(Update: There are two, not one - Stew's "Passing Strange" was moved to Broadway in 2008 for a commercial run.)
Dear Senators Skoufis, Kaplan and Hoylman,
It is heartening to read in the recent Forbes article that some of the abuses, like the pricing abuses, by Broadway producers that have come along with premium since it started in 2001 are being looked at, especially as we. are about to start all over again with the same producers.
I've been looking very closely at Broadway producers abuse of human rights and tactics of consistently "blacklisting" people who raise human rights issues- for an unfortunate human rights retaliation matter involving Broadway producers Jack Viertel and Jennifer Tepper. (People say it's always been like this. It was not. A landlord way of thinking, money-over-humanity approach, can really be seen as taking hold since premium started in 2001, then advanced as only the best 50 seats, but soon became every seat downstairs except the bathroom stalls.)
As far as actors, hiring bias seems under control by Equity involvement.
But for creatives, it's somehow turned out that Broadway producers overall in the 20 years of premium mindset really have been able to systematically justify show by show the writers and directors of teams they assemble to look like themselves, communicate like themselves, and behave like themselves.
It doesn't SEEM insidious with decisions and explanations show by show at all, but with premium as the mindset, Broadway has since 2000 has ONE new musical with any black songwriter, and that one was produced by Oprah Winfrey. Broadway since 2000 had ZERO new black directors of musicals (the only black director being a veteran George Wolfe, and incredibly, he was hired by the producer who has become a pariah, Scott Rudin).
And thus, no black songwriters or new black directors, a whole generation of black creative talent, have Broadway track records in 20 years, to be considered at all for future shows. (I believe this applies to any human rights "complainers" as well, but here it is so glaring.)
BUT - it's not that Black creatives hadn't gotten there yet. or overcome yet. They were already there in the Bway community and talent pool, even before civil rights:
(rattling off a partial list of the famous songwriters): Langston Hughes, Eubie Blake, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Noble Sissle, Paul L Dunbar, Donald Heywood, Will M Cook. But there are a lot who got a chance and just didn't become famous. Being "not like us" was not a barrier to Broadway even before civil rights.
There's at least systemic racism that came along hand in hand with premium, whether anyone FEELS like they're racist or not. A show about black people written by an all-white team is, with a white director, let's face it, a white person's show. And black creatives in the key positions on non-black-specific shows - non-existent.
For example, the ONE black songwriter who was ever - since 1990 - on a show that could be called non-black in subject matter mysteriously got replaced about an Asian racial slur on "A Christmas Story," a Chinese restaurant scene with a huge laugh for waiters singing "fa-ra-ra-ra" - replaced by Pasek and Paul who could deal with the racial slur, and went on to an extraordinary career, while the black composer-lyricist Scott Davenport Richards was never given anther NYC opportunity.
In conclusion, I believe whether intentional OR a systemically anti-human rights side effect of business needs of premium, how can this not be investigated now, before the very same crop of producers should be allowed to resume the exact same way they've been doing business since the late 1990s. I believe for my own experience with the producers' very open malicious human rights retaliation as a disabled person that this relates to ALL human rights protected classes, but this is SO obvious and glaring as to the total overlooking of a generation of black songwriters and directors for teams of musicals, where the real Broadway money is. They simply do not least behave as if human rights retaliation rules apply to Broadway producers at all!
