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The Wiz: Courage

At Cicero-North Syracuse High School, a controversy has erupted over the casting of whites in the traditionally African-American version of The Wizard of Oz called The Wiz. There are those who’ve gone all the way to the news media to express their outrage at the fact that an African-American female who auditioned didn’t get a lead role. Some have gone out of their way to suggest that whites can’t do shows such as The Wiz because it’s about the “black experience.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Art is one of the few places where color and cultural lines can be tinkered with or even erased. Sometimes an actor can set the stage on fire with a brilliant performance in a role that was originally written for a performer from a different racial background, or even a different sex. We’ve been on this cultural journey ever since the 1970s when adventurous directors defied critics when they ushered in an era of non-traditional casting. Broadway exploded with hit productions like Hello Dolly which initially immortalized Barbara Streisand but later featured African-American star Pearl Bailey in the title role.

Movie director Spike Lee has at times intoned that only black directors should direct certain projects. That’s ridiculous. It took courage for the director and Cicero-North Syracuse school officials to deflect the pressure that arose in response to this non-traditional casting. Last year in Cazenovia, a black woman played the mother of a white child in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, and she was so convincing that people forgot race. They simply noted the heart-felt performance. That is art.

Talent has no color. Could you tell what color Amy Winehouse was when she sang? Or the race behind the powerful voice of Adele or Robin Thick’s soulful sound?

Under Berry Gordy’s tutelage, Motown’s Supremes simply took the “soul” out of soul music and then soared up the charts becoming the number 2 top-selling recording artists of the 1960s right behind the Beatles.

Armed with courage, will the Cicero-North Syracuse High School performers have the heart and the intelligence to carry it off? As the bad witch Evileen would say in The Wiz, “Don’t nobody bring me no bad news.”

March 2013 Urban CNY

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