{"id":20832,"date":"2012-02-25T03:10:30","date_gmt":"2012-02-25T03:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=20832"},"modified":"2012-02-25T03:20:51","modified_gmt":"2012-02-25T03:20:51","slug":"looking-white-acting-black-casteing-fredi-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=20832","title":{"rendered":"Looking White, Acting Black: Cast(e)ing Fredi Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1017\/S0040557404000031\" target=\"_blank\">Looking White, Acting Black: Cast(e)ing Fredi Washington<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/journals.cambridge.org\/action\/displayJournal?jid=TSY\" target=\"_blank\">Theatre Survey<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/journals.cambridge.org\/action\/displayIssue?iid=249640\" target=\"_blank\">Volume 45, Issue 1<\/a> (2004)<br \/>\npages 19-40<br \/>\nDOI: <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1017\/S0040557404000031\" target=\"_blank\">10.1017\/S0040557404000031<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/theatre.missouri.edu\/people\/black.html\" target=\"_blank\">Cheryl Black<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of Acting, Theatre History\/Theory\/Criticism<br \/>\n<em>University of Missouri, Columbia<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In October 1926 a leading African-American newspaper, the <em>Pittsburgh Courier<\/em>, featured adjacent photographs of two young women with a provocative caption: \u201cWhite Actresses Who Open with Robeson and Bledsoe on Broadway during Week.\u201d The actresses featured were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.awhf.org\/howell.html\" target=\"_blank\">Lottice Howell<\/a>, starring with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jules_Bledsoe\" target=\"_blank\">Jules Bledsoe<\/a> in the musical play <em>Deep River<\/em>, and Edith Warren, starring with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Paul_Robeson\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Robeson<\/a> in the drama <em>Black Boy<\/em>. In reporting this latest bit of integrated casting, however, the <em>Courier<\/em> was wrong on two counts. First, they misidentified the photographs, identifying Howell as Warren and Warren as Howell; and second, they misidentified Warren, whose real name was <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fredi_Washington\" target=\"_blank\">Fredi Washington<\/a>, as \u201cwhite.\u201d Washington (who dropped the stage name during previews) was, by self-identification, Negro, or, in the language of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Savannah,_Georgia\" target=\"_blank\">Savannah<\/a> official who recorded her birth in 1903, \u201ccolored.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Purchase the article <a href=\"http:\/\/journals.cambridge.org\/action\/registration?page=shoppingBasket&amp;jid=TSY&amp;volumeId=45&amp;issueId=01&amp;toBasket=249647-20&amp;type=ppv&amp;sessionId=0105AF2F9BFDC7875628E4A54EECA324.journals\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looking White, Acting Black: Cast(e)ing Fredi Washington Theatre Survey Volume 45, Issue 1 (2004) pages 19-40 DOI: 10.1017\/S0040557404000031 Cheryl Black, Associate Professor of Acting, Theatre History\/Theory\/Criticism University of Missouri, Columbia In October 1926 a leading African-American newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier, featured adjacent photographs of two young women with a provocative caption: \u201cWhite Actresses Who Open [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,1196,8,6462,20,25],"tags":[9755,9754,5487],"class_list":["post-20832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","category-women","tag-cheryl-black","tag-fredi-washington","tag-theatre-survey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}