Director, Designer, & Performer Resign Over Failure to Diversify Casting

Calgary Opera is in the beginning steps of staging SOUTH PACIFIC, and the casting process has caused an uproar within the production. According to The Globe and Mail, special advisor to the company Bob McPhee says they are struggling to find an actress of Asian descent to play the role of Bloody Mary, one of the lead Tonkinese characters.

When a white woman was put on hold for the role, director of SOUTH PACIFIC Mark Bellamy left the production citing artistic differences. Along with Bellamy went designer Narda McCarroll and an ensemble performer.

When confronted about the casting, McPhee responded, "We want a strong vocal, physical performance and yes, we want it to be someone of appropriate ethnicity, but if we can't achieve that, it's not from a lack of effort." According to McPhee, Bellamy walked out on the production saying he could not agree with that.

"He was premature, I feel," McPhee says. "I very much understood his opinion and we are trying to do the exact thing he wants. But he said, 'I can't move forward.'"

The issue of diversity on stage has grown more heady in recent years as more and more companies strive to provide roles for people of color and build more representation. McPhee, however, says the opera field is trying, but the performer pool is just too small. "Generally in opera - being a Western European traditional art form - we're behind theatre," he says. "I do think that will change over the next decade or two and it's changing now. But our resources to do what is desired creates great limitations. That's an industry thing. That's not a Calgary Opera thing."

As for the fate of Calgary Opera's SOUTH PACIFIC, McPhee says the effort is being made, but the show must go on. "There will be a point when we have to call it and say that's it; we've got to go with this artist. But we're not there yet. And our commitment to the new director is we're continuing the search but we might have to call it. Ultimately we want the best performance."

Read the full article at The Globe and Mail here.