Royal Shakespeare Company: A sad director with racist reactions to his cast
Written byTimes Magazine
The theater director said he was "sad but not surprised" by the racist response to the black cast in his play. The Royal Shakespeare Company's new Much Ado About Nothing production is set in an Afro-Futuristic world.
Art director Erica Wyman said the "embarrassing" reaction came from a "minority" of people, and discriminatory comments would not be tolerated. "The idea that Shakespeare's plays belong to one group and not another is nonsense," he said. In December, Stratford Avon Theater announced its new production cast, directed by Roy Alexander Weiss.
While Ms. Wyman says the theater has a "proud record of many shows," she says theater companies have been asking herself, "We've seen enough times where black artists can run a business?" After the killing of George Floyd, he said the company felt it was "essential... to look at ourselves and ask why there is so much racism in the world."
"It's the responsibility of cultural organizations like mine to make sure that we don't just represent black culture on our stage, but that we try to understand properly what's missing in our cultural world," he said.
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Wyman added that the complaint about the casting was "because of ignorance about what theater is and what storytelling is."
In 2020, the company branded comments calling the casting of Romeo and Juliet "very diverse" as "unacceptable and disgusting." It said: "We will not stand aside when stupid and rude responses are published. We have to call them for what they are: racist."
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