A recently released survey on the ethnic makeup of Broadway performers made for an interesting comparison with another survey this month on the composition of Broadway audiences. (The former survey examines the 2015-16 season and the latter 2016-17, but the trend is broadly the same.) The Asian American Performers Action Coalition found that minority actors accounted for 35% of all roles on Broadway in the 2015-16 season. The vast majority were blacks, who represented 23% of all roles, with Latinos at 7% and Asians at 4%. That is, blacks are significantly overrepresented on the Broadway stage given that they are 13.3% of the US population (July 2016 census estimate), while Latinos (17.8% of population) are significantly underrepresented and Asians (5.7%) more or less balanced.
The survey also notes that minorities account for 56% of the New York City population, raising the question: who the heck is the majority? In any event, as the other survey by the Broadway League shows, this is not the percentage you find in the theaters. A whopping 76.8% of Broadway audiences last season were white, well over both their New York numbers (where, as we have seen, they are a minority) and their 61.3% ratio of the US population. Asians are also overrepresented at 8.4%. In contrast, both Latinos and blacks are pitifully underrepresented at 7.1% and 3.4%, the latter only around one-quarter their ratio of the US population. That is, those last two categories together account for around 30% of the population and 30% of Broadway roles but only around 10% of Broadway viewers.
sekenbanashi 