As calls for representational transparency in theatre reach a critical mass, Casting a Movement: The Welcome Table Initiative elevates endeavours currently promoting and enacting inclusivity-driven revolutions both onstage and behind the scenes. Editors Claire Syler and Daniel Banks curate a collection of case studies that investigates the efforts to foreground the bodies and stories from marginalized cultural groups in classrooms and productions. Using Banks's previously published essay ‘The Welcome Table: Casting for an Integrated Society’ as its point of departure, this anthology challenges educators and practitioners to interrogate the tenets, the structures and the terminologies that have historically suppressed accurate depictions of the communities that theatres purport to reflect. Through an assemblage of critical responses to emerging progressive casting initiatives, this book amplifies the rigorous work under way to invigorate the movement toward broader inclusion and to expose the underlying and overt biases that hinder the quest for equity in theatres across the country.

The expansive volume highlights interventions in casting undertaken to initiate systemic change to theatre's engagement with people of colour, people with disabilities and the myriad intersections of these populations. Each of the book's seven parts follows the same format – prologue, case study and epilogue – to create critical dialogues between the separate authors of the pieces that comprise each section. Syler and Banks ambitiously cast a wide net to include the perspectives of as many underrepresented communities as possible. Equally impressive as the breadth of a project that provides so diverse a chorus of voices is its surprising depth that reveals unexpected universality embedded within the intimate experiences shared by its collaborators.

The first section, ‘Culturally Conscious Casting’, addresses the implications of using black and brown bodies to tell stories originally written by white playwrights for white communities. Justin Emeka's illuminating case study shares his process for infusing his characters with rich, culturally specific foundations in his productions of Macbeth and Death of a Salesman. In ‘Approaches to Casting Middle Eastern American Theatre’, the authors underscore the work created by Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco and offer potential solutions for increased Middle Eastern-American representation in educational and professional environments moving forward. ‘Casting Disability and Culture’ exposes the vital need for better training and inclusion of disabled actors. Carrie Sandahl's essay dissects the insidious incongruities that shape theatre's handling of disability in its schools and on its stages.

The fourth section, ‘Casting and Multilingual Performance’, demystifies the challenges of cross-lingual productions using revelatory dramaturgical research. ‘Casting Contemporary Native American Theatre’ emphasizes the efforts of Native Voices at the Autry, a Los Angeles-based organization that champions Indigenous storytellers, and its mission to create more equitable spaces and resources for Native theatre-makers. ‘Subverting Stereotypes’ interrogates issues surrounding authenticity in cross-cultural casting. Dorinne Kondo's experiences with Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 and David Henry Hwang's Yellowface provide specific examples for crucial conversations surrounding performances of and by people of colour. The book's final section, ‘Casting across Identities’, explores the racial and cultural intersections encountered during the creation and production of Collidescope 2.0 at UMass Amherst in 2016. Banks closes the collection with a penetrating reminder of the work remaining to ensure that all can be welcomed to the table.

Each of the unique contributions in Casting a Movement merits individual attention and would benefit from thorough anthologies of their own. One of its many strengths lies in its ability to inspire hopeful solutions to the seemingly hopeless undertaking of, as its subtitle suggests, welcoming wider diversity to all casting practices. The few, yet immeasurably important, successes in these endeavours found among its chapters present a road map for teachers and practitioners alike to initiate foundational changes to casting practices that will further the revolutionary measures already under way. ‘Part of achieving equity is a genuine willingness to listen and to consider one another's truths’, Banks affirms in his Afterword (p. 232). As this volume reaches classrooms and institutions around the globe, the voices echoing through its pages will challenge theatre-makers to remember the implications that bodies of colour and other-ableness carry with them into production and to rethink the ways they welcome all communities to the table.