Is it discrimination or representation? Canceled Scottsdale play leaves many in debate
Download mp3 (7.04 MB)The play "Roosters" at Scottsdale Desert Stages Theatre was supposed to open this month. Instead, it was controversially canceled and the stage sat empty.
When a white actress is accidently cast to play a Mexican-American girl, is recasting the role considered discrimination?
It’s a complicated question that encompasses the moral and legal debate of authentic casting, why some in the theater community are upset, and what the playwright herself thinks about it.
After reviewing video auditions, Chris R. Chávez expected to direct an all-Latino cast for his production of "Roosters" — a play about a Southwest Hispanic-American family. The audition notice said all the characters were Mexican-American.
And Chávez believed the cast was, too. But before rehearsals began, when he referenced the cast being all-Latino, one of the actresses informed him that she was not — so he recast the role with someone who was.
“I, being a Chicano artist and this being a Chicano play, I will always forthright go with the story and who is telling the story,” Chávez said.
Chávez says he was told the mom of the teen actress complained of discrimination to Desert Stages Theatre. Production was paused as the theater’s board of directors decided what to do.
'Potential legal and ethical liabilities'
After 10 days of silence, Chávez says he and his cast got an email from the board.
It said "Roosters" was canceled and that “the situation created potential legal and ethical liabilities, for not just DST but the director as well.”
When the theater made a public statement about the cancellation, more than a week later, it accused the director of violating its discrimination policy. And it said the board would have “preferred the show continue as originally cast,” with the white actress, but “the Director did not support this approach.”
Meanwhile, a notable uproar from the theater community exploded online — with many defending the director’s intent to cast authentically.
Chávez says his decision was based, in part, on the playwright’s vision. He says the play is “very indicative of the culture.”
NYU’s Steinhardt Educational Theatre Department has an online catalog of Contemporary Playwrights of Color. They say the play "Roosters" acts "as an introduction to the complexities and nuances of the Mexican-American culture and family dynamic,” also saying the characters are “modeled after archetypes present in Mexican-American families.”
“If you look, do a simple Google search and look at previous casting of this play or look at interviews with the playwright, the intention is to reflect her own Latine culture. You cannot do that with people who are not of the culture,” Chávez said.
But when I reached out to the playwright of "Roosters," Milcha Sanchez-Scott, she expressed a different artistic intent.
“I think it’s narrowing to make it about one culture, limiting the actors to one culture. Because that’s what actors are trained to do, they’re trained to understand different cultures, different people in how they react,” Sanchez-Scott said.
Casting is a legal gray area
A Princeton University theater professor, Brian Eugenio Herrera, says the playwright has the final word. And if they intervene, they can stop shows on copyright grounds.
So it may seem like there is closure on how "Roosters" should have gone. But it’s important to know that, in general, casting authentically is not unusual and it’s not illegal.
“It's clearly an untested, undeveloped area of the law,” said Mike Selmi, a professor who teaches employment discrimination law at Arizona State University.
As Selmi says, there are two federal statutes important to the conversation: one involving employees and one involving contractors.
The actors for "Roosters," like many community theater actors in the Valley, are unpaid volunteers — though Chávez said he opted to give part of his director’s stipend to them. But regardless, defining the actors as employees or contractors would’ve been a fight itself.
Depending on how these actors would be defined, the 1964 discrimination statute for employees allows for minimal exceptions including ethnicity. The 1871 discrimination statute for contractors does not exempt ethnicity.
But Selmi suggests the theater could theoretically argue it has a First Amendment right to cast as it chooses. But the area is legally gray, and generally avoided by courts.
“It’s not that they're exempt from the statute but that these casting issues in the entertainment area, theater, movies, television, are just kind of protected for whatever reason,” Selmi said.
Herrera says usually within the eyes of the law, artistic expression trumps equity of opportunity. He compares it to the fashion industry legally asking for models of a certain size.
