After a local Bay Area theater company received backlash about its canceled holiday production that had an all-white cast, some San Jose State community members are emphasizing diversity’s importance in theater.
The recoil toward San Jose Playhouse began after the company announced its cast for “Into the Woods” at the end of August, though it was canceled by Sept. 12.
The nonprofit theater is located one block west from SJSU’s main campus at 288 S. Second St.
Kirsten Brandt, film and theatre assistant professor and SJSU’s theatre arts department artistic director, said she was shocked when she found out about the theater’s cast.
“I honestly was flabbergasted. My jaw hit the floor when I found out this was happening in San Jose,” Brandt said in a Zoom call. “I was thinking that somebody was talking about some other city that’s not as diverse as San Jose.”
In San Jose, 31.6% of people identified as Hispanic or Latinx, 35.9% as Asian, 3% as Black and 25.7% as white, according to the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau database.
Brandt said before the pandemic, her class produced Into the Woods and emphasized casting flexibility because the roles are fabled characters.
“The great thing about that show is it [has] an inclusive cast,” Brandt said. “You can do that show, it does not matter, ethnicity is not is not an issue, gender plays an important role but even that can be twisted a little bit because they’re very fairy tales.”
San Jose Playhouse is part of “3Below,” a San Jose theater complex and multipurpose venue run by married couple Shannon and Scott Guggenheim and Scott Guggenheim’s brother, Stephen Guggenheim.
The Jewish family, who runs Guggenheim Entertainment, has been producing family-friendly content since 1996 and specializes in performance, dance, music and theater, according to the 3Below website.
Shannon Guggenheim said Into the Woods was a replacement for “The MeshugaNutcracker!”, a Jewish play written by the company in 2003 that was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Shannon Guggenheim said the show’s latest rendition of The MeshugaNutcracker! in 2016 featured an all-white cast, who were then invited back for the 2020 production of the same show.
She said the company “was not in a place production-wise” to revive the Jewish show in 2021, leading the company to replace the show with Into the Woods but with the same actors.
“We really felt obligated to offer those roles to the previous cast who had already lost their jobs,” Shannon Guggenheim said.
She said the 2016 casting demographic wasn’t intentional but was based on performers’ ability to speak Hebrew.
“And by no means, would [the ability to speak Hebrew] always be exclusive to a white-only cast and, in fact, we’ve produced it many years since we wrote it in 2003 and they’ve had actors of all color in their roles,” Shannon Guggenheim said. “But the last cast that we had back in 2016 happens to be all white.”
She said while she knew it was important to have a diverse cast, finding actors of color was difficult.
“I reached out because even though we have auditions, even though we post in all of the obvious professional places, we just weren’t getting enough people to draw from,” Shannon Guggenheim said.
Only two people of color applied out of the 75 applications for the 2021 show, she said.
Jackson Davis, an Actor’s Equity Association member cast as the Into the Woods narrator, said he wasn’t aware of the casting controversy until a few days before the show was canceled.
The Actor’s Equity Association is a U.S. actor and stage manager labor union founded in 1913, according to its website.
Davis said in the ‘90s, he played the lead role in Into the Woods at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts about 25 minutes from Downtown San Jose.
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley is a performing arts center for year-round seasons of musicals, comedies and dramas, according to its website.
Davis said he worked with the Guggenheims in the past and had positive experiences with them.
“I believe [the family’s] hearts are in the right place,” Davis said in a phone call. “But only time will tell if they can use this to be a better organization and if we in the Bay Area can use this to be a better community.”
Davis said it’s already difficult to find jobs as an actor because they have to be able to handle rejection, so aspects including race and gender can be obstacles.
“It’s a tough situation to be an actor,” Davis said. “And I can only imagine how much worse it is if people feel like their heritage or you know the color of their skin is holding them back.”
In the 2017–18 season, about 38% of roles were filled by artists of color, according to an annual report from the Asian American Performers Action Coalition that examines representation in New York theater.
Music junior Don Nguyen said it’s important for those sitting in the audience of a theater production to see themselves in the cast, especially in San Jose’s diverse city.
“When I see [Asian performers] I just feel very hopeful for myself as a music major,” Nguyen said in a phone call. “I am a performer and just seeing someone who looks like me on stage, it means a lot.”
Guggenheim said the company reached out to SJSU theatre professors and professors at other universities for student actor referrals, but the company’s efforts weren’t successful.
“[SJSU theatre professors] didn’t recommend anybody that we hadn’t already spoken to,” Guggenheim said.
Kirsten Brandt said nobody reached out to her about casting to see if any of her students would be interested in auditioning.
Guggenheim said actors who spoke to Guggenheim Entertainment already had a job conflict with the Into the Woods time period or already had a “day job.”
“There was nobody else to cast who was appropriate for the parts and that’s not a race comment, that’s a, you know, talent and availability comment,” Guggenheim said.
Brandt said she respects Guggenheim for wanting to give actors their contracts but casts are based on the production itself so the list should’ve been reevaluated.
Nguyen also said the company should’ve addressed the casting situation earlier and been clearer about its decisions.
“I feel like the handling of everything is just not direct,” Nguyen said. “I just wish they had some kind of more direct route and more immediate response to calm down the situation.”
Scott Guggenheim posted an apology on Sept. 11 for the production’s lack of diversity in the private Facebook group “Bay Area Theater Folks” which is where the casting controversy was initially objected by several members.
Bay Area Theater Folks is a group with more than 15,000 members intended for individuals to post acting gigs and jobs relating to theater in the Bay Area. It’s also a forum for people to discuss theater and talk about shows and productions they’ve seen.
“We ask you for grace. We need to do better. And we will. We have fallen short and are truly sorry,” Scott Guggenheim said in the post.
Some members of the group weren’t satisfied with his apology.
East Bay actor Daniel Olsen commented in the Facebook group and called the show, “Into the White People Only Woods.”
Other members of the Facebook group said the San Jose Playhouse should shut down.
Nguyen said the criticism was good for the company to hear but some Facebook group members’ negative comments were excessive.
“I think [the commenters are] doing a good job but along the line it seems like bullying,” Nguyen said. “Because there’s a mob mentality that this person attacked and then another piled on and it’s actually 430 something comments to call them out and it’s quite a lot.”
The Facebook group members also voiced frustrations and compared the San Jose Playhouse to the Berkeley Playhouse, which announced Sept. 9 it was putting on its own production of Into the Woods with a more diverse cast, Shannon Guggenheim said.
Brandt said she hopes Guggenheim Entertainment learns from the controversy.
“It’s unfortunate. It’s sad that that happened and I hope that they learn from it and realize what an incredibly rich, diverse city San Jose is,” Brandt said. “And then that starts to be reflected in their shows.”
Guggenheim said the company regrets not canceling the show earlier.
“It was a gut wrenching decision for us to go forward and announce an all white cast,” Guggenheim said. “I certainly do believe now that I wish that we would have just canceled the show in the first place and not done it.”
