Dear Mr. Shakespeare,
HAPPY 400th BIRTHDAY!
I just have to say that on this day I honor you with a giant - THANK YOU - for writing timeless plays which empowered me as a director to avoid the theatrical traps of “whitewashing” or “gender biasing” or “beautifying” my casts that I am seeing in our modern theatrical productions.
“Talent” has no prescribed external descriptors.
Because of you, I have a wish that ALL of my theatrical peers would realize and work harder to fascilitate the development of a theatrical world wherein plays such as yours and the thousands of others that can be produced with diverse casts...without insulting cultures, genders, appearance, and abilities...would be seen by the amazing audiences who grace our spaces.
I hope they do it.
Because if we as the educators of what Theatre should look like don't do this...why will our students when they join the bigger and more visible theatre world?
Love from Mongolia in 2016,
Zena
P.S. I just saw, for the 2nd time, your Romeo and Juliet in Mongolian with an ALL Mongolian cast...phenomenal.
P.P.S. I adore you!!!