Dan Dinero Diversity

A small classroom at the basement of The New School building on Greenwich Village turned into a space for a group of college students who are passionate about musical theater. The discussion was the word on everybody’s lips on Broadway this season: diversity. The class, Musical Theater and Race, was led by Dan Dinero, a theater scholar and director who won Best Director at The Fresh Fruit Festival for his work on “The Austerity of Hope”. Discussions ranging from the underlying racial tension on Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” to the problematic finale of the Pulitzer-prize winning “A Chorus Line” became the class’ weekly highlights. Dinero, who did his dissertation on musical theater and its relation with the politics of race, gender, …show more content…
Musicals such as “On Your Feet!”, “Allegiance”, and the revival of “The Color Purple” sparked the conversation of race on Broadway and even considered that “this could be the middle of another golden age of Broadway” by David Cote at an article on Time Out New York, which Dinero disagreed. Dinero felt that it’s too soon to call Broadway for being well diverse after only one season. Analysis of has to be conducted over the next few years and see if there are more shows that targets the audience of color. “Musicals take awhile to get to Broadway and it just happens to be that there are many of colored musicals this season on Broadway,” argued Dinero, “but let’s see the future of it, what’s happening outside of Broadway, and the new musicals that are currently being written,” Dinero felt that there are not many shows are being written for people of