Gender In Musical Theatre

mybroadwaybaby
Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:33:39 +0000

Boys have an enormous advantage when it comes to this field…whether for college or actual jobs in the “real world”!

On our University of Michigan week end, i counted 17 boys and 57 girls…that was non-scientific and i may have missed some on either side, but my guess is it was in the ballpark! That’s not to say that the boys who do get in to schools/get cast in shows aren’t normally quite talented, it just means they are competing with fewer other boys for the spots available. My guess is that most of the talented boys will get at least one offer, some of the very talented girls may not get any.

I had an interesting conversation with the Mom of a boy at Chicago Unifieds. She essentially told me that she was almost embarrassed by the attention her son got at auditions. He is tall, very good looking and can sing pretty well(though “not amazingly” were her words)…he was getting accepted on the spot in many cases and being offered scholarships at almost every school he auditioned for. I understand that completely. You need boys to do shows…and tall good-looking ones who can sing, are at a premium.

My girlfriend and i have been joking that it would be interesting to convince our “tall- good-looking -sons -who -can -sing -pretty -well”, who are currently several years away from college and who don’t have any real interest in this field, TO AUDITION…just to see if they would fare any better than our “very-talented -very-adorable-very-passionate daughters”! Of course that is just a joke…but it would certainly be interesting.

After having lived through the process (though still waiting for a couple of responses), what i can say is that whether you are a girl or a boy, the audition process is what you make it…we enjoyed every second of the process together. My daughter has lived through some big disappointments and had some nice surprised along the way…very much what real life is like, whatever field you choose to be employed in.