Chicago Theatre SOOOOOO White, Still: Part 2
The sexy yet CRINGEWORTHY data
Hey babes. I know we’ve all been feeling this way for months but WHAT A WEIRD AS FUCK TIMELINE WE ARE IN. We are in mourning and seeking endorphins 24/7 right now and it feels like burnout is inevitable at every corner. Ok, maybe I am just describing myself but I think some of ya’ll can relate? And do you, too, have an unruly obsession with the production of Diana: The Musical at Theo Ubique that’s playing right now (closing July 13th) because of the amount of boundless joy it brought you? Well, you should cause it’s my #summer2025 drug of choice. And if I don’t make it, please put “what makes a man try to fly in a lawn chair?” on my tombstone (god, those songs were catchy af but I really wanted to see the balloons).
Now, to new business: first, I need to apologize for the VERY long delay on part 2 of this piece. I really wanted to take my time and tbh… companies kept casting all white or majority white casts after my first draft of the spreadsheet so I had to keep working. THANKS FOR THE CONTENT (YIKES)! But I also wanted to do my own due diligence as a writer and casting director when it came to giving accurate and up-to-date information. And maybe I wanted to release this the same day Rachel Zegler’s “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” was also released to the masses.
Second, I want to firmly state that this is not a call out, this is a call in. Maybe it’s the tiny ounce of compassion that still exists in my cold, dead, cynical af heart but I hope that by seeing this data, theatre companies around Chicago will acknowledge the systemic issues that exist not only within their casting practices but also within the institution as a whole. And yes, I know a lot of these organizations have had their chance to shape up and show up, time and time again. But some of these companies are where a young, impressionable, new-to-Chicago actor will get their start, because these theatres are more accessible to them than some of the regional theatres and some of the more insular companies in town. And speaking of, a few of the theatres repeatedly listed on this spreadsheet are some of the only companies within the state that offer a living wage for acting on the stage. There’s a lot of double-edged swords in the mix here but let me remind you that no theatre company is perfect. Not a single one. So, unless a theatre acknowledges their shit stinks to high heaven, who but us, the artists they hire, is best suited to demand better.
[If you’ve made it here without reading Part 1 of this series, I strongly urge you to TURN BACK and read it. Not only is it incredibly well written, if I say so myself, but it lays the groundwork for the data you will see and gives a lot of history and context on how we got to this very moment. OH LOOK, HERE IT IS, LINKED FOR EASE.]
As you might glean from part 1, it is my firm belief that Chicago theatre has a responsibility to reflect the city it serves, not just their subscriber base. So before we get to THE data we’re all here for, let’s look at some data that might be helpful with this framework: the United States 2020 Census. As of that year, the population of the City of Chicago was 2,746,388. And only 35.9% of the population is White and no other race1. YES, WHITE PEOPLE DON’T EVEN MAKE UP HALF OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO’S POPULATION. And yet, here we are with a sea of stale white-bread-filled plays and musicals.
Ok, it is time. RUVEAL YOURSELF, SPREADSHEET:
Chicago Casting Inclusivity - Majority White or All White Productions: June 2024- Present
There are 170 Equity and Non-Equity productions on this list. They range from large scale, multi-million dollar companies with all of the goddamn resources to companies producing in living rooms and backyards, paying out small stipends to newly-graduated actors just trying to be seen in this big old city. They vary in cast size, but they made this list because over 50% of their actors were white or worse, it was an all white cast.
And now a few things to think about while looking at this data:
Despite it running for only one weekend in June 2024 --the starting point of the data collection-- I have put Lavender Men, produced by About Face Theatre, on this spreadsheet. And yes, I cast it. This is a play that arguably should have a majority white cast (of which there are a few of this spreadsheet), especially given the intention of the piece, but it still is an important data point because it contributed to the large amount of white casts this past year. This is also the only show I have cast since June 2024 that fits the criteria for this list. But I have contributed to quite a few all white or majority white casts in my time as a casting director, especially early in my career. This is not a witch hunt or a blame game and my hands are not clean in contributing to the normalization of this casting practice in Chicago.
To my fellow white TGNC (Trans and Gender Non-Conforming) folks and the people who cast us: your whiteness is not negated just because you are TGNC. You still have cast a white actor. YAY for casting a Trans person but also…ALSO, you just added another white person to your cast. As writer Kara Babcock noted in her blog piece, “Yes, whiteness makes you less marginalized even when you’re trans”:
When we white trans people ignore or flatten the intersectional marginalizations that trans people of colour face, or when we invoke racism as an inappropriate allegory for transphobia and cissexism, we are taking an unfortunate page from the book of white feminism. The point of intersectionality is indeed not to claim that multiple marginalizations compound (though, in cases, they might) but rather to remind us that you cannot disentangle intersecting marginalized identities and treat them separately.
