I’m finally seeing Beautiful (on tour) next month and at least that show does center on a woman!
When I read @MomCares list in post #32, it was sorta funny, though not. I can think of such roles my own D has played, like a whore, a ditz, a 12 year old who turned tricks, etc. But I can think of one musical she was in that was all female except for one character (the older and younger version of the same character) and it was Nine. While it did center on the man, there were lots of roles for women in it. My daughter played the producer, Liliane La Fleur.
While recently Off Broadway, but a “newer” show, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, had 9 women and 10 men in it, I think, and so it was pretty equally balanced, including the level of their roles in the show.
By the way, for Hamilton, I think there are 11 women and 16 men (including all swings and understudies…in other words, all cast members), and not 8 and 22. I’m going by the entire cast list on its website.
Coming to Broadway this season, and I saw it in Cambridge, MA at A.R.T. this fall (wonderful), is the new musical, Waitress. The book is by a woman, Jessie Nelson. The music and lyrics are by a woman, Sara Breilles. The movie it is based on was by a woman, Adrienne Shelly. The director is a woman, Diane Paulus. Yay! The cast has 9 females (including leads) and 9 males (equally balanced!). Yes, the lead character is an abused woman, but she eventually becomes empowered and it is a good story with significant female parts.
@momcares- I actually thought Hamilton did a nice job giving a voice to Eliza Hamilton- a “woman behind” one of the great men. I teach AP US history with about 5 different history books as my main resources -Eliza isn’t in any of them. Neither are Martha Washington or Martha Jefferson (though Sally Hemmings gets a mention, scandal is juicy). Abigail Adams gets a nod for “remember the ladies”… That’s it.
So far the main things I’ve heard are the Hamilton women saying are essentially “isn’t he fine”, “stay alive” and “take some time off to be with the family”, which doesn’t go far beyond 1776. But I’m on the first listen and haven’t yet seen the show, so there may be much more to the portrayals of women (who btw are all crazy talented!).
Looks like good news for women from the newer plays! Another benefit of straight plays is that I assume fewer of the women are employed as long legs in tap shoes surrounding a leading male.
I like that Angelica and Alexander write to each other as equals (as Abigail and John Adams did) offering and accepting advice. Certainly not the norm in an age where a woman stopped having a individual legal identity when she got married…
And let me be clear- I am hardly trying to suggest that Hamilton is pushing gender envelopes the was they are with ethnicity etc. but they are going for accuracy on many historical elements- and women’s public lives were very restricted
Sadly our world still contains an ample supply of marginalized folks, both male and female, so there are plenty of opportunities for pushing envelopes through theatre and I applaud all of them that are done well (as Hamilton clearly is).
True, but luckily for MT most people’s private and inner lives are far more interesting than their public lives, so I expect that history still holds plenty of female story-fodder to keep future writers busy.
Can’t wait to see film “Suffragette” coming out soon with nearly all female cast and crew, including writer, producers, and director. Maybe it will be transferred to the stage…
Although I think that the gender gap is an issue, I do think that it is a small part of the challenges affecting the opportunity for our kids ever earning a living in theatre.
I spent the last week in NYC seeing shows and attending the NAMT Annual Festival of New Musicals. Having a quick look at the casts of the four Broadway shows I saw, this is the breakdown of males and females.
On Your Feet - 15/15
Fun Home - 6/9
Beautiful - 12/12
Hamilton - 17/11
The NAMT Festival, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, is held annually. They accept submissions of new works in January. A 20 page excerpt and demo is reviewed in the first round. Somewhere around 1/3 of the shows are chosen to move on. Then each show is read by four members of the Festival committee. 20 shows are then chosen to be semi-finalists and those shows are read by the entire committee. The prior year’s chair of the committee returns at this point as a pair of new eyes. Eight shows are ultimately chosen to be presented at the festival in a 45 minute production.
A casting agency casts the shows with Broadway actors under a 29 hour readings contract for which the actors receive a stipend of $99.
This is just one way in which new material is seen but it is an important one, and you can see how very difficult it is to get new material seen, let alone produced. There were a few hundred theatre professionals - producers/directors/heads of college theatre programs. Virtually every successful/respected theatre company across the U.S. and Canada is represented, as well as many college theatre departments. The eight shows that were presented breakdown for m/f was 36/24. Half of the shows had a female involved as either the composer or the writer of the book.
So, for those of you who are interested in supporting new material and who would like to do so to promote increased theatre opportunities for new grads, I highly recommend that you make a donation to the non-profit NAMT.
That is an excellent article @bisouu. Honestly, this is a path my own kid has gone down. She has never waited to be cast in something. She has created various works for herself to be in. I’ve seen this with a number of her peers as well. And there are well known people who do this too, such as Lin-Manuel Miranda (I realize he is a guy, but women are doing this too).
In addition to shows usually having more male than female roles, it is also relatively common to stunt-cast men in female roles. Matilda and Hairspray are obvious examples, but I can think of recent productions of Cinderella, American Idiot and My Fair Lady that did the same. Many of these performances are very fun, but it means even fewer roles for women. I can’t think of many examples where females have been stunt-cast in male roles.
