As Jean Valjean asked in Les Miserables, “Who am I?”
It’s a question I’ve asked myself often in my life. And I’ve had to reinvent, redefine, and reintroduce myself a few times in my life.
Twelve years ago, I moved to Baltimore and decided to take Thomas back as my performing name and hyphenate it with O’Meally for teaching. The explanation of why I did that is here in my blogpost “Only the names have been changed.” (Note – the format of this is an absolute MESS because it came from a previous platform, and I was trying to clean it up but I would have to retype it and … the content is there and that’s what counts.)
Since my performing is winding down somewhat – I’ve decided not to return to Washington National Opera for a variety of reasons, some logistic, many political – I’ve decided that I’m going to go back to my legal name – Christine O’Meally.
I told someone that and she said, “Oh – did you get divorced?”
Well, yes. 30 years ago. (And, coincidentally, my ex died exactly one year ago today – weird.)
Everything else is the same. Just fewer letters to type and fewer syllables to speak!
You’ll find that there are still a few websites, platforms, and graphics that will say Thomas or Thomas-O’Meally on them. I’ll change them as I find them. I’ve fixed them on the website and most of my socials.
I may need to reinvent and redefine myself a time or two more in my personal and professional life.
But as far as reintroducing myself, this should be the last time I have to answer the question, “Who am I?” – at least in terms of my name.
Nice to meet you (again!)
*****
Looking for summer lessons? Fall lessons? Home for the summer and want to keep your technique up? Planning a longer-term commitment? I have a few spots open – find out how to work with me!
The period of 1960 to about 1970 is referred to as that of Classic Musical Theatre – although many people still consider many of the musicals of the period to be decidedly Golden Age-y, particularly the last few written by that era’s composers in the 1960s
The musicals of the 1960s were transitory in nature – which is true of most of the art and culture of that era. The 1960s began with the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the youngest president elected – who was also a college classmate of Alan Jay Lerner, the composer of Camelot, which opened on Broadway just a little over 3 weeks after the election. Camelot is often associated with JFK, largely because that’s how Jacqueline Kennedy wanted it to be presented, but also because of the tragedy of both the show and the assassination of JFK – which was not the last tragedy of the era.
Musical and Cultural Influences
Everything was changing. I could list them all, but I made this handy-dandy chart a few years ago when I taught this in an online course, so see for yourself:
Also, sitcoms like The Odd Couple, That Girl, and the Dick Van Dyke Show featured Broadway actors and even opera singers, often playing themselves, so people started becoming familiar with these actors without having to go to New York and see a show. These same actors would appear on talk shows, like Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. And by the same token, when Broadway shows became movies, they often starred television and movie actors who did not create the role (and often couldn’t even sing – I’m looking at you, Audrey Hepburn).
The times, they were a-changing – and the things you heard on the radio were no longer traditional show tunes and the Great American songbook. Pop music was influenced by the British invasion, rock and roll, R&B/Soul, country, and the musicals began to be influenced by these styles as well as by the cultural influences described above.
While Richard Rodgers was still composing after the death of Oscar Hammerstein II, his musicals were still firmly stuck in the style of the Golden Age, and, with the exception of the movie version of Sound of Music, he never achieved the same level of success. His collaborations with other composers, most notably Stephen Sondheim, were marred by tension over changes in style and content that did not mesh with his established traditions.
(But oh, that collaboration with Sondheim had some real gems, like this one from 1965’s Do I hear a waltz; I staged this song twice in my Milwaukee studio, and boy, do I wish I had recordings of those performances.)
From my recent presentation at Maryland Thespians, here’s a playlist of their work.
Vocal Styles
Although there were still holdovers from the Golden Age in some of the singing, the vocal styles were changing. In some ways, it was more like the jazz age; singers used brighter, more conversational mouth shapes. The approach to vibrato was the same found in pop music – late onset after a long straight tone. Phrases were long, but logical and more speech-like. The soprano leading lady was being phased out for the belter (although belting still never got that high), especially in the latter half of the decade.
Up Next
I could spend more time talking about the influence of pop and rock, and share things from Hair, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Bye Bye Birdie, but … I really hate the last piece with a white hot passion (except for the stuff Dick Van Dyke sings, because I’ve a crush on him since I was 4). So up next, we’ll move on to what I call The Concept Musical and the Mega-Musical, which will focus on the 1970s and the 1980s. So stay tuned!
******
If you would like to work on music of this era (or any other) with me privately or have me come in and work with your theater students, drop me a note and I’d be happy to discuss the possibilities!
When I went to NYC in January 2020 (yes, I know, right before the pandemic), I was told I had to see the revival of Oklahoma!. I was skeptical – it was a Golden Age musical, so it was old-fashioned by today’s standards, and it had never been one of my favorite ones. But I was told, “Oh, this is different. This isn’t your mother’s Oklahoma!”
And it wasn’t. As I wrote in my November 2019 blogpost, Golden Age Musicals – Why You Should Bother, it was a very different interpretation. Besides being accompanied by a bluegrass band, it had diverse casting (which, most assuredly, would be called “DEI” by the current administration – don’t get me started), and it was dark. It was the best version of Oklahoma! I had ever seen (although I did not care for the Laurey – she was not a legit soprano, and she could not sing the songs written for her character).
