The fourth-longest running Broadway show in history, with about 8,400 performances, an estimated $5 billion in global ticket sales and the most lucrative film adaptation from Broadway yet, may earn a more dubious distinction: race and sex discrimination.
Maestra Music and the New York State Council of the Arts, which respectively operated and funded a three-week paid apprenticeship for Broadway smash Wicked, got hit with a federal civil rights complaint for allegedly excluding male and white applicants, violating Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by way of accepting federal money.
The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism filed the complaint this month with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Office for Civil Rights as an “interested third party,” though the specific incident concerns one of its FAIR in the Arts members.
Music director Kevin Lynch unsuccessfully applied for membership in Maestra and Musicians United for Social Equity to be eligible for the 2023 “intensive shadowing engagement” with Wicked, according to the complaint.
The membership requirements for Maestra and MUSE, copied in the complaint but substantially the same on their live web pages, suggest they are limited to “female and non-binary” music directors and people of color who are musicians respectively, none of which applies to the white male Lynch.
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Author: Ray Hilbrich
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