We’ve all seen the commercials for these stage shows. They have creative names like “Tell Hell I Ain’t Comin!”, “I Can Do Bad All By Myself”, and the ever popular “Mama, I Want to Sing!” They tend to be gospel-based, heavy on the emotional drama and morals but still humorous, and have predominately black casts featuring actors who were on the Hollywood/television C-list 10-20 years ago (just famous enough for you to say, “Hey, I remember her/him!” when you see the commercial).
I’ve never been to a show, but they seem like they would be entertaining. Apparently, they are since they are so ubiqutous. Some have jumped from being low-budget stage plays to full-length movies, like the Tyler Perry films. “Mama, I Want to Sing!” is coming out as a film soon (starring Patti Labelle and Billy Zane).
But you never see comparable white productions. Why is that? Surely white people like stage plays and gospel music. Maybe these shows just don’t get advertised as heavily? I’m just curious.
Easy. The “white” shows are so predominantly Jewish and/or gay they don’t make it to Richmond. (I’m thinking of stuff like Jewtopia! and I Love You You’re Perfect Now Change.)
I used to live in New Jersey, right across from Manhattan. And I’ve also lived in Miami, Fl. I’ve never seen ads for those kind of shows, and I watch a lot of TV.
I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking. Many of these shows feature all/mostly all white casts. Are you asking why whites don’t have gospel musicals? I’ve never thought of gospel music as being a white thing.
ETA, now I’m even more confused. I’ve seen ads for the shows Beware of Doug mentioned, but I have no clue what shows you are talking about.
There are plenty of shows off broadway right now with whiter casts. Some of them quite well known and liked. Altar Boyz is brilliant, well-loved, and makes fun of both boy bands and catholicism in a lighthearted and fond way. Naked Boys Singing is also rather fun. I’m pretty sure The Fantastiks is back right now too.
Not the best example, but Frankenstein opened and closed couple of months ago and stared Hunter Foster of Urinetown fame. (fun fact: His sister, Sutton Foster, is currently on broadway in Young Frankenstein!) And I heard terrific things about Walmartopia when it was still open.
There are also some cool shows from other ethnicities on off broadway now, such as Jump for a good korean based one. Though you sound more interested in musical ones.
I’d have to do more research about Gospel type shows, but there certainly are great other ones out there for you to check out. Short answer, I guess, is you apparently just haven’t been hearing about them.
ETA: Damn, I’m late. I also am more familiar with every other show in this thread than the ones you’ve mentioned. I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change as Beware of Doug mentioned is also particularly good and well liked.
It’s the typical double standard as applied to everything.
Something can be “black” or “asian” or “jewish” and marketed as such and be inspiring. Anything labeled as “white” is automatically racist and bigoted. There’s an Ebony magazine, a BET, a Black Caucus etc., but were there to be a analog for white America it would be picketed and you couldn’t avoid the outrage.
Of course most things for the general market are largely white, so there’s no shortage of white dominated media but of course this cannot be marketed or positioned as such and there’s always pressure to fairly represent minorities.
A really excellent Off-Broadway show that is currently playing is Next to Normal, starring Alice Ripley & Brian D’arcy James. It seems weird for me to call that a “white” musical though, since the majority of shows have white casts and the plot has nothing to do w/ race at all.
Oh, another you may be interested in is In the Heights, which features a Hispanic cast, started Off-Broadway last year and is now transferring to Broadway with an opening night set for next month.
Monstro, are you talking about those types of plays that mostly appear at the Beacon Theater? As you probably know, this isn’t an off-broadway venue/type of production.
If you’re talking about the subject matter/production values alone, my take is it might be a combination of the appeal of the production and their production values not being even up to off-off-Broadway standards (they’re pretty bad), the non-appeal to Blacks of the perceived glitz/cost of any “Broaday,” and the lower costs of raising money even for these events .
Well, neither are the “black” shows I’m talking about. They just happen to have black casts and center around themes (and performance styles) that are African American-centric.
I was not able to tie these suggestions together by saying there is a market for non-off, or even off-off Broadway shows with black casts that there isn’t with whites. Also, perhaps it’s because there are more outlets for different material of all calibers for whites audiences or perhaps The Beacon is doing a particular kind of marketing. (I used to work in theater, if that means anything.)
While I agree with you, it’s worth pointing out that a few years back the same thing was said in response to: “There’s a WE and Lifetime, so why isn’t there a channel for men?”
The introduction of Spike TV didn’t bring the expected hypothetical backlash. (Other than from the giant ego of Spike Lee, of course.)
As a general rule, there is such a thing as an [insert minority here] culture and heritage, so it isn’t surprising to see productions playing into it. By contrast, there isn’t really a white culture or heritage, so no corresponding productions.
Those ‘black’ shows are following Tyler Perry’s path. They are not marketed to the ‘broadway/off broadway audience’. They are made for and marketed to a black/family friendly/chruch going audience, which it usually, how shall we say, underserved by typical b’way productions. There is an all black Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on b’way right now, but that aint exactly churchy.
There’s no one monolithic “white” culture - American Caucasians are a mix of different European ancestries. It’s true that many white Americans don’t care about these ancestries at all and don’t think of themselves as German-Americans or Irish-Americans, but just good old white Americans. These people don’t care enough about their ethnic identity to merit the creation of a “white” channel for them. On the other hand, there are white people who are deeply into their Irish, German, Scandinavian, or Slavic ancestry, but there aren’t enough of these people to merit the creation of some kind of pan-European-American Caucasian channel.
I hear this argument a lot about the fact that there’s no “White entertainment channel” but the reason for this is not really about racial tension at all, it’s just not something that would be logical or profitable.
They’ve been around much longer than Tyler Perry. I remember seeing similar commercials for various “black” plays when I was a little kid more than 20 years ago. And I just saw one advertised the other day starring Levar Burton and Arsenio Hall. Can’t remember the title though.
And even though I’m a little white boy, I always thought they looked like fun.
This necessarily supposes that there is one monolithic Black culture or one Asian culture in America. In fact many blacks find these “black” themed shows to be incredibly demeaning and make light of serious social issues. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them, but to imply that they cater to one collective audience is incorrect.
I also think that comparing a “black” work to an “Irish” one is a bit of a strawman. Blacks come from wide ranging cultures and have varying degrees of connection to their original country, just like white America. “Black” productions are different from “African” ones, just like a “White” one would be different from a “Irish” one.
The KKK and Neo-Nazi’s have appropriated the concept of “white pride” to the point where it could never be used without tremendous public outcry.
Well, the trouble is that here in America if you’ve got a show that appeals to black tastes, then you’ve got a “black” show. If you’ve got a show that appeals to white tastes, you don’t have a “white” show, you’ve got a show. I’ve been to plenty of events where you can look over the audience and pick out the one black guy, but we don’t usually call those events “white events”. But if I went to an event and I was the one white guy, it would be obvious that this was a “black event”. Not that they went out of their way to exclude white guys or anything, just that I wasn’t their target demographic.
The Wiz is an actual Broadway production, though. And besides having a predominately black cast, it doesn’t contain the themes common in the kind of plays I’m talking about.
(I used to maintain a fan website for The Wiz. Despite the unpopularity of the Diana Ross movie (which I admit is my guilty pleasure), it has a huge following. And lots of white people enjoy it too.)