TT: Whitewashing August Wilson

In April Lincoln Center Theater will be presenting a Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, the first in more than two decades. The director will be Bartlett Sher–who is white. That fact is, not surprisingly, causing a stink, since the play has an all-black cast. One black stage director, Marion McClinton, has gone so far as to accuse Lincoln Center of “institutional racism.”
Naturally I took an interest in this story, being an admirer (albeit qualified) of Wilson’s plays and a generally enthusiastic but sometimes skeptical supporter of color-blind “non-traditional” casting. Hence my latest “Sightings” column, in which I take a closer look at the decision to hire Sher, along with the wider question of how best to present plays originally written for performance by an ethnically specific ensemble.
Will we be seeing Al Pacino in Fences any time soon? For the answer, pick up a copy of Saturday’s Wall Street Journal and give me a read.
UPDATE: Read the whole thing here.