Essay: the newest production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is shocking but it’s not surprising
Essay by Maddy Jolly Fuentes
About six months ago, I, along with just about every other Australian performer, received an audition brief for the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This sparked confusion and disgust amongst my circle of actor friends. We’d seen the photos from the West End production of the show, with costumes blatantly appropriating a range of cultures. Also, it’s a show set in the Middle East; why were my white friends being encouraged by their agents to audition? Most importantly, why is everyone acting like this is a surprise?
Like many other traditions and institutions, musical theatre is an institution that perpetuates systemic racism. With most commercial Australian musical theatre productions being a cookie cutter replica of their West End and Broadway predecessors, our tradition is closely linked to the American one that was built on exploiting minority cultures for the sake of entertainment. You might think that musicals are a fairly “harmless” form of art, with boppy tunes, dancing and a lot of glitter, but even the most “comedic” and “family-friendly” shows have a dark history, playing on misogynistic and racist stereotypes reflective of the attitudes of the times they were written in. They were written by white people, for white people, and continue to be invested in maintaining a world view that is resolutely white. Some modern musicals, and productions of Golden Age musicals, are attempting to change this by focussing on diverse casting and telling new stories, but others haven’t seemed to bother to address the racism inherent in the musicals’ texts.
To save you the shame of buying a ticket to Joseph, here is a non-exhaustive list of the atrocities in the so-called “family-friendly” show:
A can can routine performed by white people in hijabs and headscarves, when Iranian women are currently being raped and murdered right now for protesting against compulsory hijab
White performers in turbans, headscarves, Egyptian cultural dress and wigs with racially specific hairstyles
A “comedic” sexual assault scene involving children
A scene portraying a POC actor being whipped by a child “slave owner”
For those outside the industry, these examples might seem shocking but unfortunately they aren’t alone. Throughout my musical theatre training and career I have witnessed racism on all levels, and have been guilty of participating in it first hand. I’ve been encouraged and supported by my teachers and superiors to perpetuate racist stereotypes, often for the sake of an acting challenge or a “valuable” job opportunity.
When I attended the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), my class’s first production as a cohort was the play Arabian Nights. Despite only having one BIPOC person in our class, we donned Persian style costumes, were given Henna tattoos and performed an incredibly offensive dance to ‘Rock the Casbah’. Our choreographer described the dance as “arabian-persian-fusion.” In a separate incident, a fellow classmate was encouraged by her singing teacher to keep dying her hair brown as it made her more “racially ambiguous” for future casting.
The class in the year above me put on a production of In The Heights with yet another predominantly white cast. For a performance practice category that required us to perform a “character” piece, white girls would unashamedly perform numbers from Hairspray and The Colour Purple, arguing that they were small and meek in nature, and stepping into the shoes of these strong black women was a “challenge” for them. They routinely failed to acknowledge that historically, women of these cultures have had to be strong and loud to have their voices heard and their basic rights acknowledged, instead perpetuating the stereotype for the sake of an “acting challenge”. All of this happened with the support and supervision of one of the largest arts educational institutions in Australia.
Upon graduating, I naively hoped that the professional industry would be more open minded than my drama school teachers. Instead, my agent strongly urged me to audition for the role of “Anita” in West Side Story. Anita is a Puerto Rican woman who endures ridicule and attempted rape due to the colour of her skin. When I raised my concerns about being a white person auditioning for this role with my agent, he argued that I am of Spanish descent, so there was no reason why I shouldn’t play that role. He said, “I don’t want you to be disempowered by your own blood”.
In the past year I have seen so many commercial Australian musicals full of microaggressions and sometimes even blatant racism. In the 2021 production of 9 to 5 the Musical, the only non-white character was a small bit part. To add further insult to injury, this Latina woman was constantly the butt of the joke, portrayed as exuberantly unhinged and jittery. I was so excited to see the cast announcement for Midnight, a new Aussie musical based on the story of Cinderella, with music by Kate Miller Heidke. I scrolled through the casting to see that the only BIPOC actor was cast as the ugly stepsister. It’s barely a step up from the all white cast of The Mousetrap.
