By Caitlin Huston

On Sunday, Conrad Ricamora, a Tony-nominated actor currently starring in Oh, Mary! on Broadway, announced the creation of a scholarship fund for Asian American male actors.

The idea for the fund came from “decades of erasure” of Asian American men in the theater industry, Ricamora says, but also took place days after a casting controversy at Maybe Happy Ending, which has prompted outcry from members of community.

The Tony Award-winning musical, which came to Broadway from South Korea, announced that a white actor, Andrew Barth Feldman, would be replacing Darren Criss, who had won a Tony Award for his role and became the first Asian American actor to win best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical. The show follows two robots living in Seoul, and had featured actors of Asian descent in the leading roles and understudies in its various stage iterations, with Criss pointing to the show as progress for the AAPI community. (The show’s creators have said the the role is one that “welcomes different interpretations and lived experiences.”)

Still, Ricamora said the recent pain felt by members of the community around the casting has been reverberating for years, and is something he can relate to from his own personal experience and after having “spent the last year reflecting on how often Asian American male actors are asked to prove that they belong on stage and in programs and in the story.”

The scholarship, called The Right To Be There, is meant to fund MFA or BFA scholarships for Asian American male actors. The donations have been pouring in, with the GoFundMe surpassing $40,000 by Monday evening, which includes $18,000 from Ricamora.

To read the entire article: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/broadway-conrad-ricamora-scholarship-fund-asian-actors-1236331468/

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