Predictably, a student production of Othello was scrapped last week at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario—because a white girl was to play the lead. Othello the Moor, the ill-fated hero of Shakespeare’s tragedy, is a black man in the text and, since the middle of the last century at least, on the stage as well. Director Maggie Purdon, a student, told the Canadian National Post her intention was a feminist adaptation of sorts, It would be more of an issue of sexuality, and the issue would be that Othello’s sexuality makes him an outsider. But in a Facebook post on Thursday, just four weeks from her opening night, Purdon called the whole thing off and broadly apologized for her casting choice, a problematic decision that caused people within this community to feel oppressed, and for that we are greatly sorry.

Source: ‘Othello’ in the Age of the Microaggression | The Weekly Standard