Seyi Omooba is suing Curve Theatre

She was interviewed just now on The Today Programme and i was a bit aghast. She stood by everything she posted on facebook, was brazenly homophobic, bizarrely stated she didn't accept that Celie was an LGBT role and wasn't going to play her as such and then said she couldn't understand why she was removed from the production.....i mean....?

She had also been in the concert version. So knew the show.

She is just lying to get money and attention

In principle I don't disagree with you at all - social change is all about persuading the people who disagree with you to change their minds, and the best way to do that is via dialogue and persuasion. I was initially very much in the 'benefit of the doubt' camp, thinking that taking the role may have indicated a potential change of heart.

But sometimes social change also requires drawing a line in the sand and making it clear what is no longer acceptable, and now that we have reached the point of a court case, that is where we are on this one. You can't dialogue your way out of the fact that she believes she is perfectly entitled to play a gay character as not-gay because she thinks being gay is wrong, and was sacked because that made her a) actually unsuitable for the role b) created a hostile working environment for her co-workers. She apparently had a history of bringing her homophobic views into the workplace and had previously slid on by with the benefit of the doubt, but this situation reached the limit of that.

We may not think that hypocrisy is a particularly admirable character trait, but when it comes to practical day-to-day life and work it is far preferable to be a hypocrite and keep one's personal views quiet in order to get on with your co-workers than to loudly proclaim one's views and commit a hate crime.

Again: she didn't have to audition for the role. She didn't have to work in musical theatre. If your desired career conflicts that much with your core beliefs, you can either change your core beliefs, change your desired career, or be a hypocrite. Them's the breaks.

The role is a great part regardless, so you can’t really blame someone for wanting to play it, but when the nature of the role is so against her beliefs (to the point that she evidently didn’t want to play it as written), you have to questions her motives for auditioning and accepting the role. I can’t help but wonder if it’s because of how it catapulted Cynthia Erivo to stardom.

You mean she might be ambitious AS WELL!!!?

Ouf.

She should never have been given the platform in the first place. Hate speech is hate speech - plain and simple.

Alice Walker has a few things to say: (link is to a BWW article on the statement, which is reproduced in the article - I copied and pasted the statement below)

Walker Statement

To whom it may concern: from Alice Walker

©2019 by Alice Walker

I feel the most heartfelt compassion for actress Oluwaseyi Omooba. Celie, the character she would have played, is based on the life of my grandmother, Rachel, a kind and loving woman brutally abused by my grandfather, and whoever was in reality the father of her children, offspring none of the family ever saw. Thankfully, after these births, and the disappearance of her children, she was barren.



It is safe to say, after a frightful life serving and obeying abusive men, who raped in place of "making love," my grandmother, like Celie, was not attracted to men. She was, in fact, very drawn to my grandfather's lover, a beautiful woman who was kind to her, the only grown person who ever seemed to notice how remarkable and creative she was. In giving Celie the love of this woman, in every way love can be expressed, I was clear in my intention to demonstrate that she too, like all of us, deserved to be seen, appreciated, and deeply loved by someone who saw her as whole and worthy.



Because I believe, and know, that sexual love can be extraordinarily holy, whoever might be engaging in it, I felt I had been able to return a blessing of love to a grandmother who had always offered only blessing and love, when I was a child, to me.



In much of my work I encourage the reader to question everything. I have been urging a questioning and reconsideration of all the so called "holy" books for over forty years. The Bible, like the Koran, like the Talmud, and others that claim to teach the best way for people to live, must be interrogated, questioned, and respectfully deconstructed. Love, however it may be expressed, is to be honored and welcomed into the light of our common survival as a consciously human, race.



For a short introduction of what I teach in this regard, please see an essay: THE ONLY REASON YOU WANT TO GO TO HEAVEN IS YOU'VE BEEN DRIVEN OUT OF YOUR MIND...Off Your Land, and Out of Your Lover's Arms.



Playing the role of "Celie" while not believing in her right to be loved, or to express her love in any way she chooses, would be a betrayal of women's right to be free. As an elder, I urge all of us to think carefully about what I am saying, even as you, Oluwaseyi Omooba, sue the theatre company for voiding your contract. This is just an episode in your life; your life, your work, and your growth, will continue, in the real world. A world we must make safe for women and children, female and male. And the greatest freedom of all is the freedom to be your authentic self.



And with love to all of us!

Alice Walker

Those words reminded me of the Colour Purple, which is one of the greatest story told, but didn’t realise it was semi-autobiography.

Didn’t the beginning of the Colour Purple speak of the church and why it’s an institution that I loathe, how the community were controlled and god fearing and yet one of the congregation committed some of the most egregious and perfidious acts a person can commit on another.

Just saw that Seyi Omooba’s case goes to appeal in Feb... it first went to trial in November 2020...how did we miss that?

www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/11/26/the-color-purple-seyi-omooba-actor-religious-discrimination-evidence-lloyd-evans/

She will lose and lose again. Costs will be awarded again her.

No-one needs the stress. But she is going to lose.