# Pennsylvania college cancels play after author objects to white actors **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138 "2015-11-21T01:03:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/261 "2015-11-26T17:03:16Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > No, it’s free speech. A playwright has the right to demand that his artistic vision be respected in a performance of his work. Actors aren’t interchangeable cogs. How an actor looks affects audience reception. If you cast a fat middle-aged man as Juliet, it will change the story of _Romeo and Juliet_, regardless of how good an actor he might be. Now, that new story might be an interesting one to tell, but if the playwright is still alive (and holds the copyright) then he gets final say on whether or not his work can be used to tell that new story. > > As a fat middle-aged man myself, I might feel a slight twinge of regret that I will never be able to appear onstage in the role of a dewy ingenue, but I don’t think that I am being unjustly discriminated against. I am physically incapable of delivering the required performance. it’s discrimination. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/262 "2015-11-26T17:23:55Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > it’s discrimination. That means a playwright can’t make a play ABOUT race. If someone wrote a play about racial profiling or discrimination in some other form he shouldn’t count on minorities playing those being profiled? That’s reasonable to you? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/263 "2015-11-26T17:43:23Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > it’s discrimination. Do you think that strip clubs that only hire women strippers are also engaging in discrimination? ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/264 "2015-11-26T18:46:13Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > **BB** personally if I’ve twice asked someone if they want to be involved in a project and they say twice, no, that they simply don’t have the time to right now, I am not going to keep updating them on progress. I’d feel I’d be imposing upon someone who is too busy for me. …its probably a good thing then that you aren’t a professor of theatre in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts then. It doesn’t matter what you personally think. Try explaining to the judge that you didn’t follow the terms of the contract because “I personally thought otherwise.” Because it is Clarion’s professional obligation to keep the writers agent updated on any changes on how the play is going to be used. This isn’t an update on “progress.” The writer doesn’t care if you are going into the second week of dress rehearsals. (Unless, of course, he didn’t know they were going into production at all.) But updates on usage. This is why there is a contract and this is why there is an agent. You deal with the agent. You are not entitled to access to the writer. You aren’t entitled to a dialogue with the writer, you aren’t entitled to “input”. But you are obligated to update the agent with any change in usage. You have a fundamental mis-understanding of how the process works. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/265 "2015-11-26T19:38:24Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > it’s discrimination. If you’re going to be so mindlessly reductive, then ALL casting is discriminatory. For example, should casting directors be allowed to take gender and age into account when casting the leads in a romantic comedy? After all, gender and age are protected classes just like race and nationality are. Why is it okay to say “this part should be played by a young woman” and not okay to say “this part should be played by a southeast Asian”? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/266 "2015-11-26T19:40:03Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Do you think that strip clubs that only hire women strippers are also engaging in discrimination? No, that’s art! ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/267 "2015-11-26T20:13:18Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …its probably a good thing then that you aren’t a professor of theatre … Oh there are lots of reasons that is a good thing! Much better and happier at what I do do than I would be at that. Yes, you have made it clear that you see malice where I see simple poor communication in both directions, inaccurate assumptions made by various individuals, and sloppy organizational structure. No question that the director’s understanding was that someone _else_ was supposed to take care of getting the final contract signed and accepted, assumed they did, and that someone else never got the memo. Unfortunately I have had the experience of being part of bureaucratic snafus made with no ill-intent (and am grateful that the administrative support I currently work with is for the most part highly competent, most of 'em anyway), human errors that a sloppy system allowed for … and of having to fix issues caused by unclear communication. It is not always easy to get different parties to cut each other some slack for honest mistakes and to take a position of empathy, especially if one side starts with a specific narrative in mind. No, of course the college is not entitled to input. They asked for it and his nature is such that if he was not too busy at that point in time he would have been very happy to participate. All reasonable. But no offense I do not think you quite have an understanding of how the process works. IF they _had_ gotten a standard performance contract signed and that contract did not explicitly specify the less than standard clause of “Characters A, B, and C must be played by actors who are not White.” then the college would have been under no obligation to communicate to the agent how they had cast it, whether the writer asked about it or not. If the regrettably never executed contract did not specify that the play was to use one sort of set of props and costumes then they could have costumed the characters as space aliens or sea monsters and not needed to inform the agent of that change either for that matter. You are only obligated to inform the agent of any change in use that is explicitly excluded by the contract. