{"id":52002,"date":"2017-03-02T02:54:31","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T02:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=52002"},"modified":"2017-03-02T02:56:13","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T02:56:13","slug":"with-role-in-the-king-and-i-a-mixed-race-actress-tries-to-finds-her-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=52002","title":{"rendered":"With role in ‘The King and I,’ a mixed-race actress tries to finds her way"},"content":{"rendered":"

With role in ‘The King and I,’ a mixed-race actress tries to finds her way<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Star Tribune<\/a>
\n2017-02-23<\/p>\n

Rebecca Ritzel<\/strong><\/a>, Theater critic<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nMatthew Murphy<\/em>
\nManna Nichols<\/a> and Kavin Panmeechao<\/a> in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s<\/a> The King and I<\/em><\/a>.<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Manna Nichols<\/a> was still a student at Oklahoma City University when she was cast by a major American theater in a major musical- theater role.<\/p>\n

That was four years ago, at Washington\u2019s Arena Stage, and Nichols was playing Eliza Doolittle opposite the great Canadian actor Benedict Campbell<\/a>, son of former Guthrie Theatre artistic director Douglas Campbell.<\/p>\n

As a mixed-race actor of Chinese, Caucasian and American Indian descent, Nichols was thrilled to land a role that would typically go to a white woman. For better or worse, she\u2019s since become a go-to actor for Asian-specific roles. In 2013, she played Kim in a touring \u201cMiss Saigon<\/a>\u201d that drew protests at Ordway Center, and last summer she took on the part of Liat in the Guthrie staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s<\/a> \u201cSouth Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next week, Nichols returns to the Twin Cities<\/a> in another canonical Asian role: She\u2019s Tuptim, the King of Siam\u2019s reluctant junior wife in the Lincoln Center touring production of \u201cThe King and I<\/a>.\u201d Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s 1951 musical about a spunky 19th-century English teacher who disrupts the Siamese court opens Tuesday at the Orpheum in Minneapolis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nichols talked about what she has faced when it comes to race and casting, why she tried out for this show, which won a 2015 Tony<\/a> for best revival, and what was special about the Guthrie\u2019s \u201cSouth Pacific<\/a>.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a mixed-race actor of Chinese, Caucasian and American Indian descent, Nichols was thrilled to land a role that would typically go to a white woman. For better or worse, she\u2019s since become a go-to actor for Asian-specific roles. In 2013, she played Kim in a touring \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d that drew protests at Ordway Center, and last summer she took on the part of Liat in the Guthrie staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s \u201cSouth Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,16,8,20],"tags":[26313,26314,26312],"class_list":["post-52002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-asia","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-manna-nichols","tag-rebecca-ritzel","tag-the-star-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52002","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=52002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52004,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52002\/revisions\/52004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}