Should white directors be given black plays?

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Seated around a large table during the first week of rehearsal for “The Night Is a Child,” director Sheldon Epps guides his actors’ investigation of a scene between an American woman and the hotel owner she encounters in Brazil. He asks them about the differences between Boston and Brazil, the grayness versus the color, and the contrasts that these first scenes must embody.
With a cast lead by JoBeth Williams, Charles Randolph-Wright’s “The Night Is a Child” opens Friday in its West Coast premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse, where Epps is artistic director. The play revolves around the experience of Williams’ Bostonian, and that of her family, in the wake of a Columbine-style killing spree by one of her sons.
Key characters in this play are a white woman and her family. The director happens to be black, as does the playwright. Should it matter?

If the answer seems simple, recent dialogue in the theater community suggests otherwise. What Epps has created in this Pasadena rehearsal room is largely the exception.

Jan Breslauer has the story in Sunday Arts & Books.