Is the Great White Way being re-whitened? Broadway seems to be rolling back inclusion

Show Caption

White men! Remember them?

So neglected, so short-changed in American culture. Especially in recent years, when Broadway producers had the odd idea that some other stories might be worth telling. Now — it would appear -— they know better.

“Glengarry Glen Ross” (about cutthroat salesmen, opening Monday, March 31, at the Palace); “Good Night and Good Luck” (George Clooney as Edward R. Murrow, Thursday, April 3, at the Winter Garden); “Floyd Collins” (about a 1925 Kentucky explorer who was trapped in a cave, Monday, April 21, at the Vivian Beaumont); “Just in Time” (Jonathan Groff as Bobby Darin, Wednesday, April 23, at Circle in the Square); and “Dead Outlaw” (about early 1900s outlaw Elmer McCurdy, Sunday, April 27, at the Longacre) are plays about white heroes, white villains, white saviors, white victims.

There are also upcoming shows on Broadway this spring about what men are interested in. Hence "Smash" (Thursday, April 10, Imperial Theatre), a musical centering around Marilyn Monroe — every mid-century man's fantasy date — and "BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical" (opening Saturday, April 5, Broadhurst Theatre), about her cartoon predecessor.

Receding tide

So different from just a season or two back, when shows like "Topdog/Underdog," "Ain't No Mo," "Purlie Victorious," "The Wiz," “Trouble in Mind,” “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” “Paradise Square,” “Lackawanna Blues,” “Caroline, or Change,” “Pass Over,” "Skeleton Crew" — not to mention women-centric shows like "Suffs" and an all-female "1776" — seemed to suggest that we were at the dawn of a new, more inclusive Broadway.

In 2020, Whoopi Goldberg even suggested that "The Great White Way" be rechristened "The Great Bright Way" to expunge possible bad associations (the nickname "Great White Way," coined in the early 1900s, of course refers to light bulbs, not skin color).

"We had a wonderful one or two years, and then like everything else, they're moving it back," said Celeste Bateman, director of Newark's Elmart Theatre Service. This "theater party service" has, since 1969, chartered buses to bring groups of as many as 55 per vehicle to New York, to see Broadway plays at group-discount rates.

Her service caters primarily to North Jersey's African American community.

In the years after the 2020 police murder of George Floyd — and the Black Lives Matter movement that followed — the new concern about "underrepresented" voices found a mirror on Broadway, she said. For a brief shining moment, there was a lot in town to interest people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community.

"It's almost like after the whole George Floyd thing, everybody came out of their silos," she said. " 'We want to make a change. We want do this and that.' "

Now, she fears, momentum has slowed — if not reversed. Others have noticed it, too.

"It's cyclical — the swinging of the pendulum," said Michael Bias, an actor-writer-director from Bergenfield who runs The Forge playwright lab at Hudson Theater Works.

"I would be concerned that we are going in this direction," Bias said. "Because all the progress we made might be being turned around."

Sign of the times?

The fact that the new season is arriving in tandem with President Trump’s anti-DEI initiatives is probably a coincidence. All of these shows must have been on the drawing board long before anyone knew who would be our chief executive.

But the timing is interesting. Certainly, this Broadway season — to the extent that it's light on diversity, equity and inclusion — would be much more to the 47th president's tastes.

"I don't think Broadway would have shifted gears that quickly, in terms of the political climate, because these things are planned pretty far out," Bateman said. "But by the same token, they probably felt that they had met their quota. They checked off several boxes."

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To be fair, Broadway is not, suddenly, a multicultural desert. "Purpose" (Hayes Theatre) and "Buena Vista Social Club" (Schoenfeld Theatre) have kept the flag flying.

And there is the star-studded "Othello," with Denzel Washington playing opposite Jake Gyllenhaal (Barrymore Theatre). "BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical" features an actor of color (Jasmine Amy Rogers) in the lead role.

"Real Women Have Curves," based on the play by Josefina López that inspired the 2002 film, begins previews on Tuesday, April 1. There is talk that an all-female "Glengarry" could be launched when the current cast reaches the end of its run.

But there's a big difference between casting a "white" role non-traditionally, and actually telling the stories of non-white people, by non-white playwrights, that might appeal to non-white audiences.

"It may also be about who's buying tickets now," Bias said. "Tickets are so expensive that the demographics over the last 15 years may have changed. They're seeing who their audience is. They're looking at the data coming from the shows."

Copy that, Bateman says. There is, among her group, great interest in seeing Denzel Washington in "Othello." But with an average ticket price of $338.83, it's beyond the range of her bus-and-tunnel subscribers.

"No one in my group can afford to see it," she said.