The Minnesota theater cancels the production of Cinderella because the cast is “too white”
- Chanhassen Dinner Theaters was scheduled to present a production of Cinderella later this year
- However, the show was ruled out when its artistic director noticed that the cast was predominantly white.
- Chanhassen Dinner Theaters recently hired a diversity consultant and instituted new ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ protocols
- A Footloose production, which will feature a more racially diverse cast, is now being planned for 2022
A local Minnesota theater canceled a Cinderella production by Roger & Hammerstein because its cast was “too white”.
Chanhassen Dinner Theaters was scheduled to present the show later this year, before its artistic director intervened to criticize his lack of diversity.
“It was 98 percent white,” artistic director Michael Brindisi told Pioneer Press on Wednesday after checking who had been cast.
However, Chanhassen – located southwest of Minneapolis – has an extremely white population, and the racial demographics of the cast were not much different from the city as a whole.
According to the most recent census, 92.5% of people in Chanhassen are white. Less than 3% of residents are Hispanic, while 1.1% are black.
No photo of the Cinderella cast was officially released before the show was dropped.
Chanhassen Dinner Theaters canceled a Cinderella production by Roger & Hammerstein because their cast was “too white”
Dinner and show! Chanhassen – located southwest of Minneapolis – has an extremely white population and the racial demographics of the cast were not much different from the city as a whole
Cinderella has been around the world for decades and usually has a predominantly white mold. In the photo: a Cinderella performance on Broadway in New York in 2013
In a statement released on Monday, the theater stated: ‘After careful consideration and our continued commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, we made the decision to cancel our next production.
“In addition to changing the future schedule, we are establishing new pre-production protocols. We will be inviting (and paying) BIPOC artists to analyze the production with our creative teams through a new lens of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion … This conversation will take place before the design and casting process begins.
Chanhassen Dinner Theaters hired a diversity consultant and pledged to ‘scale the cast with an awareness of identity and become a more intentionally anti-racist theater’.
Meanwhile, the organization is current[ly putting together a production of The Music Man and has a ‘strong priority placed on casting BIPOC artists’.
Many of the productions put on by Chanhassen Dinner Theatre in recent years have featured a majority-white cast (pictured). They have now instituted new diversity protocols
The cast of Chanhassen Dinner Theatre’s Mamma Mia are pictured
Meanwhile, Brindisi told the Pioneer Press that the theater considered recasting the Cinderella.
However, they decided to scrap the show and start from scratch with a separate production.
While some cast members were upset by the news, Brinidisi says that most ‘respected the very hard decision we had to make.’
Chanhassen Dinner Theatres will replace Cinderella with a more diverse adaptation of Footloose, now scheduled for 2022.
Artistic director Michael Brindisi called out the fact that Cinderella’s cast was 98 percent white. The production has now been scrapped