Character Analysis: The King & I

The house at the Vivian Beaumont Theater had just been cleared from the matinee audience. Among couple of Playbills scattered around the floor, sat Ashley Park in her University of Michigan sweater. “Tuptim is actually my first professional Asian role,” said Park about her character at the Broadway revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King & I, “It is such an honor to be in this huge production that transports people to Siam everyday.” With over 45 Asian-American actors in the company, The King & I is currently the biggest production on Broadway and the first of its other productions that stick with the characters’ ethnicity righteously. Alongside Tony winners Kelli O’Hara and Ruthie Ann Miles, Park played Tuptim -the King’s present from Burma, a girl who went against the King’s slavery and wrote the Siam version of

and Cinderella, being an Asian-American actor is not a limitiation for her career, it actually gives her an edge to be casted in a production. “But again, there will always be a limitation for all actors, there’s also gender and age,” said Park, “I can’t be casted as George in Sunday In The Park With George, because simply I’m a female and I can’t play a role in Hairspray or Ragtime because the two shows are about a certain period in history and race.” Park believes that in the contemporary musical theater industry, colorblind casting has become a goal for a lot of the productions and it is a movement that she is excited to be a part of in the touring company of Cinderella. Although she started to audition as the ensemble member and an understudy for the lead, Park relates to the role of Gabrielle, the nice step-sister, a role that is commonly played by six-foot something white actresses (Marla Mindelle played the part on the original Broadway production in