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Dispatches from Crackerville
Hello. My name is Andrew Chukerman and I'm the composer of "The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea". Let me immediately clear up this unfortunate misunderstanding. There was and never has been a policy on the part of myself, my writing partner, nor the San Diego Repertory Theatre to exclusively seek African-American musicians, at anytime. I find the mere notion of it completely outrageous and contrary to my personal beliefs, especially considering I'm a fully Caucasian composer. It defies logic that I would discriminate against myself, after all. (And trust me. I do know first-hand how it feels to be discriminated against as a white musician.) So far as I know, the band will not necessarily even be visible to the audience, so this erroneous idea of the theatre racially determining the band members simply makes no sense, nor has it ever been the intention of any party connected to this project. As it is, we have a six-piece band, hired entirely on the basis of talent and experience, comprised of a Caucasian music director/keyboardist, (who's been on board for months), as well as two other band member positions for which the final candidates also just happen to be of Caucasian and Latin descent. That's half of our band right there that is not African-American. Beyond that, as it happens our musician auditions and considerations included musicians representing an array of racial backgrounds, and was open to all comers. I was not aware of the wording of that Craig's List audition posting, but if it was listed as reported here, I can see how tagging "and musicians" onto the sentence in question was an unfortunate gross error in wording on the part of the theater. I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Sanford's posting that qualifications, talent, and experience should never be secondary considerations to skin color. I further support Gregor's comment that we are all "people of color" of one shade or another. My writing partner has written and created a beautiful, uplifting, celebratory African-American fantasy, and the diversity contained therein, as evidenced from the project's writing team, creative team, designers, cast, and musicians. Sincerely, Andrew Chukerman, composer, "The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea"— July 9, 2008 1:15 a.m.