Earlier when I was looking through articles I found one that made me sort of uncomfortable and I wasn’t going to deal with it at all. But, I’ve decided to against myself to try to work through this one. Ok. So Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre was doing a production of Snow White, and they had to fire their dwarf actors because they said it was too expensive. They replaced the dwarfs with children actors wearing masks with prerecorded lines. All right. Ok. Here’s my first reaction. Why are dwarf actors more “expensive” than…non-dwarf actors? This is not a bash on Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre. I tried to find out more about the financial situation of the dwarf actor and wasn’t surprised that I couldn’t anything. I understand why they would be paid more if they were. Because, in reality, there are not as many roles out there for dwarf actors, so their time would cost more because of this? But doesn’t this widen the gap between who are still considered minorities? I want to think that all actors should be treated the same, but I feel like that’s sort of a naïve idea. That all men are created equal, so they should all be paid according to plan right? Or no? But humans are humans, and I don’t think one should be paid more for their time because they fit the part better. I was also surprised by how the people responded to the switch of actors and how many of them were upset by it. Saying that it is pointless to see a “professional” production of Snow White if the dwarfs aren’t going to be real dwarfs. The article left me with the big question of what’s happening to our expectations of theatre? What’s happened to the imagination?