Another plus was that they served cornbread and chili during intermission that was made on stage during Act 1.
ALL SHOWS SHOULD DO THIS.
And I think it was very true to the mission that Oscar Hammerstein II set when he started writing Oklahoma with Richard Rodgers (their first collaboration). To shake things up – to fully integrate the story, the songs, the dancing – instead of having the songs being merely a toe-tapping diversion. Instead, the songs moved the action along, they were a continuation of the dialogue, and they developed the characters fully. Hammerstein had started this work with Jerome Kern in Showboat, but it was fully realized in Oklahoma! and in their other musicals of the 1940s and 1950s.
I believe that, while executed in a completely different way, that this was just as dramatic a shift as Wagner’s idea of music drama in his 1851 book Opera and Drama and the 1869 premiere of his Ring Cycle – the intention was to achieve cohesion and synthesis, rather than jumping from one disjointed scene to another. Both Hammerstein and Wagner wanted to create an art form that was realistic and connected.
(Interestingly, I just found someone’s thesis discussing Sondheim’s concept musical as an example of gesamtkunstwerk – which I may delve into when we get into the concept musical – but it’s interesting, since Sondheim was Hammerstein’s protégé.)
Other Characteristics of the Golden Age
In addition to shows being fully integrated, the Golden Age era is noted for:
Having American themes – shows often set in the “flyover states” (i.e., not New York or Hollywood)
Stories coming from known literary works (in other words, having plots)
Pygmalion (Shaw) –> My Fair Lady
Tales of the South Pacific (Michener) –> South Pacific
Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) –> West Side Story
Making stars out of choreographers – Abbott, DeMille, Robbins, Fosse
Despite being dismissed as sentimental, they were actually groundbreaking on subjects such as
miscegenation (South Pacific)
first person to die onstage (Oklahoma)
first hero to die onstage (King & I)
spousal abuse (Carousel)
bigotry (Finian’s Rainbow)
gang violence (West Side Story)
First original cast recording (Oklahoma)
First Tony Awards (1947)
Vocal Styles
The vocal styles of this period are characterized by:
Legit sopranos/baritones (lead roles); taller mouth shapes, more vertical resonance
Belt-y altos/tenors (character roles)
Speech-like no matter what voice type
Consistent vibrato
Phrasing: clean but not fixed, and not soupy and syrupy
Here’s the playlist I created for my presentation at Maryland Thespians a few weeks back. This also includes an excellent comparison of how contemporary singers interpret Golden Age revivals, courtesy of Kevin Michael Jones. (Note: I prefer Julie Andrews’ Cinderella to Laura Osnes’ by a country mile.)
Singers of the era include: John Raitt, Barbara Cook, Celeste Holm, Alfred Drake. Check out this recording of John Raitt singing “Soliloquy” and interpolating a high Bb4 at the end (much to the disapproval of Richard Rodgers, who wanted it to stay on the F4 written and not be quite so performative).
What’s Next?
The Golden Age is said to have ended in 1959, with the final musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein (Sound of Music), although there are several other musicals written in the early 1960s that would qualify: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (the final produced musical by Frank Loesser), and Camelot (1960, the final collaboration of Lerner & Loewe). But for all intents and purposes, the style was established between the years of 1943 and 1959.
In my next post, we’ll move on to the 1960s, which in many ways carried on the traditions of the Golden Age, but became a bridge to the musicals of the 1970s and beyond.
******
If you would like to work on music of this era with me privately or have me come in and work with your theater students, drop me a note and I’d be happy to discuss the possibilities!
In Tuesday’s blogpost about Tin Pan Alley and the Jazz Age, I said that I wanted to talk a little more about how the songwriters of that era impacted shows after it, even up to today.
When I taught this course back in 2020, I asked my class the question:
What do these old dead guys have to do with today’s musicals?
And then I created this graphic:
The Melody Lingers On
If we look at Irving Berlin as the supreme melodist of the era (“Say it isn’t so,” “Cheek to cheek,” “The melody lingers on”), and then we look at who came after him, we can see that melody has remained paramount. The shows where we leave humming a tune, whether it’s from Oklahoma!, Fiddler, Phantom, Ragtime, or The Greatest Showman (yeah, it’s a movie – for now) – those are the shows that live on.
(I was actually surprised that Pasek & Paul considered themselves heirs to Rodgers & Hammerstein – until I read a Vanity Fair article titled “The Heirs of Rodgers and Hammerstein.” Plus, in this interview from 2016, they come right out and name them as one of their primary influences.)
An interesting quote I read about Irving Berlin as a songwriter comes from a blogpost by music historian Robert Greenberg:
… Berlin, unlike any of the other great Tin Pan Alley songwriters, came to writing songs as a singer and not as a piano player. As a singer, he always preferred to use the most direct, most “singable” melodies he could create, and words he could find.
