ABSTRACT
When actors of color play across racial identities, they can conform to, contest, and even revolutionize systemic racism. A period’s dominant racial paradigm (who has the authority to play whom) indexes how racial hierarchy and representation work in different historic moments. Some contemporary artists of color have written cross-racial casting into their scripts, showing the social construction of race and advancing center-left political projects. In Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1994) by Anna Deavere Smith and Hamilton (2015) by Lin-Manuel Miranda, people of color gain equal footing with white perspectives through inclusive casting and emphases on shared humanity. This color-blind multiculturalist approach tends to suggest that race rather than racism is the problem. Meanwhile, Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone (2015) and David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori’s Soft Power (2018) offer color-conscious creative interventions. By having Asian Americans perform in exaggerated whiteface, these artists denaturalize the privileged people who reside in the comfortable, racially unmarked center and ultimately re-Orient white supremacy.
