DISCUSSION

To research this paper meant going beyond book sources. As such, I watched video recordings of several shows, including Dreamgirls, Rent, Ragtime, Lion King and Aida, and I referenced the recordings of every show mentioned in the paper. I also watched My Favorite Broadway Leading Ladies and a DVD of all the musical performances from the Tony awards 1975 to present, looking for trends. I looked through Playbills dating back to the 1970s, when I started attending shows, and I looked through the programs of the shows I have been in, searching for African Americans in the cast lists. In only one, Nunsense II, did I find an African American woman in a key role in a local show.

The problem inherent in a limited scope website like this is that this topic is extremely broad, and a history is needed before any true discussion of the issues can even be attempted. As such, this has become a brief history, rather than a discussion. One without the other is impossible.

African American women have never been invisible on Broadway. Their contributions have not just been as musical performers, but also as writers, directors and choreographers. They have worked backstage and in the orchestra pits. There have been plenty of difficulties in being a black actress on Broadway, starting with the simple fact that not many African Americans are socialized with this type of theatre as entertainment. St. Petersburg Little Theatre (St. Petersburg, FL) has made several attempts to reach out to the African American community that surrounds their locale, but they have had little luck (person interview with Rose West, former president of SPLT). Nancy Metzger at Francis Wilson Playhouse in Clearwater indicated that they have stopped trying to produce shows requiring black performers because “they just don’t show up for auditions and we have to cast the characters with white actors anyway.” She also stated that in the thirty years she has been acting in Pinellas County, she has met only a handful of African American women who audition for community theatre productions.

As Pam Raines, a local African American actress, indicated in a personal interview with me, “There are very few roles and all the leads go to white women anyway.” After speaking with Pam, it occurred to me that one area of research that would have been interesting to pursue would be to talk to the few back actresses working in the Tampa Bay area. But several hours of phone calls later, I realized that there are not many black women involved in local theatre. To date, only Pam has returned my calls.

Attempts to interview Broadway performers have proven just as difficult. Many actresses currently working in the business are reluctant to comment on paper (especially on a website, although several gave me quotes I may use in an unpublished paper at a later date or anonymously here). The general consensus is that they feel lucky to be working at all and they refuse to jeopardize it by saying much on the record.

One woman indicated that when new shows are created, outside of the PC Disney-realm, there are rarely strong roles for African American women in them – or if there are, the shows are critically acclaimed and do not sell enough tickets to sustain a long run. An actress who was recently nominated for a Tony Award stated that “black kids don’t go to the theatre and they usually can’t afford to pay $80.00 for a ticket. Black parents can’t afford to take their kids to see the shows. Since Black people are not in the audience, producers feel little need, beyond what is required by law and tradition, to include black people on the stage, either.

What I learned from working on the research for this website is that on one hand, there is much to celebrate about black women on Broadway. They have a long history of diverse roles, Tony Awards and critical acclaim. But the bottom line is that Broadway, like any other industry, may pretend to be color blind, but remains segregated at the core.