Ithaca High School pulls 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' over casting diversity outcry

Editor's Note: For the latest coverage regarding this, check out this link: 'QUITE DISTURBING': National coverage of Ithaca High's play controversy brings threats

When Ithaca High School announced last fall that the spring musical would be "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," high school senior Annabella Mead-VanCort's mother, Eliza VanCort, wrote a letter to school administrators.

She was thrilled that a musical with a leading role of a female of color would be performed on the school's stage. She couldn't wait to give the school a standing ovation, Eliza wrote in the letter in September.

"And then they cast it the way they did," Annabella said. "And then we [Students United Ithaca] decided to write letters.”

A white actress was cast in the role of Esmeralda, a Romani gypsy living in 15th-century Paris.

Maddi Carroll, a 17-year-old senior at Ithaca High School and member of Students United Ithaca, was cast in the ensemble and quit in November due to the casting of Esmeralda.

“It shows you that theater wasn’t made for you," said Maddi, who is African-American. "And it shows you that, if you can’t get the parts that are written for you, what parts are you going to get?”

More: 5 times casting drew controversy, plus 2 ways authentic casting drew applause

This prompted Annabella, along with members of Student United Ithaca, an entirely student-led group, to write letters and craft a list of demands to encourage a more inclusive production.

On Wednesday, the school heard the outcries of the school and community and cancelled the spring production of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

At first, students were told there was not enough time to put a different production in the musical's place.

But on Monday, the Ithaca City School District announced a collaborative project will be produced in the musical's place, according to a statement released on the district website.

The project "will provide young people and our community the opportunity to engage together while fully expressing the talents of our students," the statement says. "A new project is currently being discussed by students, families and educators. This project will also engage the talents and skills of students previously cast."

More details will be forthcoming, according to the district.

Speaking over the phone Monday afternoon, Maddi said she had not been notified of the new collaborative project.

Neither David Brown, director of Fine and Performing Arts at the Ithaca City School District, nor high school musical director Robert Winans could be reached for interviews beyond the online statement Monday.

According to the Ithaca City School District website, the musical was initially scheduled for April 13-15.

The cancellation of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" came after a series of efforts by Students United Ithaca, a group of five Ithaca High School students. Three of the students were cast in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" before dropping out.

Initial efforts were made by Annabella, who wrote a letter that received about 22 signatures. The letter was published online in Tompkins Weekly on Jan. 8.

This was followed by a flood of letters from members of the community to Tompkins Weekly.

“There was an amazing reception; it was so clear the community was on board with this,” Annabella said.

Members of Students United Ithaca then met with school administrators, but left the meeting feeling unsuccessful.

“We didn’t really get anywhere," Annabella said. "We just talked and there just was a lot of lip service and a lot of talk about the conversations we’re going to have about this.”

Students later spoke at a community Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, then at a meeting of the Ithaca High School Board of Education on Jan. 23.

The next day, officials announced the production had been cancelled.

"Our goal was not just to shut down the musical," Maddi said. "We want to get a socially conscious director to replace the current director so that everybody can participate.”

Both Annabella and Maddi said they believe the issue is systemic at the school and that addressing diversity in the musical is the first step in making the school more inclusive.

“This issue is bigger than one part in one musical in one place," Carroll said. "It’s very very systemic and is very deeply rooted in how we learn and what we do every day. So, we next want to go to the school. We want to branch out from the arts to the school in general and we want to try and make a change.”

On Jan. 25, Students United Ithaca posted a list of demands for the Ithaca City School District on the group's Facebook page. The list was amended after the students learned of the cancellation of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

The demands in the 10-point list include removing Winans as director of the Boynton Middle School and Ithaca High School musicals. The students have proposed the school hire Joey Steinhagen, the artistic director and resident director of Running to Places Theatre Company, as director of the next musical.

"Joey has a concrete plan and has said he is confident he can mount an inclusive and wonderful show," the post states. "Joey is the hero we need now to [unite] our community."

Steinhagen did not return a request for comment. He has previously directed theatrical works at Ithaca High School and other schools, according to the Running to Places website.

"STOP ignoring and denying that you have created a white centered program run by white adults for the benefit of white children," the list of demands states. "White children should also be educated about interrupting these practices of White supremacy. Hollow lip service about equality is shameful and the eyes of our concerned community are now focused on you."

In the online statement issued by the BOE, the board said the issue is "not about any particular faculty member or ICSD employee."

"We are greatly appreciative of the hard work and dedication that ICSD teachers and employees have given, and continue to give, to our students," the statement reads. "We look forward to working together, as a beloved community, as we forge a path forward."

Based on the 1996 Disney animated movie and novel by Victor Hugo, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" deals with themes of exclusivity, with "God Help the Outcasts" as one of the production's most famous songs.

The production had its U.S. premiere in November 2014 at La Jolla Playhouse in California. It was later produced in March 2015 at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey.

In both productions, Ciara Renée, a stage and television actress of "Legends of Tomorrow" and "Arrow," starred as Esmeralda. While the production did not make it to Broadway, Renée's performance has been immortalized on a soundtrack released in 2016 by Ghostlight Records.

In a casting call posted on Backstage.com for the 2014 La Jolla Playhouse production, the notice said casting directors were seeking actresses of "all ethnicities" for the role of Esmeralda.

Musical Theatre International, which holds the licensing rights to the production, describes Esmeralda as a female age 20 to 30 in a character breakdown listed on MTI's website.

While Esmeralda's ethnicity is not listed on the website, she is described as "a beautiful and free-spirited gypsy who possesses the strong sense of justice and morality that Frollo lacks."

The topic of authentic casting has been a hot-button topic in both professional and educational theater. The notion of "color-blind casting," in which casting directors don't consider the race of an actor when casting a role, has been replaced for color-conscious casting.

In color-conscious casting, casting directors specifically consider the race and ethnicity of actors to respect cultures.

Calls for color-conscious casting have made headlines nationally, with a 2015 production of Katori Hall's "The Mountaintop," featuring a white actor in the role of Martin Luther King Jr., triggering a response from the playwright herself.

Howard Sherman is the director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama and has written extensively about censorship, authentic casting and other topics in theater for the New York Times, American Theatre Magazine and The Huffington Post among others.

“I use the word 'context' when I have these conversations endlessly,” Sherman said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “And was the context of the work considered, both the context of the character within the show, the context of the show within the school community and the talent base within the school?”

In 2015, he advised the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players after the troupe received backlash for performing the opera in yellowface.

Sherman is happy to advise the district in navigating conversations about future steps the theater department will take, he said, or seek out outside advisers.

“Unfortunately the conversation was not had early and was not had in a way that possibly allowed the educators, the leadership of the school and the students themselves to come together to an understanding of what the show is or could be,” Sherman said.

Students United Ithaca plan to meet with the administration of the Ithaca City School district Tuesday to discuss plans for the future.

One step towards creating a musical that is inclusive to all students, Maddi suggested, is active recruitment. She included herself as about five to 10 people of color in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame's" cast of about 40.

"I believe they [shows] have to come from a place of careful consideration and in an educational setting, not simply, ‘this would be a good show,’ but, ‘what does this show mean right now in this community at this time in American history?’" Sherman said. "And how do we make it a part of an educational experience that will speak not only to the students in the show but the other students in the school?”

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