Okay, folks – I’m finally doing it.
I’m writing a book.
The current working title is:
Growing Older – From Ingenue to Grande Dame
And the focus is on
Musical Theatre Repertoire for Women
“of a Certain Age”
What exactly does that mean? And why I am writing this?
Well, first of all, the term “of a certain age” has a couple of different definitions.
Most people think of it as being a woman who is old enough that she doesn’t want to tell you how old she is (which is pretty much the definition found in the Urban Dictionary.) There are several other definitions of this term, with some more appealing than others:
- The Free Dictionary defines “of a certain age” as a phrase “used to avoid saying that a person, usually a woman, is no longer young but is not yet old.”
- Lord Byron used the phrase in 1817 to describe a spinster – the unfortunate woman who hung precariously in that limbo between the desirable states of Miss and Mrs.
- But in France, according to the blogpost, A Woman of a Certain Age!, the term “une femme d’un certain age” has “erotically or sexually charged overtones, referring to an ‘experienced’ woman (in the 18th century that meant over 40!) who could still entice young men into their beds.” (In the United States, we call those women “cougars.”)
(And just like the Olympics opening ceremony this past week, it’s France for the win!)
For musical theater purposes, we are looking at roles for women who are or over 40 years old.
And WHY am I writing this book?
Well, I’m over 40. I’m over 50. I’m over 55.
That’s as far as I’m going.
And there are a lot of us singing, taking lessons, performing – whether it’s in musical theater or opera, vocationally or avocationally, and we’re not done yet.
About 12 years ago, I asked a major publisher if they would consider publishing a book of musical theater repertoire for women over 40 – after all, they had multiple books for kids, for teens, and quite a few of their books had songs for ingenues. His answer to me was:
“We’ve considered it, but we don’t think there’s a market for it.”
“But we’re the ones with the money!”
I believe there IS a market for this group. I know there is. I teach these folks. I am these folks.
So I’ve been collecting repertoire, and I’ve started writing about:
- the different kinds of roles for us (there are leading lady roles as well as moms and grandmas),
- how to find those roles for yourself and your students,
- what factors go into deciding how old a character should be, and
- how to choose repertoire for yourself (and your students) that is not only age-appropriate but suits your voice for where you are at this point in your life.
I hope to talk to Broadway singers at different stages of their careers to find out what their experience is – because, obviously, they’re not done yet either – and to include their perspectives in the book.
I will be sharing some of my observations with you (not all of them – gotta save them for the book!) over the next few months.
Stay tuned!
