Stakeholder #1

In this blog post, I will discuss my projects 1st stakeholder: The La Jolla Playhouse.

Bill Badzo, "Cleveland Ohio ~ Ohio Theatre ~ Playhouse Square ~ Balcony ~ Historic." 10/2008. via flickr. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

The first stakeholder for Project 1 is La Jolla Playhouse. La Jolla Playhouse is a group that this controversy has filled to the brim with infamy due to allegations of racist casting in the production of The Nightingale. However, that is not how the group creates the image of their organization. La Jolla Playhouse is located on the campus of University of California, San Diego; which is one of the most highly respected institutions in the country, in one of the most popular cities where the sun kisses every part of the city for a great portion of the year.
At a glance of their website, La Jolla Playhouse creates an immediate mood of jovial fun, with the light blue hues of the website creating the tone of the holiday season, trying to encourage the viewer to feel as if sleigh bells ring of merriment the minute they step foot into La Jolla Playhouse. It is a place of consistent theatrical enjoyment for the public at large, as well as those in attendance at the university as well. They emphasize that La Jolla Playhouse place of learning, where those interested in the theatre can flock to and experiment and try different techniques with different shows while enjoying the company of others.

• The artistic director, Christopher Ashley, makes the claim that The Nightingale casting is not perfect. This quote can be seen here, when Ashley states: "We pick plays that are not finished in any way, shape or form, that are still discovering their story, discovering what the writing should be, what the design should be, and very much what the casting should be." 
• However, Ashley also made the statement that their attempt was purposeful in the casting as a combination of cultures. This quote can be seen here when he states that, "the La Jolla production is deliberately meant to be multicultural, combining elements of Eastern and Western cultures."
• When discussing the casting, the point was made also that casting white people in these roles was actually the La Jolla Playhouse's solution to lack of multicultural representation. This can be seen, and heard, here with the quote: "I think color-blind casting, nontraditional casting, multicultural casting, they're all related. They're really important tools for overcoming a theatre which is for, by, and about white men."

These claims are consistently what La Jolla Playhouse have said on the issue of the casting of The Nightingale. These claims are valid because these claims deal more with the intentions behind what La Jolla Playhouse was attempting to do with their casting, rather than dealing with the problems that others bring up when critiquing their casting decisions. Also, they consistently gave voice to the opinions of the audience and the community when confronted with differing opinions, and have been consistently willing to hear out the other side of the argument. These claims can therefore be seen as credible, as their intentions to cast with an emphasis on multiculturalism was a valid attempt, also considering their weighing the options that they may have made a misstep.

They have the most in common with the opposing party in fact, specifically AAPAC as they seem to understand the racist undertones in society regarding Asian Americans. While they have not gone about trying to fix the problem in the same way, they speak sensitively of the subject and understand where the opposing argument is coming from. They do not however have much in common with those in the surrounding environment that are merely a part of the theatre community. These people have a more aggressive nature not being involved in either professional organization, as they are merely left to form their own opinion based off the facts that they hear about.