‘Saigon’ Spurs Resignation

Dom Magwili, director of the AsianAmerican Theatre Project at Los Angeles Theatre Center, resigned Thursday, protesting LATC producing director Diane White’s quoted statement about Actors’ Equity’s veto of the casting of Jonathan Pryce in “Miss Saigon.”

White had called Equity’s move “a terrible decision. . . . The whole affair smacks of censorship.” She also drew attention to cross-racial casting in LATC’s production of “The Crucible” and said “I believe in freedom for producers, freedom for directors, freedom for actors.”

“Diane assumes a world where all things are equal,” said Magwili, “that all actors can move from role to role, that anyone can play non-ethnic-specific (roles). That’s not the way of the world. Asian Americans have not been able to function in non-ethnic specific roles, but at least we had Asian roles. Now that door is closed. It becomes unacceptable and immoral for a white to dress in yellowface.”

He acknowledged that no “yellowface” had been donned at LATC, and he credited LATC with “going out of its way to open the door.” But he claimed that only three Asian-American actors had been hired in non-ethnic-specific roles at LATC since he became the AsianAmerican Theatre Project’s first director in 1988.

“I lose credibility in my community if I remain (at LATC),” he said.

“I hope he won’t follow through on that decision,” responded White. “I do believe the (Asian) actors had every right to protest.” White acknowledged that Magwili’s statistics about Asian actors at LATC might be true, adding: “We encourage non-traditional casting--we bring minority actors in at all times. But we don’t enforce it (on directors). That’s what I was talking about--freedom.”