One of my fondest memories as a journalist is interviewing playwright August Wilson, the Pulitzer winner (and former Seattleite) who spent his life chronicling the African American experience, about racial politics in arts and entertainment.

Wilson was a notoriously stormy personality but I found him to be nothing less than generous in thought and spirit—our scheduled 20-minute interview turned into a 90-minute breakfast at the Mecca Cafe on Queen Anne after Wilson asked me to stay and talk about writing. I’ll never forget it.

Wilson didn’t think black actors should be playing roles originally written as white characters—he thought it was an appalling idea that one might, say, change the color of Death of a Salesman‘s Willy Loman and not admit that a black salesman would lead an entirely different life from a white one. He also told me a story about how a very prominent Hollywood producer eager to film Wilson’s prize-winning Fences had sent him a long list of potential directors consisting only of white names—this despite the fact that Wilson made clear his preference for a black man to helm the project.

I bring this up because there’s an interesting article in The New York Times today concerning Intiman Theater artistic director Bartlett Sher and how his highly praised New York revival of Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone has stirred up controversy because it’s the only Broadway production of Wilson’s work to be staged by a white man—and what does that mean for all the black directors who, while he was alive, were the only artists allowed to touch Wilson’s work?

Wilson’s stubbornness made perfect sense to me: Its a richer, more grounded world that demands we discover a common humanity not in our sameness but through our differences—and why shouldn’t each group of people be given charge of their own stories until such a time as a level playing field exists?

As a gay man, I’d love to see gay theater and movies grow in breadth and depth, and opportunities for gay artists to increase, by insisting that gay characters be portrayed and guided by gay people—until I remember Sean Penn’s magnificence in Milk. But that movie was written and directed by gay men. Where and how do we draw the line in a country that, this last election aside, always finds the "minority" in the hands of the majority?

And am I a part of the problem if I’d still kill for tickets to Joe Turner?