KENT-- A national playwright is speaking out after a Kent State University adaptation of her production featured a white actor portraying Martin Luther King, Jr.
The school's pan-african studies department began a two-week run of "The Mountaintop," a play written by Katori Hall imagining the fictional events that may have taken place the evening before King's assassination in 1968.
Director Michael Oatman cast both a white actor and an African American actor to share the role of MLK during the show's six performances. Each actor appeared as King for three shows.
"I truly wanted to explore the issue of racial ownership and authenticity," Oatman said in a statement on the department's website. "I didn't want this to be a stunt, but a true exploration of King's wish that we all be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. I wanted the contrast...I wanted to see how the words rang differently or indeed the same, coming from two different actors, with two different racial backgrounds."
But the move didn't sit well with playwright Hall.
After recently learning about the production's casting choice, she shared her thoughts in a strongly worded essay published earlier this week on TheRoot.com.
"While it is true that I never designated in the play text that King and Camae be played by black actors, reading comprehension and good-old scene analysis would lead any director to cast black or darker-complexioned actors," she said in the piece.
She added no one from the school contacted her or her agent before the casting decision.
Now, she's including a stipulation into the play's licensing agreement that will require characters to be played by African Americans or black actors unless a different casting choice receives approval from Hall herself.
Hall's essay struck a chord with people across the country this week, causing many to take to social media to share their thoughts on the production's choice.
