<p>Do you have a child in a single sex high school? If so, how do they do their theater productions? </p>
<p>Our two Catholic single-sex schools have always collaborated together on the plays, but this year there has been a falling out between the faculties and they’ve decided to go it alone. (It’s a classic case of adults acting badly.)</p>
<p>Anyway, I was wondering how everybody else does it. Thanks for your ideas.</p>
<p>At my sons’ school, girls from a variety of HS – Catholic, public and other private – are invited to audition. It’s a real draw to get the boys involved in drama! It’s amazing (or not!) how many help with the technical side of things, too.</p>
<p>At my D’s single sex school, some of the male parts were taken by boys in the community or by faculty members; others were taken by girls. They also produced Wendy Wasserstein’s play Uncommon Women (which has no male parts, if I remember correctly).</p>
<p>When I was in HS, and also at a single-sex school, both our school (all girls) and the local boys school produced plays by using the cross-dressing answer. The explanation given was: “if it was good enough for Shakespeare, it’s good enough for us.”</p>
<p>My daughter played “big Jule” in Guys and Dolls when she was in high school- ( Big Jule is a tough gun toting gangster from Chicago- D is small and blond- not very formidable- her school was co-ed though- but the director thought he would make a funny)
turned out great- it was one of my more favorite productions
I think it works better to have either productions that don’t call for the opposite sex- or to have cross dressing characters- after all isn’t the purpose for the boys of that school to have an opportunity to perform on stage and entertain a bit at the same time?
There are enough plays out there, that something can be found to fit the make up and talents of the cast :)</p>
<p>At D’s first high school (girls only) we also had a female play Big Jule. It was fantastic.
In 8th grade the girls did The Music Man, with girls playing the male parts, too. It also was great.<br>
This has been done for years in opera. Recently my daughter played Hansel in Hansel and Gretel. With the costuming, she was not recognizable!</p>
<p>I think boys playing the parts of girls would be a travesty.</p>
<p>funny, DS’s coed school had a girl playing Big Jule last year</p>
<p>I went to an all-male high school, and we encouraged girls from all over the city to come and audition. We have a sister school that’s a few hundred yards away from us, and we are constantly in academic competitions with an all girls’ school in town, so we have many friends from those schools we encourage to try out.</p>
<p>It works surprisingly well. Our theater program is one of the better ones in the city, so that’s a draw for the girls, and being in a co-ed production is a big draw for the guys!</p>
<p>Yeah, our school invites girls from area schools to audition and help with the tech crew. Some of our actors also do shows at girls’ schools in the area. Many of the girls become regulars at Prep shows just as much as the students at my school.</p>
<p>Well, thanks for the thoughts everyone. Maybe this will be doable after all. </p>
<p>It is really shameful, the whole situation. The kids from these two schools loved working with each other - it is the adults who can’t seem to figure out a way to get along.</p>
<p>As the other private all-boy school has gone co-ed, my S2’s school now has two all girl schools fighting to do theatre productions with them. We have a stunning new theatre which helps the draw card.</p>
<p>However, the Drama dept is busy busy and boys OFTEN play the female roles in smaller production or in-house productions like the House Drama competitions where the 10 houses (six boarding) compete against each other to put on the best short play. </p>
<p>It’s not a travesty at all. It’s great fun. Boys are far more daring when girls aren’t around. That’s my observation.</p>