Cross-cultural casting: Case studies on the academic stage

This document addresses the issue of cross-cultural casting on the university theatre stage, exploring the multiple challenges it poses while gauging its impact on the performer and the spectator. Cross-cultural casting serves to increase opportunities for certain groups of actors who are typically under-represented when casting for major stage productions. This document investigates the impact of cross-cultural casting on the actor process in rehearsal and performance. It advocates pedagogical approaches directors can use when preparing or thinking about employing cross-cultural casts at the university theatre level. The document is divided into five chapters that outline the actor process through casting, rehearsals, collaborations, gauging actor and audience perception, and guidelines that can be used to advance cross-cultural casting practices in academia. It is a process-oriented work used to examine three different university-based cross-cultural productions as case studies. It proposes that the employment of cross-cultural casts in academia can be a successfully innovative process, and can be used to alter the perception of students, theatre practitioners, communities, and the future of the professional stage.