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/268 "2015-11-26T20:25:56Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > If you’re going to be so mindlessly reductive, then ALL casting is discriminatory. > > For example, should casting directors be allowed to take gender and age into account when casting the leads in a romantic comedy? After all, gender and age are protected classes just like race and nationality are. Exactly. I think they should do a remake of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” with Matt Damon reprising Sidney Poitier’s role. And maybe Channing Tatum or Jennifer Lawrence could struggle with the fish in a 2016 version of “The Old Man and the Sea.” And Cate Blanchett is clearly one of the most talented actors in the world today; i think she would be ideal for the lead in a new version of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/269 "2015-11-26T21:13:36Z")
A bit of a digression from this work though. This is not a play about race, the writer states it is “universal” … his concern, agree or disagree, is that he writes with increasing the number of roles available for minority actors in mind. If you’ve read at all about the actual play it is essentially a more more irreverent (“blasphemous” to some) variant of “Jospeh” … a farce imagining of a teenaged Christ screwing around, doing weed, having sex and swearing, before he takes on the family business. Casting it as Joseph is usually cast, with no particular concern that North Africans play the parts of Portiphar or the Pharoah or the wife, or Semites play the brothers, is not something that obviously matters other than as a matter of the writer’s bigger political concerns of the history of casting Whites as minority characters and the lack of opportunity for minorities in theater. The director missed a beat in not understanding that the writer asking about whether or not she’d be able to cast it a certain way meant that his vision of it was that it had to be, but honestly I think missing that beat is understandable. Again, not excusing the “you got it” ball dropping on the final contract. But also, yes, a predominantly Black college doing Anne Frank should be allowed to cast a Black woman as the title character. Really that would not be a big deal to understand that a college goes with who their bench is and that college education should include stretching to understanding cultures and groups and issues that are not your own. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/270 "2015-11-26T21:18:01Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > . . . But that’s not what authors say: they say something like “I refuse to allow the role of Gonzalez to be played by someone who can’t realistically sustain the character’s ethnicity as written”. There’s nothing specifically anti-Vietnamese or anti-anybody about that. All it’s saying is that the character has a particular ethnic identity that the production must clearly and accurately represent. . . . It’s racist to say, “You cannot portray this character because you’re of the wrong race.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/271 "2015-11-26T21:40:15Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > It’s racist to say, “You cannot portray this character because you’re of the wrong race.” Is it racist to say that a white man couldn’t have portrayed Django in _Django Unchained_? And is it similarly sexist to say “You cannot portray this character because you’re of the wrong sex”? The physical attributes of an actor can matter a great deal to the meaning of a movie or play. Sometimes it doesn’t make any difference whether a character is a man or a woman. Sometimes it doesn’t make any difference whether a character is black or white. But sometimes it DOES, and pretending otherwise so you can cry “Racism!” is disingenuous. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/272 "2015-11-26T21:44:26Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > It’s racist to say, “You cannot portray this character because you’re of the wrong race.” Just to be clear: Let’s say I’m casting a production of _Huckleberry Finn_. I refuse to even consider white actors for the role of Nigger Jim. Do you think that makes me a racist? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/273 "2015-11-26T22:34:19Z")
Well, kinda, yeah. Absolute race-based requirements for employment are racist, by definition. You’re denying someone an opportunity, solely on the basis of the color of their skin. What else can it be called? A black man and a white man walk into the casting office. The casting agent says, “No whites need apply.” There can be justifications for it; the Civil Rights laws exempt theatrical casting from equal opportunity rules. It can be “not a bad thing” in some cases. But it is, necessarily, racism. (Note: unless one subscribes to the “disempowered minority” model; we still haven’t resolved that fully. That’s the reason I added the example of Gonzales and Nguyen, as being roughly equally minority populations and roughly equally disempowered. i.e., is it worse if the same casting director says, “No blacks need apply” for the role of Huck Finn?) (What if the guy applying for the role of Jim is black…but is of Bangladeshi descent, not African?) ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/274 "2015-11-26T23:01:32Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > But it is, necessarily, racism. No, it isn’t, and you trivialize real racism by saying so. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/275 "2015-11-26T23:52:02Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > What the playwright is doing is adding racial covenants his work. That’s really no different than a covenant in a deed saying the house can’t be sold to South-Asian’s. It’s discrimination. Period. Nonsense. There’s nothing about home ownership that gives a current owner any kind of legitimate “creative control” over the appearance, accent, etc., of other people who might own the house in the future. Hence, trying to exert such control with racial covenants is illegitimate and illegal. Copyright law, on the other hand, DOES acknowledge and enforce **a playwright’s legitimate right to exercise creative control over the appearance, accent, etc., of the people who portray the playwright’s characters in future productions.