Anti-Racism Conversation: Casting Shakespeare in a Contemporary World
Booking and details
Dates Sat, Jan 27, 2024, 10am
Venue
Folger Haskell Center
Across the street from Folger Theatre
Tickets $20; $15 for Members and Subscribers ($35 - Festival Pass)
Duration 1 hour
What are the implications of multicultural casting using 400-year-old texts that were initially written for and performed only by white European men? Kaja Dunn, Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Folger Theatre’s Resident Intimacy and Cultural Consultant, leads a conversation about casting Shakespeare’s plays in today’s world, examining color-blind casting, societal casting, conceptual casting, and cross-cultural casting.
Festival Pass – $35
Access to all Festival open rehearsals, readings, screenings, and conversations.
All-Access Pass – $75
Everything in the Festival Pass, plus invitations to the opening and closing parties.
Students – Free admission to readings and conversations
Admitted free one-half hour before event start time, with a valid ID
Kaja Dunn
Kaja Dunn (Director) Folger Theatre and Cincinnati Shakespeare Company: A Room in the Castle; Cape Fear Regional Theatre: No Child; California Center for the Arts: Hairalouges; Old Globe: Playwrights Project: Plays by Young Writers Festival: Staged Readings or Pandemic Performances; Triad Stage: Freedom Hill; Studios of Key West and North Carolina Black Rep: Jeffery Manor; Playmakers Rep: Edges of Time (reading), Noms De Guerre. University of North Carolina College: Blues for an Alabama Sky, Suessical, Twighlight: Los Angeles, As It Is In Heaven; Cal State, San Marcos: Telling Stories. Carnegie Mellon University: Associate Professor.
Jorge Acevedo
Jorge Acevedo he/him (Casting Director) SIGNATURE: Casting Director & Manager of Artistic Programs: RENT, Daphne’s Dive, She Loves Me, The Upstairs Department, The Color Purple, No Place to Go, Into the Woods, Which Way to the Stage, Selling Kabul, Pacific Overtures, Passing Strange, Sweeney Todd, The Bridges of Madison County, King of the Yees, Ragtime; Casting & Executive Coordinator: Simply Sondheim, Daniel J. Watts’ The Jam: Only Child, Midnight at The Never Get, After Midnight, Detroit 67. DC AREA: The Kennedy Center: The Dragon King’s Daughter; The Mortification of Fovea Munson; Shakespeare Theatre Company: The Amen Corner; Working In DC: Working: A Musical. OTHER: Casting Directive – Broadway for Racial Justice: Inaugural Class. TEDxBroadway: Young Professionals Program, 2018. EDUCATION: Wagner College. @TheeJorgeAvocado.
Danica Rodriguez
Danica Rodriguez (she/her) is a New York/Washington D.C.-based casting director and theater maker dedicated to centering and celebrating the voices of the historically underrepresented. She is currently Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Resident Casting Director. STC: The Lehman Trilogy; Macbeth In Stride; Evita; Here There Are Blueberries; King Lear; Jane Anger; Much Ado About Nothing; Red Velvet; Our Town; The Merchant of Venice. NEW YORK: Off-Broadway: The Public Theater: cullud wattah (World Premiere); Romeo y Julieta; Soft Power; for colored girls…; Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare in the Park); Mojada; Ain’t No Mo’ (World Premiere). REGIONAL: Folger Theatre: Our Verse in Time to Come | Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes; Incendiary | The Kennedy Center: The Day You Begin | Long Wharf Theatre: Passing Strange | JAG Productions: Next to Normal | The Civilians: El Condor Magico, and others. FILM: Braid of Time; Whole; Six Feet Apart.
Nikkole Salter
Nikkole Salter is an award-winning actress, playwright, educator, and arts advocate. For her work she has received the OBIE, an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Global Tolerance Award from the Friends of the United Nations a Selfdes-Kanin Fellowship from the Theatre Hall of Fame, and most recently a Lilly Award for her contributions to the betterment of the theatre field. Her writing has been produced on three continents in five countries, been published in twelve international publications, and has been featured on the WNET program Theatre Close-Up. She is currently the Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts at Howard University and she is set to perform in the world premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s new play, We Are Gathered, at Arena Stage this spring. She is a graduate of Howard University and NYU’s Grad Acting Program. nikkolesalter.com