Casting Controversy Derailed a High School Play. Then Came the Threats.
- 6 years ago
Casting Controversy Derailed a High School Play. Then Came the Threats.
One parent had what was thought to be her home address (it wasn’t) posted online with a comment seeming to encourage harassment: “Do your thing social
media.” Another parent received a profane email, assailing her for embracing “anti-white racism,” adding: “I feel sorry for your brainwashed child.”
Ithaca High School, in upstate New York, was to stage the musical, based on the
1831 novel by Victor Hugo and the 1996 Disney animated film, in mid-April.
And while two productions of the new musical — its premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in California in 2014
and one in 2015 at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey — gave the part to a woman of color, Ciara Renée, the casting calls for those shows invited actresses of all ethnicities to audition for the role.
It started as a local debate over a New York high school production of the musical “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” A white
teenager was cast in the lead role of Esmeralda, a 15th-century Roma woman, spurring young student activists to object.
Maddi Carroll, a 17-year-old African-American senior, said the high school’s staging of “Hunchback” was initially exciting
to her “because we didn’t feel like our high school usually put on productions with women of color in starring roles.”
“We were talking about us being younger and thinking about Disney princesses we had to look up to.
One parent had what was thought to be her home address (it wasn’t) posted online with a comment seeming to encourage harassment: “Do your thing social
media.” Another parent received a profane email, assailing her for embracing “anti-white racism,” adding: “I feel sorry for your brainwashed child.”
Ithaca High School, in upstate New York, was to stage the musical, based on the
1831 novel by Victor Hugo and the 1996 Disney animated film, in mid-April.
And while two productions of the new musical — its premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in California in 2014
and one in 2015 at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey — gave the part to a woman of color, Ciara Renée, the casting calls for those shows invited actresses of all ethnicities to audition for the role.
It started as a local debate over a New York high school production of the musical “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” A white
teenager was cast in the lead role of Esmeralda, a 15th-century Roma woman, spurring young student activists to object.
Maddi Carroll, a 17-year-old African-American senior, said the high school’s staging of “Hunchback” was initially exciting
to her “because we didn’t feel like our high school usually put on productions with women of color in starring roles.”
“We were talking about us being younger and thinking about Disney princesses we had to look up to.