too liberal or progressive, thereby undermining responses to hate speech and hate crimes. (Photo by Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP)
Another Congressional Hearing
3 College Presidents Went to Congress. Here’s What They Talked About.
Tufts University student from Turkey, Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested by immigration agents while walking along a street in a Boston suburb, talks to reporters on arriving back in Boston, Saturday, May 10, 2025, a day after she was released from a Louisiana immigration detention center on the orders of a federal judge. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)
Law & Policy
Homeland Security Agents Detail Run-Up to High-Profile Arrests of Pro-Palestinian Scholars
Photo illustration of a donation jar turned on it's side, with coins spilling out.
Financial aid
The End of Unlimited Grad-School Loans Could Leave Some Colleges and Students in the Lurch
Brad Wolverton
Newsroom leadership
The Chronicle of Higher Education Names Brad Wolverton as Editor

From The Review

Illustration of an ocean tide shaped like Donald Trump about to wash away sandcastles shaped like a college campus.
The Review | Essay
Why Universities Are So Powerless in Their Fight Against Trump
By Jason Owen-Smith
Photo-based illustration of a closeup of a pencil meshed with a circuit bosrd
The Review | Essay
How Are Students Really Using AI?
By Derek O'Connell
John T. Scopes as he stood before the judges stand and was sentenced, July 2025.
The Review | Essay
100 Years Ago, the Scopes Monkey Trial Discovered Academic Freedom
By John K. Wilson

Upcoming Events

07-31-Turbulent-Workday_assets v2_Plain.png
Keeping Your Institution Moving Forward in Turbulent Times
Ascendium_Housing_Plain.png
What It Really Takes to Serve Students’ Basic Needs: Housing
Lead With Insight
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin