I was going to make today’s post a playful “Girl Likes Theatre Fringe Awards” article, but I instead felt inclined to write about something a bit more serious. I firmly believe that engaging with opinions that don’t exactly align with yours promotes learning and growth on both ends, so I’m throwing my opinion out into the cyberverse for the sake of public discourse. I promise I’ll return to my more ‘fun’ content later in the week.

If you haven’t heard, the talk of the Broadway community right now (at least amongst Jews) is the casting of a woman who is not Jewish in the lead role of Fanny Brice in the Funny Girl national tour. It’s considered a controversial casting choice.

Backing up a bit, I should mention that I’m Jewish. I don’t represent the views of all the Jews in the world – just my own – nor do I claim to be an expert on this subject matter. It’s just something that’s been on my mind, and I’d like to take you along for the ride as I try to think critically about this topic.

In general, it’s a slippery slope trying to always cast people into roles that perfectly align with their heritage. Was it ok that Lea Salonga played Vietnamese Kim in Miss Saigon when she herself is Filipina? What about Maria in West Side Story – does the actress need to be Puerto Rican, or is Colombian or Venezuelan close enough? I’ve even heard that some people are angry that Lea Michele was cast as Fanny Brice on Broadway because she’s only half-Jewish. Who are you, random internet troll, to say how Jewish someone is? Broadly, actors are actors, and they should be able to play roles that don’t completely match up to their heritage. Right?

Oftentimes, though, issues exist in a grey area – the world isn’t so clear-cut. For casting, I think what is appropriate is entirely situationally dependent. For example:

• Where is the show being produced? (E.g. Japan did a Japanese-language production of Fiddler on the Roof featuring an all-Japanese cast. It probably would’ve been difficult to find a predominantly Jewish cast there).
• Is the character’s identity integral to their story? Or, is the character someone who happens to be Jewish, but that fact isn’t featured prominently in their plotline?
• Is this a real historical figure, or a fictional character?
• Does the show itself have any content that may be inappropriate to be performed by a non-Jew (i.e., could it be misconstrued as mocking or stereotyping if performed by someone not of that identity)?

So, for Funny Girl, Fanny Brice is a real person who dealt with anti-Semitism. The show also features a musical number, Private Schwartz, that could easily be misconstrued as a caricature of Judaism if not handled correctly. And the show is being produced in North America, which has a lot of high-level Jewish performers. The casting notice for this role even featured a note, in all caps, that actors of Jewish descent are strongly encouraged to submit. Clearly, finding someone Jewish was important (but not a necessity) to the team.

I can’t help but think about the cast of a TV show I love, the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which features two actors who are not Jewish – Tony Shalhoub and Rachel Brosnahan – playing prominent Jewish lead roles. Roles where their Jewish identity is integral to their character, in a show set in New York. Apart from not being based on real people, this is an analogous situation to Funny Girl, and this show’s casting didn’t bother me. I think what matters most to me is the care that the actors take in portraying their roles. Both Shalhoub and Brosnahan, in my mind, have honoured the characters’ backgrounds and put a lot of love into their portrayals. I couldn’t imagine any other actors playing these roles.

Of course immense effort should be made to try to match actors’ backgrounds to characters’, but there are always exceptions. Even with all the considerations mentioned above regarding Funny Girl, I’m still ok with a non-Jewish actress playing Fanny Brice. Where I think the real problem lies, though, is in the double-standard that seems to be applied. Representation matters, but not when it comes to Jews.

A few years ago at business school, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine (who’s not Jewish but is a member of the LGBTQ+ community), and she tried to explain to me why it’s ok for non-Jews to play Jewish characters but not ok for non-LGBT people to play LGBT roles. Her argument was effectively that Jewish actors may not “look Jewish” or “act Jewish” and therefore can easily be cast in non-Jewish roles, but LGBT people may be pigeonholed into playing certain roles due to their appearance or mannerisms, so – crudely – straight people were “stealing” roles from gay actors. I found that to be a pretty weak argument, because gay people don’t all look or act the same, and neither do Jews. Candidly, this argument flat out pissed me off, because I don’t like the implication that certain affinity groups should be handled with more care than others.

I recently got coffee with a Jewish friend of mine who told me about an anti-bias training seminar he had attended at Yale Law School a year and a half ago. My friend sat in this class as the instructor went through every instance of bias that could exist, but the instructor concluded her talk without mentioning anti-Semitism. My friend raised his hand during the Q&A portion and asked the lecturer why she had failed to mentioned anti-Semitism, which accounts for the most hate crimes per capita in the U.S. according to the FBI. The lecturer retorted that she questioned the validity of those studies, and stated that since she had already discussed anti-black bias and “some Jews were black,” she’d already covered anti-Semitism. This seminar made the news, but unsurprisingly, many major news outlets didn’t cover it.

I’m not trying to be alarmist (though anti-Semitism is on the rise), nor do I want to discount the work Broadway is putting into combating anti-Semitism: there are two award-winning shows on Broadway right now that explore this issue – Leopoldstadt and Parade. I’m just tired of excuses being made when it comes to Jews.