'Hairspray' Creators will Require Characters to be Cast as Written
2017 U.K Tour of Hairspray (Darren Bell)
Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder
Yesterday, I wrote a piece calling for the creators of the musical Hairspray to edit or eliminate a statement included in licensing agreements that created a loophole for theatre to perform the show with all-white or non-black casts.
While the creators never endorsed or gave permission for theatres to do this, without explicit casting requirements theatres had carte blanche to cast them as they wished as long as they included the statement in their programs.
Thankfully, after the article was published, the creators of Hairspray decided to edit the statement to require the show to be cast as written - with black performers cast in the black roles.
In an exclusive statement posted on our Instagram page, composer Marc Shaiman said the following:
Hello, @marc_shaiman here. (Please note that anytime I use CAPS here, it is not that I'm yelling, it's just that social media doesn't allow for italics (which is maddening!). Well...this casting conundrum has been an issue that all of the authors of Hairspray have wrestled with for some time.
In the past, while always IMPLORING theaters and schools to - if necessary - look outside of their own community to properly cast the show, we eventually allowed groups to cast the show as best they could as long as the WORDS and the STORY were unaltered. Since a major part of HAIRSPRAY is about fighting against the idea that someone could not be on a show because of their race, it seemed wrong that HAIRSPRAY would deny someone the chance to be in a show…BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE!
While it always seemed like common sense to us that people would choose to put on HAIRSPRAY with the knowledge that they could perform the show as written, we were naive. But, to state what I would hope to be the obvious, we never ENCOURAGED an all-white production.
But this situation has ALWAYS troubled us (it has certainly gnawed at me for years) and so, we are grateful to say that Music Theatre International (which represents and licenses Hairspray) WILL be requiring groups to cast the show so as to accurately reflect the characters as we wrote them. A show that specifically addresses one aspect of the black experience during the civil rights battles of the early 1960s deserves to have its characters accurately and appropriately portrayed on stage.
I sincerely thank you for your interest in this, and I am very, very happy to be able to communicate this news to you guys. Thank you. x Marc
Obviously, I am thrilled with this decision and I want to thank the creative team for making the change so quickly.
I have no doubt that when theatre resumes, Hairspray is going to be at the top of a lot of lists for schools and theatres, as it should be. To know that it will forever be cast the way the writers intended is going to make an endless impact in ensuring diversity on stages for generations to come.
Additional OnStage Blog Coverage of Hairspray
'Hairspray Live' to be Streamed Free Online in the UK