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"Why don't the majority of American stages reflect the wondrous diversity of our world?" mused Mia Katigbak, artistic director of the National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO). "How is it that we cannot imagine onstage what is outside our windows, on our streets, in our buildings?"1 Simply put: Racial representation on the American stage is incongruous with the heterogeneity of United States. According to 2010 census data, "virtually half of recent births in the U.S. are minorities" (Frey), and yet the opportunities for non-Caucasian actors remain scarce. A recent study of Broadway and leading nonprofit New York City theatres by the Asian American Performers Action Committee explicates the particular difficulties for actors of Asian heritage: they are "the least likely of the major minority groups to play roles that were not defined by their race," as well as "the only minority group to see their numbers go down, from 3% five years ago, increasing to a high of 4% in the 07/08 season and then dropping steeply for the next two years to 1 percent [sic ] in the 09/10 season, with a slight uptick to 2% this past year" (Gener). For over twenty-five years, NAATCO has responded to these challenges by producing European and American classics with all-Asian American casts, adaptations of these classics by Asian American playwrights, and new plays written by non-Asian American writers not for or about Asian Americans yet performed by an all-Asian American cast. "In choosing the repertory above," NAATCO's mission is to "demonstrate a rich tapestry of cultural difference bound by the American experience. The enrichment accrues to each different culture as well as to America as a whole" ("About Us"). This essay examines the strategy behind, and the effectiveness of, NAATCO's mission through a case study of two of its productions as a means of opening up a discussion about racial representation at large.
Of particular interest here are its productions of plays with all Jewish characters, Leah's Train (2009) and the more recent Awake and Sing! (2013).2 As the reception of these productions indicates, who is considered a legitimate representative of another onstage speaks volumes about critical attitudes toward racial groups offstage. In the context of this debate, interrogating notions of Jewish identity make for a...