Heaven and Hell: or my experience being a person of color in Disneyâs Hyperion Theater. #holdingtheateraccountable
Im just gonna go ahead and be straight up. This is pretty scary to share.
HEAVEN: Once upon a time Liesl Tommy cast me as Prince Hans in Frozen: Live at the Hyperion. And I was gooped. GOOPED. There was nothing in my prior history that gave any indication this was possible. Up until then every role I played had to do with my race. Every. Single. One. And even ones where it didnât (Shakespeare or classical pieces mostly) I was always made aware that the novelty of me being a poc in that role that gave me the part. So much did I not expect to get this part that when I got the callback I rolled my eyes and didnât take the actual callback seriously. I mean, there was a zero percent chance that Disney would ever let me play a Prince, especially when the dude in the movie is a ginger.
But then I got it. And immediately everything I thought was possible about my career changed.
My whole life Iâve never inwardly felt black. Iâve never inwardly felt white. Iâve always felt like I was Cooper, you know, on the inside. But whether it was every single white human in Utah reminding me that I was âthe whitest person they ever knew/sawâ (which DIDNT mean how white my skin was. It was how white I ACTED) or Mr. Johnson, my 7th grade drama teacher, telling me that he âwanted to put Velcro on the ceiling to see if Iâd stickâ or Mr. Smith, my high school drama teacher, saying âfinally we can do black showsâ as soon as I entered high school and then not casting me in roles because of the âopticsâ of it, or even my best friend in high school Tanner Harmon who called me âblackieâ, I was always reminded that I was an other.
So imagine getting paid good money to put on that $10,000 costume and waltzing out to 4000 people a day to play a really amazing part. A fantastic, evil, complicated, person who sings a killer duet and then grabs the show by the throat with a vicious about-face monologue⌠and not once was my race ever mentioned cuz it didnt matter. What was being prized was Cooper, my talent, not my skin color that I never asked for. Heaven.
Liesl MADE SURE, almost overly sure, that the pocâs in the cast felt equal. The kingdom of Arendelle, after all, is a make believe place. It can be whatever. From having Disney executives come and tell us that they were happy to have us there, to side conversations with John Lasseter, we were made to feel overly welcome playing the parts we were playing. She encouraged us to dive deeper into the script of a cartoon that I didnt really think much of until I was in it. We were encouraged to ask why. We felt seen as talent and not commodities.
There were, of course, detractors. Gosh, I remember people at a party of cast members from âMickey and the Magical Mapâ another show at Disneyland which features a princess and the frog number and many of those casts mates angrily claiming that âif that black girl Tiana Okoye can play Elsa than I should be able to play Princess Tianaâ and then looking at me to confirm that was okay to say, not realizing that a) sheâs one of my best friends, b) that Iâm in the show with her also playing a role that wasnât created to be a poc, c) how racist that sounded, and d) why thereâs a difference there and why that wouldnât make sense.
On Liesls final night I came up to her and said âI donât know why you did it but thank you so much for casting ME in this partâ to which she replied âyou mean why would I cast a handsome, talented person in this role?â And I stuttered something like âwell, I mean, Iâm black. You knowâŚâ to which she tilted her head to her side and said âno. I donât know why. Tell me why that matters.â And I had no answer. Seeing that I had no answer she smiled. That was the answer. There was no reason. On the spot my outlook about myself changed. Windows into what I thought was possible for me opened.
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HELL: And then Liesl went back to NYC and she was replaced by a man named Roger Castellano as show director.
Rogers task, he told us on the first day, was to âchange the showâ. We were not told what needed to be changed or even why, but that changes were on the horizon.
Youâve got to understand: to a full cast of actors who had just spent more than three months dissecting a 60 page Disney script with a Tony nominated director like it was Shakespeare, we were initially emotionally/mentally/spiritually resistant to changes. But then it became clear that the spirit of collaboration was over, and the show changes were to be given without the same care, consideration, and thematic explanation of why they were being made. Everyones initial reaction was to push back, but when people who questioned their notes or their changes started getting days removed their schedule or being replaced entirely by a new actor, the Hyperion theater became a place where no one was allowed to speak out. Injustices were happening left and right and no one felt they could do anything for fear of losing their livelihood.
And thatâs when the Frozen: Live at the Hyperion became a living hell.
In my first note session with Roger he pulled me into a room with Domonique Paton, my best friend and incredible costar who played princess Anna in the show I was in. She just so happens to also be black. Almost all of Prince Hansâs scenes in the show are with her character and so most of my notes would be primarily based on those interactions with her. Earlier in the day I performed with a different (white) actress but it was the show with Domonique that I had a note session about. Imagine my surprise and dismay when, with how Liesl set up the show experience, we were told this:
âWHEN THE TWO OF YOU PERFORM THE SHOW TOGETHER ITS TOO⌠URBAN.â
Urban.
What else could that have meant, do you think?
He could have said maybe âtoo contemporaryâ emphasizing that we were maybe too modern in our speech patterns or movements. We werenât. He could have said âtoo laxâ or âtoo looseâ meaning that maybe we were being unprofessional and goofy up there because weâre really good friends. We were not. The best me and Ms. Paton could think of was a 8 count moment of improv dance that me and Domonique decided to use as a synchronized moment of unity. It happened to fall on the line âour mental synchronization can have but one explanationâ and thought, with the freedom that Christopher (the original choreographer) had given us, was appropriate, especially considering everyone behind us was doing the robot. As in the 80s robot.
But he didnt clarify.
