Reality check. At the level of colleges (and High Schoold) the opposite is the norm, is not noticed at all. Generally at the college level every effort is made to cast minorities in minority parts when the talent exists. But you do go with the bench you have.
shrug In the end, I don’t place much importance on the cause of the lack of communication because the people who suffered are clearly innocent of it. Suh or his agent bear at least some culpability for causing the situation and thus Suh has a responsibility to find a reasonable way out. He chose to act unreasonably and be intransigent. That’s ultimately the problem here.
It says “Blickers said” not “Michel said that Blickers said”. It doesn’t make sense either that Michel would be the source in context. The first line of the paragraph was:
I don’t see why the author would have two statements from the same person saying essentially the same thing in the same paragraph.
The phrasing also follows the author’s pattern of attributing information. For example, see this paragraph:
…what is it, exactly, do you think an agent is paid to do? If I hire an agent, its because I’m busy with other productions and family issues. You deal with the agent. If something gets red flagged the agent brings it to the writer. But you don’t go directly to the writer. You negotiate with the agent. And that didn’t happen here.
Again, that says that both Blickers and Suh raised the issue of casting. Maybe there was no detailed discussion at the time, but Michel clearly should have known that it was a concern. Yet she proceeded full steam, assuming she could do whatever she wanted in the end. She should have put the majority of work on hold–pushing the planned production to a later term, if necessary–until she had permission.
It did happen. Clarion did negotiate with the agent, signed a contract, and paid the author. At no point did Suh or his Agent say that Clarion could not do the play with white people.
They signed a contract but did not return the contract. They did not have permission to perform the play.
Also from your cite:
They were asked about ethnicity: but they forgot to reply. The only people to blame for this situation are Clarion and Michel. It is unfortunate that they are choosing to double down on their mistakes by continuing to blame someone else for their own sloppy work.
As I’m sure you’ve read, Clarion claims they sent back the signed copy and the language in the contract, according to the cite, was ambiguous. Again, this ultimately is irrelevant. For one, the contract almost certainly had language to justify Suh’s intervention into casting. Beyond that, the issue is that Suh didn’t communicate his demands until just before the show was to go on. Contract technicalities aren’t relevant.
Did you not read what you quoted? Blickers said that Michel did respond to the query.
…if we are going to sink to the gutter, it would be more accurate to say “Because Michel is an asshole. Duh.” Because Michel both failed to read the contract, return the contract, follow up on the contract, consult properly with the agent, let down the students who worked hard on the play and has mis-represented the situation to the press. Michel both disrespected the writers legal and ethical rights and just avoided making his school the target of what would have been a lawsuit they would have lost.
And Clarion is now known as the college that doesn’t respect writers. With their recent passive aggressive reaction to Suh’s decision don’t be surprised if more writers refuse to let Clarion perform their plays there.
…cite for this please. The word “ambiguous” is not used in your cite. Also:
"Michel says that it is her understanding that the contract was in force as soon as the university signed it and sent a $500 payment, and that since the check was cashed, all was in place. "
Nothing there about the contract being returned.
The contract is irrelevant?
Seriously?
To echo an earlier poster…OK… so why is the play off now?
The contract is the point. Before Suh responded, the first thing he did was check to see if a contract had been received. If it had: he would have enforced the clauses in that contract to make adjustments to the play. But as a contract had not been returned…well, you know the rest.
I read it. Clearly you haven’t. The initial response was it was “told it was too early to know.” There was no follow up response. And when asked why there was no follow up the response was “we forgot.”
Well, I expect Clarion is going to revise their procedures now, so that the person who “deals with contracts” at least talks to the person who commits school resources to productions.