Freedom Party NY on the move against racism

Protestors Take Aim at Scottsboro Boys Musical

By Kenneth Jones
November 8, 2010

The Scottsboro Boys, the new Broadway musical that seeks to expose the evils of racism by using an outdated theatrical form — the minstrel show — to tell its story, was criticized on Nov. 6 by a group of curbside protestors at the matinee performance.

The protest at the Lyceum Theatre was organized by The Freedom Party, a black and Latino political group concerned about historical marginalization and racism. The New York Times reported about 30 protestors in attendance. They carried The Freedom Party banner.

"This racist play has reduced the tragedy of the Scottsboro Boys case to a Step n Fetchit comedic, minstrel exhibition," according to a statement from the group. "It is this type of attack on our culture and history which makes the Freedom Party absolutely necessary."

Written by Tony Award-winning songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb and librettist David Thompson, with direction and choreography by Tony winner Susan Stroman, the musical tells of the 1931 arrest and multi-year incarceration of nine black teenagers for a crime they did not commit. The case made international headlines and was a flashpoint in Civil Rights history, inspiring the next generation to take strides toward freedom.

To expose the injustice in a theatrical way, the creative team borrows the racist and highly presentational conventions of the minstrel show (a now-defunct form), including the use of blackface (briefly), the cakewalk, sentimental Southern ballad and a clownish solo turn. White racists are freely lampooned in the work.

With the exception of the Interlocutor, played Tony winner John Cullum, the cast is made up of black performers. The minstrel tradition in the 19th-century featured white men in blackface makeup. Later minstrel shows featured black performers.

Stroman previously told Playbill.com that the goal was "taking something that was an art form a long time ago and spinning it on its head" to make greater political and social points. She noted that the characters eventually overturn the plan of the white emceee and have a kind of ownership over the experience.

"[The minstrel show] was a device — what was once known as a racially charged [form], or still known as a racially charged [form] — to tell a racially charged story," Stroman said.

An explanatory insert about the case, the real-life characters and the minstrel tradition is included in every Playbill at the Lyceum. It says, in part, "The Scottsboro Boys uses the free-for-all atmosphere of the minstrel show to provide a fitting backdrop for the racially charged media and legal circuses that surrounded the real Scottsboro Boys trials."

Read Playbill.com's earlier interview with librettist Thompson, on the topic of minstrel shows.

‘Scottsboro Boys’ Is Focus of Protest

By PATRICIA COHEN

Brett England Protesters outside the Lyceum Theater, where “The Scottsboro Boys” is playing.

A group of about 30 people gathered on Saturday afternoon in front of the Lyceum Theater to protest a matinee of the new Broadway musical “The Scottsboro Boys,” which retells the story of nine African-Americans between 12 and 19 who were falsely convicted of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. The show, written by the celebrated team of John Kander and the late Fred Ebb and directed by the Tony-winning director Susan Stroman, uses the minstrel tradition to tell the story of how racism infected the judicial system.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
John Cullum, center, in a scene from the Broadway production of “The Scottsboro Boys.”

The protesters, organized by the Freedom Party, argued that the use of minstrelsy and blackface were racist. Ms. Stroman said she was disappointed that people who probably had not seen the musical misunderstood that the creators were not celebrating the minstrel tradition but rather using it to reveal the evils of the system.

“The trials were treated as if the boys were in a minstrel show” because it was such a farce, she said of the production. “The actors actually deconstruct the device in front of the audience,” and in the end, rebel against it.

Mr. Kander and Mr. Ebb have used music to depict other sensitive topics like the rise of Nazism in Weimar Germany in “Cabaret” and the corrupt criminal justice system of the 1920s in “Chicago.” Ms. Stroman directed “The Producers,” which included the satiric number “Springtime for Hitler.”

Barry Weissler, one of the producers of “The Scottsboro Boys,” said that the minstrel show simply “houses the story we’re trying to tell. It’s not meant to demean or degrade anybody.”