| re: Was there resistance to the all-Black cast of HELLO, DOLLY! in 1967? | |
| Posted by: Fasslercom (Fasslercom@me.com) 10:42 am EDT 05/30/24 | |
| In reply to: Was there resistance to the all-Black cast of HELLO, DOLLY! in 1967? - portenopete 09:05 am EDT 05/30/24 | |
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| This is from my new book coming out later this year, "The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements" that addresses a couple of points about the all-Black "Dolly!" that David Merrick brought to Broadway in 1967: In a Life Magazine cover story on Dolly!’s historic re-casting, Bailey responded to some of the criticism leveled at the production. “Integration is one of the most distasteful words in the language. Wherever I am, that’s integration—because there’s love there.” After Merrick had approached her with the idea of taking on the role, she commented that “nothing was said then about it being a particular kind of cast, and later when I heard it was going to be an all-colored company, I paid it no mind.” But others did. Frederick O’Neal, the founder of the American Negro Theatre and then serving as the first Black president of Actors’ Equity, went on record that in the spirit of true integration, the Dolly! company should have had its share of white actors, too. There were some who felt that the whole idea of having the company be an all-Black one reeked of condescension. Bailey rightly struck back with the comment, “Why didn’t they worry about it at the time of the first Dolly!?” “Having an all-Negro cast—or an all-Jewish or all-Chinese one, for that matter—is not the idea at all,” O’Neal stated in a New York Times interview in July 1967, before Bailey even went into the show. “Of course, Negroes need the work they will get in the all-new production of Hello, Dolly! But we are sacrificing our principles for a few bucks.” |
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