How do intellectuals and scholars feel about how members of their ethnic groups are portrayed on Broadway? How would we know? Very few of them have the power to rate which plays and musicals are worthy and which ones are flops, and above all, be heard or read. The American critical fraternity is an exclusive club. Carla Blank and Ishmael Reed invited informed and accomplished writers, women and man, who are rarely heard from to comment about how ethnic groups are depicted on Broadway. The contributors are Lonely Christopher, Tommy Curry, Jack Foley, Emil Guillermo, Claire J. Harris, Yuri Kageyama, Soraya McDonald, Nancy Mercado, Aimee Phan, Elizabeth Theobold Richards, Shawn Wong and David Yearsley, in addition to the editors. Under review are Madame Butterfly, the Irving Berlin songbook, Oklahoma, South Pacific, Miss Saigon, Flower Drum Song, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, The Color Purple, The Book of Mormon, West Side Story and Hamilton. All of these musicals received enthusiastic reviews from the exclusive club of media critics. With Bigotry on Broadway, readers will get the views of those who have been excluded from the club. They will find themselves asking, “Why has it taken so long?”
