Lucy Lovett graduated from Salem Academy in North Carolina and is currently a first year student at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. She has been involved in theatre both on and off stage since the third grade and hopes to pursue a career in writing.
Casting with Too Many Girls
Implementing Cross-Gender Casting
by Lucy Lovett
So you’ve found the perfect script. It’s exactly what you were looking for and there’s a good balance of parts for boys and girls and some that can be either. Awesome. Then you look at your group of actors and realize you have three times as many girls as boys who want to be in the play. This could be a problem.
On the other hand, think positively — it doesn’t have to be a problem. Cross-gender casting is an easy, fun and educational fix to having a less than perfect match between the casting requirements of your selected show and the actors who audition for the parts. I spent three years doing theatre at an all-girls high school, and my favorite roles were men’s roles. Playing a role of the opposite gender is an acting experience like no other. To build your character, you have to start from nothing. Not even your natural body language or voice can carry over into your character. Looking in the mirror and seeing only your character and none of yourself is an exciting and startling experience for an actor wanting to grow in his or her craft. Some actors will relish this challenge to leave everything familiar behind and try something completely new and different in the character they take on, and they’ll become better actors for it.
Cross-gender casting also offers an interesting challenge to students working with makeup and costumes. From personal experience I can say that successfully applying “man makeup” is a rewarding feeling. (Luckily, it doesn’t have to be complex; simply darkening and thickening eyebrows makes a huge difference.) Careful and layered costuming can help hide and transform body shape. Of course, this is much easier with younger actors. Indeed, younger actors may be more willing to take on cross-gender parts than more self-conscious, older students, though this is not always the case.
If you are considering cross-gender casting, it’s important that you first determine who within your group of actors will be amenable to it. While playing cross-gender parts can be fun and exciting, some actors may be unwilling to take these kinds of roles, considering them to be embarrassing or awkward. Of course, if an actor is seriously uncomfortable playing a cross-gender part, don’t try to force her. (I’m assuming most casting needs in schools require girls to play boys’ parts.) Fortunately, there will almost always be at least a few girls willing to rise to the challenge of playing a boy’s part. The truth is that in some shows the best roles are male. So forget telling the girls that it’s for the good of the show or that they have to pay their dues to get a better part in the next play. Instead, present the part as an opportunity to test and strengthen their acting skills. You’re sure to have at least a few girls serious enough about acting to become excited about the idea. By taking these roles, they know they’ll become better actors.
Of course, the question of cross-gender casting tends to get more complicated if you have the much rarer problem of having more male actors than male roles. While some directors are comfortable casting male actors in female roles (if it’s good enough for Shakespeare...), others find this more problematic. If you are working with a comedy, casting a boy in a girl’s part can add to the humor of the show, especially if it is done in a campy, drag style. However, you will want to be aware of your audience and how they are likely to respond to this.
Beyond identifying which actors are willing to play a character of the opposite sex, you also need to exercise care about which roles you select for cross-gender casting. Some roles simply lend themselves to it better than others, so choosing wisely can make a big difference in how acceptable both your cast and audience find this alternative. In fact, some roles are traditionally cast with the opposite gender, such as the title role in Peter Pan or Tracy’s mother in Hairspray. As a general rule, unless you are specifically going for the humor of it, avoid using cross-gender casting for roles that involve any sort of romantic relationship as it might make the actors uncomfortable.
While not all actors, directors or audiences will be entirely comfortable with cross-gender casting, it is an option well worth considering. If you are unsure as to how your actors will respond to it, talk to them! Better yet, try some theatre games that require students to take on the opposite gender if only for a few minutes to see how it goes. By encouraging at least some of those auditioning for your show to consider the fun challenge of cross-gender casting, you open up a much wider range of script options.
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