Working on The Wiz, there have been some basic things we have dealt with and discovered. For those of you who don't know, The Wiz, simply put, is the black Wizard of Oz with Motown music. Therefore, it was already a casting challenge here because we have a very small African-American population at our conservatory. Therefore, we had to bring in some outside talent. Also, we had to have most of our ensemble members be Caucasian. That's fine because the ensemble can be played more easily as colorblind than the principal characters who need to be African American.
So from day one, we somehow naturally segregated ourselves. I don't know why it happens but it does (if you don't believe me, just look in a high school cafeteria). We even made a joke about it because we thought instead of avoiding it we would just establish the African Americans were the stars. However, the director would have no joke or natural separation. He wanted us to be a unit from day one despite the fact that we had a racially diverse cast. He knew that if unity wasn't established the show wouldn't be at its best. We view everyone as equal and all filled with talent and we have been a great cast because of the unity and it shines through the performances. If only people had had that determination of unity between blacks and whites for all time. We are all people of equal value no matter our race. All our different shades just combine to make beauty just like all the colors combine to make a beautiful rainbow.
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