RESEARCHING REPRESENTATIONAL PRACTICES IN MUSICAL THEATRE
When Sara Schroeter set out to attend a local musical theatre production one evening , an outing with one of her children , she didn ' t expect she would have to have difficult conversations
Dr . Sara Schroeter with her family because of the problematic racial representations .
" As a mother of mixed-race children , when I started going to the musical theater and seeing the problematic representations and after talking with my husband and hearing him say the damage was already done , and that this was one of many , many experiences that our children will have , that they might not understand right now , but one day they will , and these experiences will have an accumulated impact [ sigh ]— that ’ s when I realized that this is what we are doing with musicals ."
Musical theatre is a popular and traditional feature in many high schools across North America , including Regina . When Schroeter first joined the Faculty of Education as an assistant professor of arts and drama education , she realized she needed a gain a better understanding of musical theatre : " Musical theatre is what many of my students in Arts Ed understood theatre to be . I needed to better understand what ’ s going on in musical theatre . I was told that musicals are really big for the local high schools and the community attends these musical shows ."
Schroeter set out to investigate and says , " I went to two musical theatre productions the first year I was here and both had really problematic representations of either race or gender and sexuality — some of the most troubling representations that I have seen recently , certainly something I didn ’ t expect to see in 2016 ."
Her experiences caused Schroeter to start questioning the pedagogical value of musical theatre . She wondered where teachers were drawing their inspiration from and how they were contending with issues of representation in a field that , she says , " is known to have quite a problematic history ."
In 2018 , Schroeter ' s wondering turned into a University of Regina , President ' s Seed Funded research project entitled , " Staging Difference : Examining Representational Practices in Musical Theatre Productions in Regina Schools and on Professional Stages ."
Though a drama educator , this exploration into musical theatre has been a new focus for Schroeter , whose research has mostly focused on youth representations of self and other through drama . " I study applied theatre and drama in education , and am interested in youth making their own stories and telling their own stories . My research has also examined representational practices , often drawing on critical race theory and cultural studies ."
Schroeter ' s research project involves two parts : " Part of my research is to look at what is going on in high schools , interviewing teachers , and part of it is to go and see contemporary progressive shows , or shows said to be doing progressive things ."
Though her research is not complete yet , and no in-depth analysis has been done on the data , Schroeter is able to share some of her understanding of the issues so far .
Musical theatre productions are essentially money makers , Schroeter says . As such , " they are meant to have an appeal to a large audience . To do this , they rely heavily on stereotypes and tropes to make easily recognizable characters so that everybody knows what story is being told . These representations always comes with issues ."
When musicals are purchased for reproduction at the high school level , as commercial enterprises , strictly guided by copyright law , there is little room for local teachers to make adaptations . This is a problem because , Schroeter says , there are “ so many ways in which race , religion , and gender and heteronormativity are written into the productions as a way of telling a particular story about how Americans see themselves and the image they want to portray in American society .” Summarizing Hoffman ( 2014 ) in The Great White Way , Schroeter says " the musical is in essence part and parcel of the invention of Americanism and white supremacy , with roots in minstrel shows from the 1800s and early 1900s when performers did dress up with blackface , and used quintessential stereotypes , such as mammy .”
As a form of public pedagogy , Schroeter views high school musical theatre as " teaching all of those things that make up what we are understanding and learning — how we construct knowledge .” Referencing Donatella Galella ' s work , Schroeter says that " musical theatre is a form of public pedagogy because it tells us stories about who we are and who we imagine ourselves to be ."
As an example , Schroeter points to Hamilton ( 2015 ), which is purported to be a very progressive musical production . She says , " Hoffman writes about songs in musicals , such as the song for change . The main character goes through immense change and the person who sings the song for change is usually a white character who has multiple dimensions , whereas characters of colour are presented as flat characters ; they stay the same throughout the show . Hamilton ( 2015 ) plays with this by representing white characters through actors of colour . Actors of colour get to play this range of emotion and change , but it is still problematic because they are still representing White folks , so they haven ’ t changed and disrupted what happens in the structure of the musical ."
Schroeter also highlights other problems with Hamilton ( 2015 ): " The way the American history is told through hip hop makes history relevant , but it also makes the history irrelevant , because it is a story from which the actors of colour in the cast have historically been excluded — in some ways a reappropriation . Why aren ’ t they telling the story of the Haitian revolution or of the theft of lands ; there are so many others stories that could have been told
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