[sumaphelia]

Myself and two friends of mine want to sing Matchmaker for a Small Group Musical IE at our Thespian District competition because we all love the song However...We aren't sure who to cast as whom.

I don't have any formal training as a singer, but I can act and have tons of dance experience. I'm 5'2" with dark hair and eyes. From what I understand, theoretically, in a full production I would make an okay Chava. Being the shortest of the three this sounds okay, except I would prefer Tzeitel since she does the least amount of singing in this song.
My friend Kaitlin has had loads of training as a singer, and is around 5'8". My other friend Lauren is about 5'6" and has a moderate amount of training, but a very pretty singing voice.

SO I guess my question to you experts ( ) would be who do you think should play which sister? I know height shouldn't be a huge issue because age doesn't necessarily correspond to height. However, this one song is the only thing the judges will be seeing (as opposed to an entire production), so I would prefer to showcase our talents but at the same time not make them wonder why we made a certain decision (whatever that decision may be). I guess if I was Tzeitel, Lauren was Hodel, and Kaitlin was Chava is would sort of be like a reverse stairstep but...Is that going to make the judges scratch their heads?

[music-man]

So singing-wise your suggestion makes sense, because that would give you a better sound right? but, i think it would help if you chose what was more important, for example, are you more worried about your singing or, about how it looks.

are you doing dancing in it too? and costume?

basically, if singing is the most important, go for casting it on singing ability. in our production, hodel is the tallest, then tzeitel and chava are about the same, if not chava is a little taller. Be sure to use stage presence, and the way you act your specific characters to help as well. Ive seen shows where a smaller person has a massive role, but because of his presence you always looked at him, not the other, taller people.

woa, just realised how much i wrote... i hope it helps. maybe someone else can add their opinion too. Let us know how it goes, yeah?

x

[Beagle On Stage]

You can look at who sings the most one of two ways. Remember, Tzietel sings two verses all by herself, whereas Chava sings a few lines solo and Hodel can carry her through all the parts when they sing together. Although in a full production it's fairly common to cast a Tzietel who isn't much of a singer, knowing that she can do a character voice as Yente and act the hell out of it, in this setting you might want to showcase the MOST solid voice in the part that sings the biggest stretch on her own.

I'm a huge fan of the stairstep method in full productions (in fact, I see it as almost completely necessary), but it sounds like the song would be mostly out of context in this case, so it's probably not a big deal.

[sumaphelia]

Thank you both so much!
We did end up going with me as Tzeitel, Kaitlin as Hodel (to carry everyone), and Kristy (instead of Lauren) as Chava. We figured that the heights weren't such a huge deal since it was out of context and the only dialogue the judges would hear would start from "I wonder if Yente has found a match for you..."

Unfortunately we don't get to have costumes. We are given some chairs and a sturdy table to use at our discretion and we can use props as long as they are in fact actively used, so we're bringing mops for Hodel and Chava, and laundry for Tzeitel.

They both agreed I should be Tzeitel regardless of height because I have that "overbearing, dominating older sister-thing going on". And they like my Yente SO, all in all, you were right that we have to take the most important things into account.