We Mad? Oh, We Mad: POCs in the Acting World

Last night, something glorious made history. Let me show you.

Need it spelled out? That's cool, I got you. Little Black girls everywhere watched a Black woman—several, in fact—be a magical, beautiful queen. On live TV.

I loved The Wiz as a kid. I inherited it from my mom; she and her girlfriends loved it too. Of course, I loved The Wizard of Oz, because what little girl doesn't? (I assume.) But this was something special. This was for me. The Black stars that I knew from music, from TV, from my parents—they were all doing this age-old story. It meant that I could, too.

I didn't necessarily know I wanted to be an actor. In fact, I was kind of the opposite of a future actor, personality-wise. All I wanted to do, really, was sit in my room and read books. (Living the dream is real. I didn't think I would be broke when I grew up, but I'm still hiding in my house reading, so we good.)

But then I had that moment. I was standing center stage in a corset, where I'd been for about 6 hours for cue to cue, stripper heels totally destroying my feet, and the light hit. I opened my mouth and my ass-tired voice was like, "There's only now. There's only here. Give in to love, or live in fear."

That Beyoncé wig tho.
L to R: Michael Lorenzo, Kyle Boatwright
Photo credit: Kait Rankins, 2011, RENT, Exit 7 Theatre.

And I had this burst of energy. Suddenly, I knew what I needed to be doing with my life. I'm amazed that I had that moment. Do people have those sudden come-to-Jesus moments? I don't know, I've never thought that kind of thing was real, but either way, "NO DAY BUT TODAY" is permanently etched on my arm in ink to remind me to be true to that moment.

So, okay, so I had that sweet moment, that split second where I knew what my purpose was. And so here I am, five years later, having just watched some leaders of my community completely own this show that I watched as a kid—and I know they watched it back then too, just like that little girl with the Afro puffs. Just like me.

I went to the best liberal arts college in the country, and I have an interdisciplinary degree in music, theatre, and creative writing. I studied at Harvard with top professors from Moscow Art Theatre. I've paid my dues playing terrible parts and doing shit for free and letting the few Equity points I have expire, just like every other sad non-famous actor in the theater world.

So someone tell me why I work in a bookstore for minimum wage. Younger Kyle is thrilled to be alone, surrounded by books, but adult Kyle is broke and not pursuing her career.

I absolutely accept responsibility. I know I don't hustle enough. That's really the long and short of it.

Mostly.

The other teeny, tiny little aspect is that I am a Black woman. We all know by now that slightly obese Black bitches don't make bank, but it's not just about the basics of being overlooked as a minority.

The opportunities, both on stage and on screen, are shit. Hands down, they are shit. And we have people working hard every day to make less shit, for sure, but it's still a problem. A big one.

First things first: the Internet blew up last night because The Wiz is an all-Black cast (except for that one white dude in there who was WORKING). "How is that not racist?" is what people are essentially saying. (Check out this little gem on Queerty to see the actual idiocy.) Let me shut it down real quick.

THE OPPORTUNITIES ARE SHIT. The Wiz is not about excluding white folk. The Wiz is about creating opportunities where there are none. It is about every little girl with Afro puffs who wants to be Dorothy and about every little girl who is going to grow up to be strong, to do something, to exist in this world. It's not just about the art. It's about the example and the representation and the possibilities and the love.

Twitter be throwin' shade because ignorant folks don't know that I needed that. Mad about it.

So there's that, and then there's more. Obviously.

A few people I know around here want to do The Wiz. The show has been pitched a few times, but it gets turned down because leaders in our theater community are worried that we don't have enough POCs to fill out the cast. I could go either way on that. Some people think that new folks would come out if the opportunity were there. Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn't.

Then there's the one white guy that thinks we should do it with white people. Love him, but he wrong. This is how our conversation went.

Him: We should totally do The Wiz!
Me: With what Black folk? We goin' to Springfield?
Him: Psh, it doesn't have to be all Black anymore. We're past that. The country is past that.
Me: N**** don't you know that we ain't anywhere NEAR past that, because—oh wait right. Welp. Gotta go, love you, see you soon!

(I didn't actually use the N word at a white guy. This mess is complicated enough.)

Yes. Yes, we irate.

The point is, even with sympathizers and allies, the few opportunities that exist get taken. There's a new play going up about rape that was written for an all-Latino cast (with the exception of one random white character). Guess how many POCs were cast in it? One, and he ain't even Latino. Guess who he plays? The rapist. The drunk, angry, Black rapist. This was an opportunity created very pointedly for POCs, and yet that opportunity is now gone. It was an opportunity to explore a difficult topic for women, and it was cleverly engineered so as to not make race an issue. Now race is an issue, in the worst way. It's The Emperor Jones. It's even Training Day. It's the Black brute. It's yet another innocent blonde that we have to feel sorry for, because there's not even a question anymore: the Black guy done did it. And it's typical.

And let's not even mention the Kent State University production of The Mountaintop, a play about Martin Luther King...in which some fool cast a white man to play one of the most effective seekers of justice of all time. Okay, I mentioned it. At a college? A college? This is infuriating for all of the above reasons, and now we're passing this behavior deemed as acceptable on to our students—passing it right on to the future.

So here I am in my bookstore. This is not about playing the victim. This is fact. That show will go up, and no one will say anything, because the audience will be so blissfully ignorant that they don't even know that it's wrong. Idiots on Twitter will be outraged because there's no white version of The Wiz. (Literally, what. The. What.) White men will continue to be cast over Black men. And we will hunt for those opportunities that there are, and hope to God that we get the ones we deserve.

Also, sorry Queen Latifah, but you did not deliver. Love you, mean it, cast me instead.