1990s

In the early 1990s, Broadway changed a great deal, particularly in what shows were produced and how minorities were cast. In 1993, a young lyric soprano named Audra McDonald graduated from Julliard and was cast as “Carrie” in the Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Prior to that time, no other African American woman had ever been cast in that role. McDonald wowed the critics and audiences with her rendition of the classic song “Mr. Snow” and for her ability to transcend racial barriers to portray a traditionally white role (Broadway World 2004:4). This set a trend for the so-called “color bind” casting that shaped Broadway Theatre in the 1990s.

But it was not just “color-blind” casting that epitomized 1990s Broadway; it was the increasing creation of shows that had mixed casts not as a novelty, but as a matter of course. Jonathan Larsen’s hit musical Rent (1996) portrayed the lives of young artists in Green which Village in the late 1990s and featured an extremely diverse cast that included Fredi Walker and Gwen Stewart in key roles. Walker originated the role of Joanne, a savvy lesbian lawyer who played earth-mother to a group of 20-somethings who seemed to have no direction in life. Rent was revolutionary because it was an American-made musical that featured rock-like songs young people could identify with as it also dealt with issues of minorities, oppression, and diversity in a modern setting. The interracial cast did not address racial issues: the problems they all suffered were universal and it did not matter the color of a character’s skin.

Rent paved the way for musicals steeped in diversity – in which racial and ethnic issues were not necessarily integral to the plot. Shows like Marie Christine (1999) and Kiss Me Kate (1999) included characters for whom being black was not part of the story. Ragtime (1998) addressed racial diversity in New York in the 1920s and featured a mixed cast that brought life to the characters.

But as the 1990s came to a close, the Corporate Musicals sponsored by Disney began to take over Broadway and many feared that the new-found diversity would disappear. Instead, production companies like Disney created shows that continued the traditional color-blind casting, while also making the issues of minorities unimportant to the plot of the stories.