The cast of West Side Story rehearses. Photo by Duncan Davies ’21.
With a cast made up of 40 percent students of color,
West Side Story
at Hamilton is the most diverse mainstage production in Hamilton history. The both of us are not only Hispanic students but also specifically of Puerto Rican and Mexican/Puerto Rican descent. We were brought on board to
West Side Story
to advise and shape the production after each of us independently expressed our concern about the representation and portrayal of people of color in the cast. For us, these are issues we take personally, and we don’t take them lightly or mean to make excuses for the Hamilton Theatre Department.
The most important goal we have for
West Side Story
is to create a diverse production that is positive in its representation of people of color.
This particular production is not the traditional
West Side Story
about a white gang and a Puerto Rican gang in the 1950s. We, as well as the director, Mark Cryer, believe that the show should reflect the diverse backgrounds of those students who make up the cast. We are focusing on the idea that
West Side Story
is, at its crux, a story of immigrants in America who are identified as “the other” — something any person of color can understand.
In the original show, the Sharks are a gang of Puerto Rican immigrants; our production will feature actors playing characters of their own ethnic background, including actors of Chinese, Dominican, Vietnamese, and Venezuelan descent, among others. The only students of color who are playing Puerto Rican roles are those playing the four central characters. This choice was made to maintain the integrity of the Puerto Rican story at the center of the musical. Any comparisons to brownface or minstrel shows are without warrant.
“Minstrelsy is an entertainment form that employs the use of blackface, stump speech, and comic dancing to parody black people,” says Adrian Summers ’19, who portrays Chino in the musical. “The entire function of a minstrel show is to assert white superiority and gain a laugh by lampooning blackness. I don’t feel as though brownface or minstrelsy relate to our production. Our assistant directors are mentoring the few actors playing Puerto Ricans to avoid exaggerated accents and speaking cadences that could be otherwise offensive.”
Puerto Ricans are a uniquely disenfranchised kind of immigrant. As citizens without a country that is uniquely our own and “immigrants” in the only place where we can vote for president, we are both Americans and outsiders. Removing that complicated dichotomy from
West Side Story
is offensive. It’s also particularly important to speak to the difficulties that the island faces in the Trump era. Hurricane Maria stripped the island of its fifty-year-old infrastructure. The neglect of the Trump administration to act effectively in the wake of the storm speaks to a long-prevailing attitude about Puerto Ricans that we are not Americans.
The original
West Side Story
challenged this attitude and continues to do so today. Bringing this conversation to the campus of a predominantly-white institution like Hamilton is not only ambitious, but admirable. Puerto Rico is simply a remote island to most people here. But to us, the hardships facing the island hit closer to home. By staging this play, we can bring Puerto Rico to the attention of our disengaged and distant campus.
In an ideal situation, all Puerto Rican roles would be played by Puerto Rican actors — this is an inescapable fact. Unfortunately, we have to do the best we can with what we’re given in theatre. All Puerto Rican characters are portrayed by students who are either mixed race or students of color. This is how the cards fell: we simply don’t have the resources. As it stands, Hispanic/Latinx students comprise only 7.9 percent of the student population here at Hamilton, and a tiny fraction of those students are Puerto Rican. No Puerto Rican students auditioned for the musical.
That being said, we welcome criticism of our show. We are in no way saying that this production is unproblematic or without flaws.
West Side Story
at its conception was — and still is — an unsound play, as a play written about Puerto Rican characters should not be written by white men. That is why Mark brought us on board: he was concerned about portraying a culture he has few personal references for.
What we will not accept are personal attacks on our cast and crew members. Our actors are very aware of the responsibility they have been tasked with to do their best to create a respectful representation of the cultures they are portraying. The cast members are engaged in research and dialect training for their roles. We are proud of the work they are doing. We had an unprecedented amount of people of color come out for auditions. As minorities in the theatre department, we hope that this will encourage actors of color to become more involved and feel more welcome to participate in mainstage productions in the future.
We need to stand by the mission of our show — to tell a love story in the context of a divided America, to bring diversity to the Hamilton stage, and to take the first steps towards change, both for the Hamilton Theatre Department and the Hamilton community at large.
