Aisha Jackson and Noah J. Ricketts, two alums of Disney’s musical adaptation of Frozen, have launched a new social media campaign encouraging fellow artists of color to raise their voices in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The mission of the #TheaterInColor campaign is two-fold: to give people space to share their reality as a person of color in the theatre industry, and to express their hopes for the future of the community moving forward.
“By daring to be brave and speak up about the racism we’ve endured, we are holding a mirror to our theatrical community,” the two say. “We want to hear from musicians, actors, directors, stage managers, and stagehands of color. We want stories to pour in from all departments of our industry.”
Jackson, who was the original standby for the role of Anna, shared the hurt caused by comments she would see regarding her playing a role originally portrayed as white, and highlighted the industry’s responsibility to combat those perceptions. “Time and time again, our industry paints us in a certain picture,” she said. “This is a problem. You are perpetuating that our white counterparts are more important and deserve to lead the show and deserve to have these three-dimensional characters, but we don’t. It tells our audience, ‘This is what you should always expect.’ So when they see me come out, they go, ‘Oh, that’s wrong.’ Because you’ve told them that it’s wrong time and time again.”
She ends with a challenge to creatives: “Don’t just see all ethnicities for the part. Hire all ethnicities for the part…Not everything has to be about our color, but we want you to pay attention to it. Colorblind casting? No. Casting. That’s what it is.”
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