Blacks on the Broadway Stage and in the Audience

The stage is often a mirror to life.

Now for some, the Broadway stage has become both an imitation of life and an invitation to participate. Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof recently landed on Broadway with an all-black cast bringing in a largely black audience.

'Cat,' which stars James Earl Jones, Terrence Howard and Anika Noni Rose, has a large audience, all right; last week it sold nearly $700,000 in tickets, an outstanding number for a nonmusical. Stephen C. Byrd, the rookie producer of 'Cat,' estimates the audience to be between 70 percent and 80 percent African-American.

The 1958 film version of Williams' classic starred Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor, and various stage adaptations of the play were produced over the years, including a version starring the Tony nominated Kathleen Turner in 1990, and a 2003 adaptation with Ashely Judd and Jason Patric.

The recent version is the first to showcase an all-black cast.

How does the altering of race inhibit or augment the effectiveness of the play? What other plays would you like to see with a racial update? And who would you like to see in them?

Drew Tewksbury

Tags: Broadway

1:17 PM ET | 03-20-2008 | permalink

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