Casting a Movement brings together US-based actors, directors, educators, playwrights, and scholars to explorethe cultural politics of casting.
Drawing on the notion of a "welcome table"-a space where artists of all backgrounds can come together as equals to create theatre-the book''s contributors discuss casting practices as they relate to varying communities and contexts, including Middle Eastern American theatre, Disability culture, multilingual performance, Native American theatre, color- and culturally-conscious casting, and casting as a means to dismantle stereotypes. Syler and Banks suggest that casting is a way to invite more people to the table so that the full breadth of US identities can be reflected onstage, and that casting is inherently a political act; because an actor''s embodied presence both communicates a dramatic narrative and evokes cultural assumptions associated with appearance, skin color, gender, sexuality, and ability, casting c