Theater's discrimination policy
Both men agree, another factor here is that Desert Stages Theatre has its own discrimination policy.
“In most theaters in the United States, including educational context, not-for-profit theaters, community theaters, anybody getting grants, they typically are operating under sort of semi-legal guidelines like 501(c)(3)s, which found their not-for-profit status — which often include things like non-discrimination clauses,” Herrera said.
Regardless, Herrera says these decisions and artistic intentions should have been worked out between the theater and the director long before the casting notice was made public.
“Like if you’re saying I’m going to cast this really culturally specifically, I’m really looking to do this, there should have been guidance from the theater saying these are the limits in which you can do this and these are the things you can’t do,” Herrera said.
Chávez claims no one had any issue with his audition notice, which stated that the characters are Mexican-American.
But in the theater’s statement, they used that same notice as proof that nothing precluded other ethnicities from being cast in "Roosters."
“Casting stirs interest for a variety of reasons,” Herrera said. “So rather than just enjoying the fact that we can argue about what was right and wrong, what is actually going on underneath that conversation is where we, how we move forward, because otherwise we'll just have the same conversation again in a couple years when a similar controversy erupts in our community.”
'Some of the actors were very upset, very hurt'
And there seems to be an underlying issue involving Desert Stages Theatre.
“This situation in general, very much damaged their reputation in that they didn't have a good reputation of supporting BIPOC artists to begin with. They really never have,” said Shelly Trujillo, who was to be the costume designer for "Roosters." “And so now there's a big issue. Some of the actors were very upset, very hurt, same feeling, and they went to social media to vent their frustrations.”
Trujillo identifies as Chicana, Mexican-American, and she says the theater is lacking in cultural competency.
“That deliberation and the decision to cancel the show was done in a vacuum. None of us who were part of this, part of a cast, part of a design crew, any of that, were involved in a conversation as to why this is a necessary step to tell our story,” Trujillo said.
The theater did not respond to multiple attempts to comment on this story.
Tiffany Valenzuela, a Chicana actress, was originally cast in "Roosters" as the character Juana. Valenzuela said she felt the theater board prioritized the white actress over the rest of the production team.
“They should have known that they were trying to do a show that represented this specifically underrepresented community, and they should have at least listened to us more and advocated for us more,” Valenzuela said.
Miguel Rodriguez, a Chicano actor, was originally cast in "Roosters" as the character Gallo. He says there are many roles for white actors.
“There's a lot of shows out here in the theater community, but there's limited ones for BIPOC,” Rodriguez said.
Similar situation at Mesa theater
Taylor Moschetti is with another community theater in the Valley. She took over as Mesa Encore Theatre’s producing artistic director after a similar issue happened in 2022 at this theater. A two-day, one-act play festival that was supposed “to focus on the diversity and inclusion through the arts” instead was canceled after many BIPOC actors and crew walked out two days before opening, accusing leadership of being complacent or actively contributing to a disrespectful and unsafe production process. An open letter also called for the previous producing artistic director to step down. A later investigation by the theater concluded that “multiple areas needed to be addressed.”
When Moschetti started, she implemented an accountability system into her rehearsal processes, she says, with the intent of making rehearsal spaces open to problem solving if issues of inappropriate behavior or language arise.
She says actors need a frame of reference to portray a marginalized character because otherwise: “You don't get true authenticity. You also are potentially creating more stereotypes that don't deserve to exist,” Moschetti said.
As for "Roosters" playwright Sanchez-Scott, she says her play has been done all over the world with and without Latino actors.
“The same way Hispanic people have been limited in society to certain things or Black people have been limited, I just want to do away with all those limitations. I think people that can do the job should be able to do it,” Sanchez-Scott said.
As of Feb. 28, just two days before what would have been opening night, Desert Stages Theatre had not informed Broadway Licensing Global — who licenses "Roosters" — that it canceled the show. A BLG spokesperson says this affects many things, including the ability for other theaters to obtain the rights.
