Antone's Nightclub
What About the Whiskers?
RECEIVED Fri., July 1, 2022
Dear Editor,
When I picked up my son from his performance yesterday, he read this article to me. [“Review: Zach Theatre's The Sound of Music,” Arts, July 1] He's 11 years old, so he doesn't quite understand how to not be upset when his performance in criticized. Keeping in mind that the children were given limited lines in this production, it wasn't fair to call them out like this. They are young and most are inexperienced performers who weren't given much opportunity to showcase much more than what they allowed to in the directing of this musical. My son, along with the other Whisker's cast (children) in The Sound of Music were referred to as a distraction to the original production. You even went so far as to list their names in your this article. So I ask you – What was the purpose in making such a strong statement about the Whiskers cast, printing their names and NOT using the photo of the Whiskers cast in this article. If you have the audacity to say such things about children, then you should've used their photo in the article. I'm not so much offended by the context of the article (as an adult) because these are children with limited lines. What I'm upset and offended about is that when I got home and picked up the Chronicle, the photo used for this article was of the "Austrian – all white" cast. That looked (and felt) like a complete prejudice article after I saw the cast pictured was not the cast that you were so hard on in your article. My son was in tears over this and feeling discouraged about performing 12 mores shows. These children read this article and they still have to go on stage and perform for the next month, after reading that their PERFORMANCES were "ANDROID LIKE and they were a DISTRACTION.” To talk down on the hard work and efforts of kids trying to live out their dreams and blatantly use the photo of the "other" cast was really harsh and I wish you would've considered that these are children that you were writing about. Your article was very insensitive to the Whiskers children/cast and you were wrong for not giving them the photo op, after having so much to say about them in your review.
When I picked up my son from his performance yesterday, he read this article to me. [“Review: Zach Theatre's The Sound of Music,” Arts, July 1] He's 11 years old, so he doesn't quite understand how to not be upset when his performance in criticized. Keeping in mind that the children were given limited lines in this production, it wasn't fair to call them out like this. They are young and most are inexperienced performers who weren't given much opportunity to showcase much more than what they allowed to in the directing of this musical. My son, along with the other Whisker's cast (children) in The Sound of Music were referred to as a distraction to the original production. You even went so far as to list their names in your this article. So I ask you – What was the purpose in making such a strong statement about the Whiskers cast, printing their names and NOT using the photo of the Whiskers cast in this article. If you have the audacity to say such things about children, then you should've used their photo in the article. I'm not so much offended by the context of the article (as an adult) because these are children with limited lines. What I'm upset and offended about is that when I got home and picked up the Chronicle, the photo used for this article was of the "Austrian – all white" cast. That looked (and felt) like a complete prejudice article after I saw the cast pictured was not the cast that you were so hard on in your article. My son was in tears over this and feeling discouraged about performing 12 mores shows. These children read this article and they still have to go on stage and perform for the next month, after reading that their PERFORMANCES were "ANDROID LIKE and they were a DISTRACTION.” To talk down on the hard work and efforts of kids trying to live out their dreams and blatantly use the photo of the "other" cast was really harsh and I wish you would've considered that these are children that you were writing about. Your article was very insensitive to the Whiskers children/cast and you were wrong for not giving them the photo op, after having so much to say about them in your review.
Paula Camacho