Editorial: A Controversial Company: Debating the Casting of the RSC’s The Orphan of
Zhao

Amanda Rogers and Ashley Thorpe

Who has a stake in intercultural practice, and on whose terms is it conceived? Can a particular group or individual claim ownership over performance concerning a locality, a tradition, or a form, and what happens if they do? Any attempt to answer
these questions will, out of necessity, become context dependent: we need to know who is performing, for whom, where, and what specific traditions and locales of performance are being engaged with. These variables can be keenly discerned in one of the least explored areas of theatre-studies: casting. Casting forcefully connects to
discourses pertaining to race and ethnicity, the national, international and transnational, relationships between self and other, as well as issues of inclusion and exclusion.

Special Issue: A Controversial Company: Debating the Casting of the RSC’s The Orphan of Zhao

Guest Editors: Amanda Rogers and Ashley Thorpe

Contents

Notes on Contributors
page 427

Editorial: A Controversial Company: Debating the Casting of the RSC’s The Orphan of Zhao
Amanda Rogers & Ashley Thorpe
pages 428-435

Articles

Casting Matters: Colour Trouble in the RSC’s The Orphan of Zhao
Ashley Thorpe
pages 436-451

Asian Mutations: Yellowface from More Light to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Orphan of Zhao
Amanda Rogers
pages 452-466

The Red and the Purple: Reflections on the Intercultural Imagination and Multicultural Casting
Angela Pao
pages 467-474

‘The Dog, the Guard, the Horses and the Maid’: Diverse Casting at the Royal Shakespeare Company
Sita Thomas
pages 475-485

Documents

Interview with the RSC’s Hannah Miller, Head of Casting, and Kevin Fitzmaurice, Producer
Amanda Rogers & Ashley Thorpe
pages 486-493

Letter to Malcolm Sinclair, Equity, from The Orphan of Zhao Company
Youssef Kerkour
pages 494-495

Interview with Daniel York, Actor, Writer, and Director and Anna Chen, Writer, Performer, and Broadcaster
Amanda Rogers & Ashley Thorpe
pages 496-503

British East Asian Actors Call for Public Forum over RSC Casting Controversy
British East Asian Actors
pages 504-506

Here is a Story For Me: Representation and Visibility in Miss Saigon and The Orphan of Zhao
Broderick D.V. Chow
pages 507-516

Reviews

Terror and Performance by Rustom Bharucha
Paul Rae
pages 517-518

Political and Protest Theatre after 9/11: Patriotic Dissent edited by Jenny Spencer
Clare Finburgh
pages 518-520

Performance, Politics and Activism edited by Peter Lichtenfels and John Rouse
Michael Shane Boyle
pages 520-521

Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism by Jen Harvie
Laura Levin
pages 521-523

Theatre of Good Intentions: Challenges and Hopes for Theatre and Social Change by Dani Snyder-Young
Charlotte McIvor
pages 523-525

Theatre, Performance and Analogue Technology: Historical Interfaces and Intermedialities edited by Kara Reilly
W. B. Worthen
pages 525-526

Theatre & Museums by Susan Bennett
Georgina Guy
pages 526-528

Theatre in the Expanded Field: Seven Approaches to Performance by Alan Read
Caridad Svich
pages 528-529

Backpages
pages 530-546

Abstracts
pages 547-550