** So the two cases are not realistically analogous. If you copyright a creative work, you control how it may be presented. It is not automatically discrimination to specify that the presentation has to meet certain criteria of **faithfulness to the visual/aural presentation of the work as originally conceived**. I don’t get why some people are having such a hard time understanding this. > [@Trinopus](#): > > (What if the guy applying for the role of Jim is black…but is of Bangladeshi descent, not African?) AFAIK, the issue is usually considered in light of whether _the actor can credibly present the ethnicity of the character as depicted by the author_. Can the actor’s appearance and accent plausibly suggest a black ex-slave in the 19th-century southern US? If so, then there’s no reason he can’t play the character of Jim, and I know of no case of a playwright exercising legal authority to forbid such a casting solely on the grounds of the actor’s _nationality_ (as opposed to racial/ethnic appearance). I recommend Robert Hapgood’s [1992 article The Rights of Playwrights: Performance Theory and American Law](https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/jdtc/article/viewFile/1835/1798) for a thoughtful discussion that draws on a lot of background about what actually happens in the theater, rather than caricatures based on broad-brush definitions of racial exclusion: > [@](#): > > How much authority should playwrights have over the ways in which their plays are performed? In recent years Edward Albee has several times intervened to close all-male productions of _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?_ in which the play’s heterosexual couples were portrayed as homosexual. Legally, there is no doubt about his authority to do so. “All of the copies of my plays,” Albee has explained, “have a number of clauses which say they must be performed without any changes or deletions or additions and must be performed by actors of the sex as written” […]. But aesthetically is it justifiable for Albee to exercise his legal rights over the presentation of his play? Isn’t he thereby infringing on the interpretive freedoms of his performers and violating the collaborative spirit upon which dramatic performance depends? Albee concedes that there is a place for “directorial creativity” while maintaining that “it doesn’t give permission to distort.” Yet what precisely is the fine line between creativity and distortion and who is to draw it? Was Tennessee Williams justified in intervening against a 1974 Berlin production of _A Streetcar Named Desire_ in which, among other alterations, Stanley Kowalski was to be played as a black? […]. In these instances both playwrights seem clearly in the right: one of Albee’s couples (who married because of a hysterical pregnancy) must at first believe the other couple to be parents; Williams’ treatment of Kowalski involves issues of class rather than race. […] > > It is true that for centuries the contributions of performers have been virtually disregarded by dramatic theorists, who have concentrated on dramatists and dramas. The recent concern with the importance of performance thus fills a genuine gap. Yet since performance theory has been written mostly by performers, it in turn has tended to disregard or minimize the playwright’s involvement. Robert Brustein, for example, has held that close adherence to a playwright’s text “not only robs collaborative artists of their respective freedoms, but threatens to turn the theater into waxworks” […]. Indeed, following Artaud’s declaration of independence from the “tyranny” of playwrights, theorists of his persuasion have often aggressively resisted “author centered” views. The most extreme challenge to “logocentrism” in the theater has been set forth recently in these pages by Stratos E. Constantinidis. Following Derrida he presents the case for deconstructing all “the structures of domination/subordination which regulate western theatrical production,” whether the lines of authority proceed from the dramatists, the director, the designer, the actors, or God. Yet such theorizing is far removed from common practice. Since playwrights and their plays continue to be integral to most dramatic productions, a timely next step for performance theory is to take playwrights fully into account, not as they may figure in hypothetical situations but as they have participated in preparing actual productions. > [@Peremensoe](#): > > No, it isn’t, and you trivialize real racism by saying so. Damn skippy they do. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/276 "2015-11-27T15:31:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I recommend Robert Hapgood’s [1992 article The Rights of Playwrights: Performance Theory and American Law](https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/jdtc/article/viewFile/1835/1798) for a thoughtful discussion that draws on a lot of background about what actually happens in the theater, rather than caricatures based on broad-brush definitions of racial exclusion: This article is good, but it doesn’t address anti-discrimination laws. A writer who licenses his work almost certainly qualifies as a business under state anti-discrimination laws. As such, they can’t refuse to license their work for reasons based on race. No first amendment exemption to these laws exists. We’ve seen this consistently in creative businesses refusing to provide services to gay weddings. In all those cases, as far as I know, the business has been ruled to be discriminatory. I think the only way for writers to avoid issues would be to write detailed descriptions of their characters and refuse to deviate from those descriptions in casting. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/277 "2015-11-27T15:57:22Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > A bit of a digression from this work though. This is not a play about race, the writer states it is “universal” … his concern, agree or disagree, is that he writes with increasing the number of roles available for minority actors in mind. From Lloyd Suh’s [Facebook post](https://www.facebook.com/lloydsuh/posts/10153102259171780?fref=nf&pnref=story): > [@](#): > > Much has been made of an interview I gave years ago in which I used the word “universal” to describe the play. But universal does not and should not mean white, or the privilege of ignoring race. I wish it were not so difficult to accept that an actor of color, playing a character of color, could convey something universal. To understand that white actors should not be the default option for any role. To recognize that people of color are not simply replaceable. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/278 "2015-11-27T16:44:39Z")