Please PLEASE cast TGNC actors in your shows (don’t worry, this piece is coming soon because ya’ll are slacking) but know that lumping all marginalized groups into one checked box will make you look like a complete idiot. And to my fellow white TNGC folks: please consider the privilege and power you hold with your whiteness in addition to your transness, not in place of. You can be trans but you will also always be white.
Things might be missing from this spreadsheet because I don’t know every single theatre company that exists in Chicago (cause we keep getting new ones). I started with the League of Chicago Theatre’s website and went from there. If you want me to add a company or look into a production, email me at frombehindthetable24@gmail.com. Same with any issues or corrections.
I am not including understudies in the data pull, unless they were internal understudies, because these are folks who might be AMAZING but when it comes to the principal cast of the show, those are the folks who the company and director cast to be in the show, through their vision of the production.
The shows listed are fully produced plays. No workshops or readings are included because the data is way too difficult to track.
Now, in part 1, I hypothesized why this is happening. The excuse of “they don’t exist” or “didn’t show up” is bullshit. And what it comes down to is a problematic history of not actively welcoming in historically marginalized groups of artists, primarily through creating art by and for white people or harming artists in process at your organization and not working to undo that harm. If you build it as a predominantly white, unwelcoming space, they will not come. SO DO THE DAMN WORK TO LET FOLKS KNOW THEY ARE WELCOME. And don’t stop, cause it’s lifelong work.
Now, one might argue that a few of these plays warrant all-white casts. To that I say, why did you program it? What’s the point of putting all-white or majority white casts on stage when our very own fascist government dreams of exactly that? Hell, even if you argue that some of these shows were programmed before the 2024 election, you still cast it filled with pale-skinned humans. Why? Furthermore, if this project is a revival, why are you trying to cast it the exact same way it’s been cast since it first premiered? Revivals are meant to revive a play, not give the same old, tired, “tried and true” take that sends me right to sleep. Shakespeare is relevant because those who are smart and brave enough, dare to look at his work through a new lens when approaching it. So, when you say Cesario can’t be trans, I say “And you confirmed with William Shakespeare how? Ya dumb transphobe.” So why is your take SO BORING AND SO WHITE!?! To be blunt, it’s giving “Trump’s America”.
And I agree with Dr. Devon Price2 that laziness does not exist, but the other major reason this is happening is that directors, artistic directors, hell, even my fellow casting directors (I SEE YOU) do not want to do the labor to get a diverse array of actors into the room. Maybe it’s because it takes extra time and effort on their part, maybe it’s cause they are severely underpaid for the labor they already do, or maybe it’s a combination of things. But when you think about it, it’s also an excuse to keep people out of your theatre. We got into this business to create rich stories, told by talented actors from all walks of life, in the hopes that people might see themselves but also gain perspective on someone else’s life experience. That their worldview might expand and make room for compassion and care for others as well. But that’s not going to happen when every actor or the majority of the cast is a bunch of white folks. It’s giving racism, point blank.
What happens when Gertrude McFuzz is played by a fat femme and Horton the Elephant is played by a Trans masc actor of color ? Or if Prior Walter was played by a SWANA actor? Or if we ever, god forbid, stopped defaulting to white actors in Jewish plays, even when no Jewish actors were actually cast, and reminded ourselves that Jews of Color EXIST and should be a part of their own stories as well (And Chicago casting directors, there are Jews of Color in our community, so stop with the excuses). What happens is that these stories, these shows get richer and deeper and more meaningful because of the well-thought-out diversity of their cast and how a show looking like Chicago means that anyone could walk in our doors and feel at home.
Chicago has two mottos: "Urbs in Horto" (City in a Garden) and "I will". We are a city of strength, resilience and heart. We are the city of big shoulders, one of the most diverse cities in the country. And as Dominic A. Pacyga, author of Chicago: A Biography, wrote,
There seems to be a different Chicago around every street corner, behind every bar, and within every apartment, two-flat, cottage, or bungalow. City of immigrants or city of heartless plutocrats, say what you will, Chicago almost defies interpretation. In many ways, Chicago is like a snake that sheds its skin every thirty years or so and puts on a new coat to conform to a new reality.3
I will. And I hope you will too. To be better. To do better. To have our theatre truly reflect the Second City we all know and love.
And as always, I’ll leave you with:
“good casting is good dramaturgy!”
Yeah, I did the math. Did you know my day job is in accounting?https://data.census.gov/table/DECENNIALPL2020.P2?q=p2&g=160XX00US1714000
https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo7877998.html