I recognise that post-pandemic, jobs in the arts are few and far between. Even my mates with a string of professional credits and a reputable agent struggle to get “in the room”. But that doesn’t excuse those of us who audition for the likes of Joseph defending themselves by saying:
“I just wanted the audition experience”
“I just wanted to get in front of the panel”
Just by turning up to a first round audition, you are telling these creatives that it is okay for them to even consider putting on a show like Joseph.
Musical theatre is a rich white person’s game. Think of the cost of ballet classes, of singing lessons, of dance shoes, and of Lululemon theatre blacks. The cost to audition for a drama school is between $40-100 an application. All those applications can add up to $500 a year trying to get a coveted spot at institutions like WAAPA, VCA and NIDA.
Then, when you get to drama school, there are a minimum of 40 contact hours a week, not to mention the hours of practice, parties you are expected to go as a rite of passage, tickets to theatre shows, and a gym membership to boot. Going to drama school is a full-time job, so of course we are leaning on mummy and daddy to support us during these 3 years. It’s fair to say that the majority of us who studied at drama school come from a financially stable, even wealthy background. So why, when I see friends take a show like Joseph, is their argument “but I need this job”? We wouldn’t stand for a white friend turning up to a Halloween party dressed as Pochahontas, so why do we cut them slack when they are being paid to dance on the stage in hijab?
So where to from here? First and foremost, let’s continue to speak out against racism in the music theatre industry, especially if you’re white. It shouldn’t take our BIPOC friends speaking out first to spur the rest of us into action. Speak out the second you witness it. Hold your fellow white performers accountable. Read up on musical theatre’s history, and understand how it perpetuates racist stereotypes, and how you participate in perpetuating a “neutral”, or white, vision of the world on our stages.
It’s particularly important for those who have already made a name for themselves in the industry to speak up. During the discourse around Joseph, I noticed radio silence from most of my peers who are already mid-career. They have a wider audience base than those of us who are at the start of our careers, and can reach the older demographic (who seem to be the primary demographic paying to see mainstage shows). Instead, those of us who are trying to get our foot in the door are the ones posting about this online. Not to mention the emotional burnout that is often experienced by the BIPOC community, to whom it seems the responsibility of drawing everyone's attention to racism in theatre has fallen.
The responsibility to speak up falls on white theatre critics, too. This is a difficult ask, because finding your own voice as a critic is just as difficult as speaking out as a musical theatre performer, who lives in a world where these racist stereotypes are so normal that they can still be described as “fun” and “ridiculous”, or something that can be easily ignored “if you don’t overthink it”. What a privilege it is not to overthink dressing up in a culture that is not your own.
This brings me to our final step, redefining what success means to you as an actor. At drama school we are taught to idolise big theatre companies and view working for them as the peak of success as an actor. Anyone who’s not booking a regular Crossroads Live or Cameron MacKintosh show is a failure. Are you really successful as an actor if you have to mock and marginalise communities to achieve your success? Is that really the dream you are chasing?
For me, being a successful actor means only taking work that aligns with my values and makes a positive contribution to the community. If this means not making more than $200 per profit share show, so be it. I would much rather work in indie theatre for the rest of my life than be paid MEAA minimum rates to perpetuate a racist stereotype. We are the next generation of creatives and, since it seems that producers only care about profit, change is up to us.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is playing now at the Regent Theatre Melbourne, and tours to the Capitol Theatre Sydney from February 2023.
Maddy spends most of her time crying, fucking or talking to herself; sometimes all at the same time. She is obsessed with reading non-fiction at the moment, mostly to try and regain the brain cells she lost doing nangs during lockdown. Find her @maddy_jolly.
This essay was generously donated by Maddy.
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Here are some Instagram accounts to support in speaking out about racism in Australian theatre:
@colourtheconversation
@milohartill
@lukeleongtay
@thedeirdrekhoo
@diversetheatreaustralia
@thepeopleofcabaret
@evolutioncastingau
@aocinitiative
@_melaniebird_
@rutenespooner
@brady_cakes88
