New York City production of 'The Mikado' canceled

Because yellowface made everybody really angry.



Well. In response to immense criticism and backlash from the Asian American theatre community, the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players has announced that it is canceling its upcoming production of The Mikado.

W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's 1885 comic opera, set in Japan, has endured mounting criticism over the years for its painfully outdated orientalism and stagings that regularly put performers in "yellowface" makeup. NYGASP's production was the latest, set to run this winter at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

That's not happening. NYGASP Executive Director David Wannen announced on Facebook that they were yanking The Mikado, and will instead run The Pirates of Penzance in its place:

'The Mikado' in Yellowface Is Coming to The Skirball Center of the Performing Arts and We Should Talk About It

By Leah Nanako Winkler



I'm biracial. Which means that people from two opposite cultures (Japan and America in my case) have freely been talking to me about race in two languages with no filter before I knew what the words meant. So before you dismiss these thoughts as "angry" or a product of a creepy "PC Culture" know that it's an impetuous sense of comfort that drives me to talk and write about these issues in my daily life as they come up because, well, race has been a part of my daily life since I was born. So when this flyer for The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players production of The Mikado at the NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts was delivered to my office on a peaceful Monday morning, I felt totally comfortable calling them directly to ask questions.

Real-life yellowface! Now playing in Seattle.

"It's a fun show. I personally have never heard any complaints."



Take a good, long look at the photo. Does any of that feel right to you?

The Bagley Wright Theatre in Seattle is currently staging Gilbert & Sullivan's "classic" comic opera The Mikado, which has historically required actors to perform roles in yellowface, and a bunch of shitty made up stereotypes for comic effect. This version is no different, with all forty Japanese characters played by white actors.

The year is 2014, my friends.