Recently on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Sheryl Sandberg’s name was mentioned during a panel discussion on the issue of powerful women in the workplace. Sandberg was touted as a prime example of the sort of women who have penetrated the glass ceiling to occupy traditionally male positions of power and secure tremendous (in Sandberg’s case overwhelming) financial prosperity.
In recent years, American plays written for all-white casts have found new life in productions with all-black casts. Intended by their producers and directors to demonstrate the universality of their texts, these productions have in mind a project whereby the physical composition of the actors will articulate a heretofore unrealized meaning within a given text. In particular, audience members who are understood to share the important physical characteristics of the actors (in this case their skin color) are perceived as being rewarded with a new connection to a text that was previously reserved for an ostensibly all-white audience.