University cancels performance weeks before opening due to diversity issues

Earlier this month, the University of Utah decided to cancel their production of Songs for a New World due to a failure “to address essential issues of representation and identity presented by the script.”

The Jason Robert Brown song cycle was to be the final production of the university’s season. To add insult to injury, theatre department officials pulled the show two weeks before it was set to stream online, after students had already been cast and rehearsing for months.

Actions like these have been called into question over the past week on the heels of Chanhassen Dinner Theatres in Minnesota canceling their production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella because the cast was “98% white”.

While the cancellation in Utah was announced weeks before the Minnesota theatre’s decision, it still calls into question how theatre organizations and university programs address equity and inclusion.

The Department of Theatre at the University of Utah provided the following statement:

The University of Utah Department of Theatre has cancelled its public performance of SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD. Although multiple factors led to this decision, one central issue is clear: during our selection and production process, we failed to address essential issues of representation and identity presented by the script.

Our decision to cancel has immediate and lasting implications, both for the company of SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD and for our department as a whole. As we work to address these concerns and seek remedies wherever possible, we will continue to demonstrate our commitment to ongoing, measurable action in pursuit of the following goals:

To take responsibility and corrective action for our failures, past and present, to welcome and give prominence to people and stories from underrepresented and historically marginalized groups

To support and amplify justice, equity, diversity, inclusivity, anti-racism, and representation—both in and out of the classroom, as well as on- and offstage

To demonstrate our commitment to self-education and becoming steadfast accomplices to people from BIPOC, marginalized, and immigrant communities

To embrace these pursuits as part of a holistic approach to student and community well-being

We will continue to provide more information as it becomes available; meanwhile, we are devoting our resources to building additional means for accountability, transparency, and communication.

In a separate email to the university’s community, officials stated there were issues that led to the marginalizing and tokenizing of BIPOC students in the production.

But according to students involved in the production, these concerns were brought up at the beginning of the rehearsal process and that department officials ignored and gaslit the students for speaking up.

Now, those same students are left without a show. To make matters worse, the university isn’t replacing the show. The university is just yanking an opportunity from these students without providing another one.

This also follows concerns BIPOC students brought up to university officials last summer. In response, the theatre department pledged to do better and developed a five-year plan.

The department’s previous productions for the 2020-2021 season included Rachel Bublitz’s The Night Witches, directed by Alexandra Harbold, and William Shakespeare’s Henry V, directed by Stephanie Weeks.

According to the university news site, The Night Witches featured an all-female cast and was both written and directed by women. Henry V featured a female director but did not feature diverse casting for primary roles.

Here’s my take. Just like Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, what the University of Utah’s Theatre Department has done is failed their students twice. They apparently didn’t follow through on their promises of improving identity-conscious casting for this production and then canceled it on the students in order to look nobler. That’s incredibly cruel and unfair.

To be clear, I want to see theatre organizations and college programs improve their equity and inclusion of not only BIPOC students but also when it comes to gender identity, body size, etc. As an Asian-American, I’ve been arguing that for years on this blog.

But what I don’t want to see is college programs pull crap like this. First of all, they should have absolutely listened to their students when their concerns were initially brought up. While I don’t know the exact problem with the casting in this production but I am sure those concerns were valid and I’m sure adjustments could have been made and the performance could have continued, whether it was Songs for a New World or another show altogether.

Since they apparently didn’t listen to their students, they should have owned what they did, allow the students to perform, and then follow through on the promised changes next academic year.

I also would have whole-heartedly supported the students if this was their decision alone to not perform the show. But from the looks of it, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Just like Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, the theatre department is essentially deleting old problematic tweets in order to look better going forward.

I feel terribly for the students involved in their production. According to cast photos(which I won’t share without the entire cast’s consent), it looked like a great group of students that featured much of the inclusion I’ve been hoping for. My heart goes out to them and especially the seniors, as this is a terrible way for their college experience to end.