Yes, **Lamia**. That bit does come off as quite a bit racist: that it’s universal … except for Whites, they are not included in universal. But I cut slack because I understand in context of the post what he meant … race is not vital to the story in any way or a theme or subject of the work in any way but he objects to what he sees as a _default casting_ with Whites, as a big picture narrative, and he placed this casting within that extant narrative. That’s what he saw when he saw who was cast because that is the narrative he has running. He applied his existing preconceptions based on race to the specific case and judged the specific case according to those existing preconceptions. In this specific case however white actors were not “the default option” for the roles. They were the only possible option in this particular case. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/279 "2015-11-27T18:16:05Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Yes, you have made it clear that you see malice where I see simple poor communication in both directions, inaccurate assumptions made by various individuals, and sloppy organizational structure. …malice? Nah. I said that they paid lip service to the writer. > [@](#): > > No question that the director’s understanding was that someone _else_ was supposed to take care of getting the final contract signed and accepted, assumed they did, and that someone else never got the memo. As said by someone earlier: “Pretty much all colleges and even High Schools know the rules.” For a play to go into production without a valid licence in place is not just a small mistake. (Of course, if you only pay lip service to the contributions of the writer: then of course this is only a “small” mistake. “A contract? How important can that be?”) > [@](#): > > Unfortunately I have had the experience of being part of bureaucratic snafus made with no ill-intent (and am grateful that the administrative support I currently work with is for the most part highly competent, most of 'em anyway), human errors that a sloppy system allowed for … and of having to fix issues caused by unclear communication. The intent doesn’t matter. No licence was in place. I got caught speeding the other day. I didn’t intend to go faster than the speed limit. The limit in the area I was in had changed and I didn’t notice. Telling the policeman that I didn’t intend to go faster than 40km/hr didn’t stop him giving me a ticket. The system is in place to stop things like this happening. As you point out pretty much all colleges and even High Schools know the rules. The college got caught speeding. They had to deal with the consequences. > [@](#): > > It is not always easy to get different parties to cut each other some slack for honest mistakes and to take a position of empathy, especially if one side starts with a specific narrative in mind. Suh did not know that the play was going into production until days before the curtain was due to go up. That is a pretty freaking big failure of communication on the part of the school. Suh has shown plenty of empathy for the students who were affected by this. > [@](#): > > No, of course the college is not entitled to input. They asked for it and his nature is such that if he was not too busy at that point in time he would have been very happy to participate. All reasonable. Of course that is reasonable. Yet you keep harping on about it as if Suh being busy is somehow relevant to this story. > [@](#): > > But no offense I do not think you quite have an understanding of how the process works. No offense: but I actually do have an understanding of how the process works. > [@](#): > > IF they _had_ gotten a standard performance contract signed and that contract did not explicitly specify the less than standard clause of “Characters A, B, and C must be played by actors who are not White.” then the college would have been under no obligation to communicate to the agent how they had cast it, whether the writer asked about it or not. And? I’m puzzled as to why you wrote this to me. I’ve already pointed out one of the first things Suh did when he found out the play was in production was to check to see if a valid licence was in place and to see what had been agreed too. And I’ve already stated that if there was a performance licence in place that didn’t specify how the characters should be portrayed then Suh would not have had grounds to stop the play. So thanks for agreeing with me? > [@](#): > > If the regrettably never executed contract did not specify that the play was to use one sort of set of props and costumes then they could have costumed the characters as space aliens or sea monsters and not needed to inform the agent of that change either for that matter. And thanks for agreeing with me again? > [@](#): > > You are only obligated to inform the agent of any change in use that is explicitly excluded by the contract. And thanks for both agreeing with me again and acknowledging that I’ve been correct all along. But I don’t know how you can reconcile both completely agreeing with me and thinking I do not think you quite have an understanding of how the process works. But at least I’m glad that you finally managed to figure it out. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138/280 "2015-11-27T18:33:02Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Yes, **Lamia**. That bit does come off as quite a bit racist: that it’s universal … except for Whites, they are not included in universal. That’s not what he’s saying at all. He’s saying that a non-white actor can play an “everyman” role – someone that we can all relate to. And that a work can have universal appeal without including whites. “Universal should not mean white” is not the same as “universal should not include whites”. He’s saying that you can have a non-white character with universal appeal without erasing their ethnicity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-college-cancels-play-after-author-objects-to-white-actors/738138.md?page=15)