ABSTRACT
Today’s actors are the next generation of pioneers in understanding the idea of equity and representation on the American stage. They are the inheritors of a 2040 census projection that states that there will be no recognizable majority/minority in the current way we look at demographic statistics in this country. This does not mean, however, that economic equity will be met in our society, nor that representational equity will be met on our stages. Participate in the process of researching and making theatre about the repressed stories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Black/African American/Actor of Color must be well aware of the specifics of culture and how it informs the representation of any character. The fact that there are Afro-Cubans who look like Black/African American people, but also speak Spanish, can be confounding to directors who rely on two dimensional representations of character that fall short of any true expression of the human experience.
