At an MX in early November, Drama Chair Leslie Holland-Pryor and Middle & Upper School Music Co-Chair Sunnie Hikawa announced that the 2017 spring musical will be “The Wiz.” For those unfamiliar with the 1978 film starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, “The Wiz” is a modernized version of “The Wizard of Oz” told through the lens of black culture in America. The original 1975 broadway production won seven Tony awards.

Holland-Pryor, director of the high school musical, describes “The Wiz” as “a fantasy about hope, fear, and learning how to face your fear with courage and community.” Holland-Pryor and musical director Sunnie Hikawa chose “The Wiz” because, as Holland-Pryor put it, “it has so many great parts, and we are always looking for shows in which we can showcase more people rather than fewer people.”

Keeping the students’ best interests at heart was instrumental in picking the musical. “We spend a lot of time thinking about the students we have,” Hikawa said. The two considered “the number of parts the musical has, who has participated in our programs, and the quality of the music and the show. We make sure the show has a good message for the students.”

Producing “The Wiz” has been on the directors’ minds for a while. “We have been talking about doing ‘The Wiz’ for years,” Holland-Pryor said. “We decided to do it this year because of the current talent pool. We are even thinking of placing it in Chicago to make it more connectable for the students.”

In the past two years Parker has performed “Rent” and “Bring It On,” and now comes “The Wiz,” each of which depends on diverse casts. The lack of student diversity at Parker presumably makes it difficult for these shows to be cast in the way they were intended, since only 33% of students in the Upper School are students of color.

“We try very hard to stay faithful to the goals and the directives in the show regarding casting,” Hikawa said. “But there are facts we have to take into account, like the population from whom we are casting. We keep in the forefront of our minds the intent of the writers.”

Holland-Pryor compared musicals that call for a diverse cast to musicals that have little to no diversity in its cast. An example Holland-Pryor posed was the high school’s production of “The Sound of Music” two years ago. She said, “How does that feel for students who are not dominant culture?”

Holland-Pryor has taken this mindset with her to Parker. “When I was younger, I would always audition for those kind of shows, but I was worried I would never get cast because I wasn’t white,” Holland-Pryor. “How do we look at diversity when we have shows that typically feature a dominant culture?”

Another example Holland-Pryor posed was “The Fiddler On the Roof,” a musical that revolves around a Jewish family. “‘The Fiddler On the Roof’ is a show that is very specific to ethnicity and culture. It’s dealing with a very specific culture and traditions, language, and customs within that culture,” Holland-Pryor said, “I was cast professionally in ‘The Fiddler On the Roof.’ As a black actress, was I culturally appropriating Jews because I was in that show? Was that wrong of me? No, it wasn’t.”

While Holland-Pryor agreed that “The Fiddler On the Roof” is similar to “The Wiz” because both musicals focus on a very specific culture, she explained that they are different in important ways. “The difference is that ‘The Wiz’ is a fantasy,” Holland-Pryor said. “A tin man is not of a color, neither is a scarecrow or a lion. There are all these other aspects of this piece that are not contingent upon the characters necessarily being black.”

The message of “The Wiz” is closely connected to Parker’s core values, according to Hikawa and Holland-Pryor. “There are many opportunities for diversity, originality, innovation, and all the things our mission statement says in this show,” Hikawa said. “I think ‘The Wiz’ reflects some of our more global thinking, our attempt to bring more diversity to the school.”

Sophomore Annette Njei who participated in “Bring It On” last year is planning on auditioning for “The Wiz,” after being in “Bring It On” last year. When it was announced that the musical will be “The Wiz,” Njei was mostly thrilled. “I was so excited that I fell out of my chair during MX,” she said, “but also on edge because of the fact that Parker has a minimal amount of people of color.”

Njei sees a positive side to producing “diverse” shows. “We have to be more open-minded to different styles, cultures, and environments,” she said. “There’s a need to break people’s bubble and comfortableness.”

Senior Nina Sachs agrees. She said, “I definitely think that it’s important that we introduce diversity through our musicals.” But Sachs also feels that these musicals are not suitable to the amount of diversity in Parker. “I think that it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to choose a show that has primarily people of color, when there just simply aren’t enough people to fill those roles,” Sachs said. “I was surprised and confused when it was first announced.”

Sachs has been in “The Sound of Music” and “Bring It On,” as well as a number of musicals outside of school. “The Wiz” is one of the musicals she has played a role in outside of Parker. While there are many aspects of “The Wiz” that she loves, like “the amazing music, fun, and positivity in the show,” there are other factors that worry her.

Sachs’s main worry is cultural appropriation whichever character she is cast as. She said,“I worry, as I did last year with ‘Bring It On,’ that if white people are cast in roles of people of color that that will be bleaching the musical or will be offensive.”

In last year’s production of “Bring It On,” Sachs was cast as Nautica, a Latina woman. “I was definitely surprised because I’m white,” Sachs said. “We were sometimes asked to act in ways that I was uncomfortable with or I thought were offensive and stereotypical. I was often told to ‘be more spicy’ when playing Nautica.”

The directors intend to be careful. “We make sure we are very thoughtful, sensitive, and informed,” Hikawa said. “It’s a matter of research and making sure we are really knowledgeable before we take on any cross casting.”

But, that said, “there is no possible way to avoid cultural appropriation,” according to Holland-Pryor. “It happens every day. When we are respectfully honoring, recognizing, and identifying the culture we are appropriating, it is not cultural appropriation and is not disrespectful.”

Part of the plan is involving upper school English teacher and independent anti-bias, anti-oppression consultant and trainer Stacy Gibson. This message of respect, honor, and recognition is translated to the cast of each show that the directors feel this message applies to. “We have a teacher come in and talk about cultural appropriation, usually Ms. Gibson,” Holland-Pryor said. “We want the students to talk about it and ask questions so that when the final product is on stage, we know that we are aware and respectful.”

The directors recognize that the lack of student diversity would preclude them from producing a number of musicals if they did not cast across races. “If we cast ‘In the Heights’ as only latino actors, we wouldn’t have been able to do it,” Holland-Pryor said. “We wouldn’t have been able to do ‘Bring it On.’ There are countless examples of those exact issues in other productions.”