The West Side Story cast and crew weigh in:
“I think that revolutionary ideas begin in the theater, and that we have a responsibility as theatre artists to put forth the vision of what we want our world to look like. In this case, it’s our responsibility to put forth the vision of what we want our department, and even our campus, to look like. It’s wild to think that wanting more melanin in our department and campus, wanting empathy between the ‘Other’ and the dominant group, and wanting to highlight our commonalities is a ‘revolutionary idea,’ but with everything going on today — from this ‘wall talk’ to the Make-America-Great-Again-hat wearing teens yelling at indigenous folks — it’s important to take this story beyond just Puerto Ricans and fight for respect for all ‘othered’ groups. This production is important to me as an actor of color and as one of the very few Theatre concentrators of color, because finally my race feels less like a burden or a layer that I need to work against to help the audience believe me as a member of a typical play’s white-dominated world, more like something that is focused and enhances my character. I feel blessed to finally know what it’s like to feel centered and to really bond with castmates who really understand me. Our chemistry is super electric because of that. This confidence boost is crucial to my development as an actor, and it’s an element that, unlike most of my peers in theatre, I have had to wait long and hard for. I really hope people can understand how it feels to be denied that growth, or at least try to see from that perspective.”
– Adrian Summers ’19
“As an international student, I appreciate the opportunity to present my own identity, which I already think is a big step as compared to if the school kept putting up ‘white’ plays just because there are many white students.”
– Rachel Lee ’22
“As a Cuban-American actor, and as the grandson of four Cuban immigrants, I understand that our immigrant story is not the exact same as the Puerto Rican immigrant story. However, to my knowledge, there is no play out there that tells my family’s specific story, and while it is not the same, the experiences of Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants are very similar. Half of my family even emigrated to Puerto Rico before moving to the mainland United States. I cannot even begin to express how much it means to me to be able to explore this part of my identity on stage for the first time.”
– Gustavo Gonzalez ’21
“I am a nearly six-foot tall, goodly Haitian man playing the role of a skinny, middle-aged white man. In other words, we transformed Doc. I am still Tony’s father figure and an OG. I shift the energy of the play. Most importantly, my identity and appearance do not take away from the character’s impact on the play. No, I am not advocating for a white cast to play Puerto Rican characters, but I am calling to attention the importance of intent and impact. We intend to tell an immigrant story in America, mirroring the current socio-political climate, which contains racial tension, violence, and division. We intend to transmute a story about non-white kids in the hood. At a school where white is majority, how else can we begin telling minority stories without trying? This is only the first step.”
– Ricardo Millien ’19
“I don’t condone whitewashing shows. That being said, theatre is telling other people’s stories. Shows are made to be interpreted. It does bother me that we are taking some of the Puerto Rican elements out of a Puerto Rican story. In my mind that’s just tearing out the little bit of POC culture present in musical theatre. Which makes me question why this was the choice of show in the first place. However, no one in this production is trying to attack the culture, and given the circumstances, the director is doing the best he possibly can. Sometimes I feel like being able to tell this story in the most appropriate way takes precedence over any other part of the production. That’s clear to everyone involved. That’s super important. Because of that I appreciate what Mark is trying to do.”
– Chris Victor ’21
“While the original show created by Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins definitely has aspects of racism and definitely mocks Puerto Rican culture by filling the narrative of the Sharks with stereotypes, the Hamilton version seeks to erase that…Our cast members who are portraying Puerto Ricans have been undergoing dialect training and have had to do their research in order to accurately portray the culture in the utmost respectful way. Our director, Mark Cryer, has even said himself that he does not want to put out any stereotypes whatsoever, which is why we have been rehearsing almost every day…tons of people auditioned for these roles and tons of them were cut. Not just anyone can portray these roles and that’s why it was hard to create this cast…So what do I think should be done? I think people should see the show because your fellow peers worked hard and it will open the doors for more diversity in the theatre department! Finally, I think you should see it because a lesson can be learned from it. This lesson does not include inaccurate, racist, or harmful representations of Afro-Puerto Rican students (and other minorities).”
– Jonelle Menner ’22
Signed,
Members of the
West Side Story
Cast and Crew, including: Rachel Lee, Ricardo Millien, Chris Victor, Adrian Summers, Gustavo Gonzalez, Jonelle Menner, Rebeka Fowler, Kenny Letts, David Tener, Addie Amadeck, Sarah Gyurina, Sharon Hammer, Man Nguyen, Teddy Sullivan, Ndanu Mutisya, Will Benthem de Grave, Jack Clark, and BellaDonna Sins