He just said âWHEN THE TWO OF YOU PERFORM THE SHOW TOGETHER ITâS TOO⌠URBANâ And when asked what he meant he smiled with a little shrug and said âyou can figure that out. Youâre smart.â
And thats how I became Black Hans and Domonique became Black Anna.
My every moment onstage afterwards became about the optics of being a poc in that show. It was if I was suddenly made aware that I was LUCKY enough to be there and under any normal circumstances, or this new directors circumstances, me getting this part would have never happened. But the message was clear. It was especially clear when me and Domonique Paton shows together durastically decreased and made even more clear when the vast majority of the new hires were not people of color. But no one said anything.
And made even MORE clear when, over the next few weeks, both Domonique and I got COPIOUS notes, ten times that of our coworkers that played the same parts. It was almost a game. In fact we did turn it into a game, seeing who would get the least amount of notes from him in a day. Our costars would even joke about it onstage with us, during the ballroom scene, and jokingly whisper âThe shows been up 15 minutes. How many do you think you got today?â But no one said anything.
And the notes were about all kinds of things. How we held our hand. If our inflections went up or down on a word. Which side of a couch we leaned on⌠which was fine! When youâre an actor, thats the gig⌠until we started comparing our notes with the actors that played our same parts and none of them, NONE, would get the same notes. Our notes would be outrageously longer, the note sessions sometimes lasting 10/15 minutes. Others would get the âOh hey, try doing this or that next time, okay byeâ walk-by notes. Sometimes I would sneak into the audience and watch as some of the other Hanâs, some of whom changed lines, changed entire intentions of scenes, some of whom adding in all types of vocalizations and cackles and dance moves and what have you, and would receive ZERO notes.
But I was watching them to see what was wrong with me. What was my performance missing? What am I actually doing to feel this singled out. And then I realized that the thing that was wrong with me was that I was a different color than the 5 other white Hansâs they cast.
And then I started getting notes about my penis.
Most of the time these âpenis sessionsâ, as I called them, were given in private rooms without another stage manager present. It was incredibly unpleasant and unprofessional. In fairness, those Prince Hans pants are TIGHT! And yes, Mr. Howell is indeed a party in the front and a party in the back, but so were a lot of those fellas.
And thats where I put my foot down. If Disney was going to provide me with a costume it is not my responsibility to fix their problem, especially when other of my (white) costars had been given a dance belt for the same thing. But they never got penis notes. Private session notes about what their penis looked like in that show.
Over and over again I was told to fix it, to not make it (my dick) so apparent, and that âif my daughter were younger I wouldnât want her to come to a show you were performing at" all the more insulting considering his daughter, a cast member in the show, was a friend of mine and the loveliest person.
He started demanding that I buy a dance belt. It was âmy faultâ, âmy responsibilityâ âŚand thats where I took my stand. And then it really became hell. Penis sessions were now done out in the open. Once, he screamed at me, in the green room in front of all of my costars during lunch, about how incredible unprofessional I was, about how he was tired of seeing my dick, and that if I didnt go buy myself one I didnt deserve to be there anymore. Followed by a huge litany of notes. That doesnt compare to some of what Domonique went through and I invite her to share them if sheâs willing.
During this time I went to every stage manager in the building and told them about being singling out and about my penis. They all told me to write a complaint report and it would go to some place called âHRâ. Which I did. Numerously. More months passed. Nothing from âHRâ. Multiple cast members who witnessed my note sessions encouraged me to go to the HR themselves. I didnt honestly know what an HR was.
As soon as it was explained to me by my allies even what an HR was I went to the head of HR at Disneyland herself and waited outside of her door. I asked her if she got any of my HR reports and she told me that she had received no HR reports from the Hyperion. Ever.
And then asked me to fill out a HR form.
As we went over it, she asked me some questions, and then set up a second meeting. On the second meeting she said that in order for my report to be given credence I would need witnesses to give their testimony. The witnesses, in fact the very people that told me to go to HR in the first place, said no. They didnt want to lose their jobs. In retrospect that might be the thing that hurt the most but, whatever⌠anyway, I was told ââwell⌠without testimonies weâll do an investigation and weâll call you when weâve completed it.â
I never received a phone call.
With absolutely zero protection from the stage managers from both the sexual harassment or my obvious racial targeting I (and others) were experiencing, not to mention that HR reports were doing nothing, aka not being forwarded, I thought about quitting. And when a white stage manager made a show mistake and laughed it off to the cast by saying an entirely offensive lynching joke, I quit. I didnt matter to Disney. How I felt and what I was being put through didnt matter. I was a commodity.
My departure was unceremonious. Bizarre. 100% un-magical. I hung up my costume one last time and it was given to a new Hans, one who looked very much like me oddly, and stepped out of the theater. The park was playing âevery wish your heart desires will come to youâ and I remember laughing at how dead that song felt. The director has since moved on but still works as a musical theater director in Southern California.
This one time 4 years ago I got to feel something other than my color for the first and only time in my professional career. It lasted from about March 2016 to July 2016 and never again since.
I will never forget in those early days looking at all the beautiful princesses I got to woo and thinking âwow. Iâm a prince right now.â Im sure that sounds stupid. But it didnât feel stupid. And a Disney prince! Yeah, a shitty prince kinda⌠I mean, heâs a sociopath⌠BUT still a Prince!
Especially special was being able to look in Dominiqueâs eyes and I could see the same glimmer of âcan you believe we get to do this right nowâ reflected back. We never knew it was in the cards for us. My race always has and will always be part of my career equation and a determining factor of its projection. It will always be a determining factor in how im treated, by creatives, by people, by the those in authority over me, including the government and the police. #wasitmyskin
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