[ilovemusicals]

I live in a area of about 20,000 people, where this one theatre group that does about 5 shows a year...What i find so annoying is that practically every one of the shows call for a completely adult cast and teenagers especcially never get a chance to act or perform at all...They always do one musical a year which is supposed to be the time when kids and youth have a chance to get cast, but I have found out that this year, once again the cast for the musical in going to be completely adult, with one kid under 6. This has me so ticked because my friends and I were really hoping for more chances to get cast in a musical before going to university. This has alot of people quite upset about it...the whole politics of the theatres around here suck...
Im sorry...that was just a pointless rant. It just has me mad.

[Salome]

uhm that has nothing to do with politics. it hasto do with the types of shows they choose to do.

No theatre is requiredto do shows for any particular age group.

on a practical level doing shows with teens and children isnt always a good idea artistically..since they are learning their craft alot of times it takes a director longer than the alloted 4-6 weeks to get their cast upto speed if they use teens or adults.

from a professional stand point i see their vision.

my suggestion...can you attend one of their board meetings and suggest they do a show for teens oncea year as a special production not part of thewir subscription season? that would give your age range a yearly chance to perform and not interfere with their regular season chosen by thedirectors and/or board.

[ilovemusicals]

Well no thats not really politics but its just the fact that it seems the music directors and directors families are the only ones every getting cast in anything...its so hard to ever get a role, if the opportunity for one ever arrises. They precast everthing. Some of the people involved were thinking of doing Anne of Green Gables, but then they changed there minds, which has some people a little ticked off...

[Salome]

like I said take my suggestion and attend a board meeting with the suggestion.

[Melindaisy]

Well, if it is like our community theater, it is a group founded and run primarily for adults to participate in. At times we select shows that use children and teens, but mostly our shows require adults in the leads.

At times this has made alot of parents angry, because (unfortunately) our local school district does not have plays and musicals as part of the extra-curricular activities offered to students. Sometimes we do children's theatre (that is, shows to appeal to younger audiences), and that makes parents think we should be doing theater with children.

We have, at present, a large group of talented teens who have performed with us in the last few years. So, since we are aware of the talent available, we have recently done plays which involve, or could involve our younger people in major roles.

Then again, we are a fairly small group - and if it is a large cast show, you can almost always be sure that we will use teens in the chorus and smaller roles, even if they are not age appropriate.

In a community theater which draws from an area the size of which you mention, they probably don't need to do that, getting enough adults to fill the roles.

As Salome says, approach them and see if they would be willing to present a show that uses teens as an special production.

[jesuiscommejesuis]

I'm lucky and have a theatre by me that has one teen-heavy show every year. For example, this year we had Grease; last year there was Footloose, the year before that West Side Story, etc.

They tend to cast mostly early-twenties (especially in the lead roles), though I've managed to get leads the last two years and I'm eighteen. The shows are always just as good as the other shows, which are generally more adult-heavy.