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“The character Othello, race is what makes him an outsider, and he’s vulnerable because he’s an outsider. He’s not upset because of his race; he’s upset because he’s different,” she said in an interview.

“We wanted (the role) to be cast as a woman because then it would be more of an issue of sexuality, and the issue would be that Othello’s sexuality makes him an outsider.”

She noted that a German director cast a white woman as Othello in 2011 and encountered little opposition. But the climate on today’s North American campuses is far different from that found in German theatres.

Queen’s students began taking to social media to denounce the Othello casting, and Purdon said the criticism “started to blow up” this week.

“I was feeling super anxious. I wasn’t getting any sleep. It was making me feel sick to my stomach because people were upset, and nobody was really being informed,” she said.

On Tuesday night, she broke the news to the cast that she did not want to go forward with the production, which was in rehearsals and set to debut Nov. 30. “At first a lot of the cast was upset. It was ultimately myself and the girl playing Othello — it came down to how we both felt,” said Purdon, who is also co-artistic director of the theatre company.