The Glass Colored Boy: Race and Theater in the Age of Obama
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.