What I Think About When I Hear That Broadway is Racist
The Blacker the Body, the Sweeter the Juice.
I’m a musical theater writer. I look pretty unusual in the world of musical theater writers, in the sense that I am not a cisgender gay white man, but today, you might specifically notice that I look unusual in that world because of my Black body. You don’t see a lot of Black bodies in the world of musical theater writers. Frankly, you don’t see a lot of Black bodies anywhere in musical theater. There’s been a recent surge in musicals that use Black bodies on stage — which gives the illusion that there are a lot of Black bodies in musical theater — but that’s pretty much limited to just the stage.
I actually make my living primarily as an actor in musical theater (or perhaps I should say made my living; Coronavirus is stressful). I was in Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 on Broadway, and I seem to get cast in Jesus Christ Superstar a lot, most notably on NBC in the concert starring John Legend, and then as Jesus in the Chicago Lyric Opera production. Still, I have found that as an actor, my body is rarely considered Black enough to play Black characters, so I’m most commonly utilized in actively diverse and/or color-blind shows. I’m also a musician, so people love to give me a guitar onstage. An ethnically ambiguous body with a guitar — I’ve made an entire career of it…