Broadway Actors Share Their Harsh Realities As POC In The Theatre Industry
When it comes to racism in the theatre industry, we’ve learned that it doesn’t just exist solely on Broadway. It’s everywhere.
On national tours. At regional theaters. Within reputable college theatre programs. Inside community theaters. At high schools. In audition rooms. On social media.
BIPOC actors are using social media to share their stories of racism in the theatre industry - and their visions for change.
It’s called #TheaterInColor.
Actress Aisha Jackson, who recently starred in Frozen on Broadway (the first ever Black woman to play Anna), began the movement by sharing her experience with racism online following a casting announcement.
Jelani Alladin, who recently played Kristoff in Disney’s Frozen on Broadway and the titular role in Hercules at the Public Theater, took to Instagram to share racist remarks he received from a white director.
“I equate the feelings of what it’s like to be a POC in the theater to being a shaken up soda bottle,” he said. “When first opened after a traumatic shake, it has to explode, and only after can we begin cleaning up.”
Broadway veteran Raymond J. Lee, (Aladdin, Anything Goes, Groundhog Day, Honeymoon in Vegas, and Mamma Mia!), shared his frustrating experience with “generic Asian accents” and auditioning in NYC at “token calls.”
Jessie Hooker-Bailey (Waitress, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) shared her personal reality as a black woman in theater.
Broadway actor Noah J. Ricketts described how his photo outside Disney’s Frozen was vandalized, and why he’s pleading for more people of color in principal roles on Broadway.
Broadway veteran Tracee Beazer (Frozen, Something Rotten!, Honeymoon In Vegas, Holler If Ya Hear Me) said she had “more often than not been the only black woman in the room where I was clearly there to ‘check a box’ … aka ‘the ‘token.’”
If you are a person of color and would like to share your experience, please click here to learn more.
If you have the means, please consider donating to the Black Lives Matter movement here.
Follow their journeys as they continue to make history on Broadway.