Tag Archives: west end diversity

West End: Left-Handed Diversity

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The vast majority of the UK population, as elsewhere, is right-handed. All else being equal, i.e., no difference in acting ability between left-handers and others, we would assume that left-handed performers on the West End will make up a minority of actors in most cases unless the shows specifically require the talents of such performers (Waiting for Lefty, maybe?).

Thus, when left-handers emerge on stage way above their population levels (around 3% for this subset vs. 31.7% of all West End musical actors (2019)), theatergoers can be forgiven for thinking that the selection process is skewed. As talent is presumably evenly dispersed among the population, these groups are clearly being chosen above the remaining 97% of actors for other reasons. Any idea what that could be?

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West End diversity: Perception vs. reality

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7/10/19 (Wed)

I’ve previously written about the ethnic diversity in London theater here and here, including my impression that certain ethnicities appear on stage far too often to be blind casting or coincidental. Now there are statistics to back that up. Research by British theater magazine The Stage finds that black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) performers account for 38% of musical performers as of April 2019, starkly higher than their 13% ratio of the UK population.

Black performers in particular account for 31.7% of all musical roles (i.e., 85% of the BAME total) despite being only 3% of the UK population. East and South Asians, who significantly outnumber blacks in the general population (7%), account together for only 3.7% of West End musical performers. The percentage for white actors is 62.2% (87.1% of general population) and other ethnicities 2.2%.

So the diversity problem is solved at least for black performers, right? Of course not, you insensitive hick. Continue reading →

Diversity again

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Diversity again. Over the past week, Actors’ Equity has released a survey of diversity in US theater, while the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which votes on the Oscars, has sent out a record-setting number of invitations for membership that include a notably large proportion of women and non-whites. I’ll reserve comment on the latter other than observing that many of the invitees would not appear remotely qualified by the objective standard of their film industry credentials, which will ultimately raise questions over the organization’s credibility. I’m more interested in theater.

I live in a country where diversity (as defined in the US) is not a big concern. With rare exception, casts in local productions here are 100% Japanese (note: not “Asian”), even in musicals – The King and I and Miss Saigon come to mind – where some need for ethnic diversity is built into the show. So I’m probably not overly sensitive to the issue.

Nevertheless, I seem to be missing something in the Actors’ Equity survey. Continue reading →