The Mikado Set in an Internment Camp

Have you heard that the GenEnCo (The Generic Ensemble Company)  set its February 2016 production of "The Mikado: Reclaimed" in a future internment camp? Here's a blurb from an article about the production, crediting the new Broadway musical Allegiance for awakening the national conscience to the shameful legacy of Japanese internment during WWII as well as to the xenophobic rhetoric heard on the campaign trail.

The Artistic Director KT Shorb says this: "The whole idea of a Muslim ban – people say, 'Oh, Japanese internment, that'll never happen again.' But that's still legal. No one has overturned the Supreme Court's ruling that it is okay to round up people at random, say it's for national security, and keep them incarcerated for indefinite amounts of time. It still happens with undocumented families, to a certain extent with refugees, and also with these, quote-unquote, non-enemy combatants in Guantánamo Bay. The through-line is none of these people have been proven to be criminals. They have not gone through due process, have not been tried by a jury of their peers, and yet they are being treated 100 percent the way criminals are treated in our country. Just because we think we can learn from history doesn't mean we won't repeat it."

Here's the whole article:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2016-02-12/genencos-the-mikado-reclaimed/

This August we can see the Lamplighter's production of The Mikado set in Milan, Italy.

Here's a link to the letter they sent out to subscribers in April 2016:

http://www.lamplighters.org/Mikado_letter.html

Here's a link to an article on the controversy and found solution:

http://www.americantheatre.org/2016/04/20/building-a-better-mikado-minus-the-yellowface/