Here’s Linda Ronstadt singing “What’ll I do” on her 1983 album “What’s new,” released 60 years after its 1923 composition:
I think it’s interesting that Gershwin called Irving Berlin, “America’s Franz Schubert” (also from the blogpost above). Which leads us to …
I Got Rhythm
Although Gershwin (and Porter, in the next section) was no slouch at writing a wonderful melody, he was the first person to introduce the rhythms of jazz to musical theater (as well as classical music – i.e., Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris). And we hear his influence in the rhythmic intensity of Leonard Bernstein (“Mambo“), the mixed meters of Stephen Sondheim, Jason Robert Brown, and the rap of Lin Manuel Miranda in both In the Heights and Hamilton. In fact, for Sondheim and LMM, the rhythms are most often dictated by their text, particularly the rhymes, both internal and end.
The same is true of George Gershwin – his lyrics were written by his brother, Ira, but his way of setting them dictated the rhythm. Here’s a great and perfectly titled example of this:
Anything Goes
Cole Porter’s music was elegant and his lyrics were clever (and there are often many saucier alternatives to the ones you find in his published works). His style was sophisticated – he came from money and the Midwest, not from Russia or Russian immigrants, as were Berlin and Gershwin. The musicals of Cole Porter are witty, urbane (and usually urban). I see similarities in the music of Kurt Weill (Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus), Kander & Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret), Maury Yeston (Grand Hotel, Nine) and Anais Mitchell (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet). (I have no idea why I included Frank Wildhorn in the above graphic – I’m sure it made sense to me nearly 5 years ago, but right now I’m drawing a blank.)
Here’s the composer himself singing “You’re the top” from Anything Goes:
In my next post, I’ll talk about the significance of the Golden Age (1942-1959) and how the vocal and musical styles evolved from the previous era – and why it’s important to know these styles when you’re auditioning for one of these shows.
****
Want to know more about singing in different styles (musical theater, classical, or whatever) while finding your own voice? Find out how to work with me!
Today I’m going to focus on the period of 1925 to 1942 – the period from (roughly) the first musical written by the Gershwin brothers, Lady Be Good, through the last collaboration of Rodgers & Hart, By Jupiter. The composers of this era were associated with Tin Pan Alley and the music of the Jazz Age.
(Lady Be Good actually premiered in 1924, but hey, it’s close enough for …. jazz.)
The influences of American musical theater have been attributed to the early days of vaudeville (which, in turn, came from British music hall) and the popularity of operetta (both German/Austrian and England’s Gilbert & Sullivan). These were popular for the first two decades of the twentieth century.
The Music of Tin Pan Alley
But by the 1920s, post WWI, America was ready for something new. American popular song started taking off in the late 1800s, with the songwriting companies based on 29th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues in New York City. The term “tin pan alley” came from the ruckus all the songwriters made from playing their pianos all day long, and goes back to an article in the Hampton Magazine entitled “Tin Pan Alley.”
Composers and lyricists working as songwriters and song pluggers on Tin Pan Alley included the aforementioned Gershwin brothers, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Fats Waller, Kay Swift, Ann Ronell, and Dorothy Fields.
The Jazz Age
In the 1920s, jazz became a huge influence on popular culture. Much like the rock and roll of the 1950s, jazz came from the Black culture (specifically New Orleans), was a symbol of youth’s rebellion against tradition, and was considered by the older generation as decadent and dangerous! (Obviously, my kind of music.) Composers like Gershwin, Kern, Porter and Rodgers drew inspiration from the genre, in addition to their experience in writing popular music for Tin Pan Alley.
Vocal Styles
The vocal styles of this time period are characterized by:
Bright, forward placement
Some holdover from the classical operetta style, but the belt is prominently featured (although it’s never that high)
An emphasis on diction – very crisp, often fast, sometimes suggestive (think of the pre-Code, screwball comedy – or, if you haven’t seen any, the patter in The Gilmore Girls)
Vibrato – mimics pop style; croony
Phrasing & rhythm: back/front phrasing is used to create syncopation (occasionally this is written in but is often left up to the singer – much like Baroque ornamentation was expected of the singer to create based on their own abilities and knowledge)
Here is a playlist I created for the handout I gave at my workshop at the Maryland Thespians Festival. This covers music from Holiday Inn, Of Thee I Sing, Showboat, Pal Joey, Shuffle Along, and Anything Goes (most of the music is from recent revivals)
Plots
The stories were often not that memorable, with a few exceptions:
Show Boat (1927) was a musical play, rather than a musical comedy, based on the Edna Ferber book of the same name, and dealt with racial prejudice, class discrimination, marital strife.
The Gershwins’ political satire, Of Thee I Sing (1931) won the first Pulitzer Prize given to a musical.
Rodgers’ and Hart’s Pal Joey (1940) told a story of a charming but unsympathetic antihero, a definite change from the standard musical comedy leading man (although how unlikeable could a character be when played by Gene Kelly?).
Anything Goes (1934), by Cole Porter, is still performed today, with well known revivals in 1987 with Patti Lupone and 2011 with Sutton Foster in the role of Reno Sweeney. It is also performed often in community and academic theatre. Not only was the original source material by Guy Bolton & P.G. Wodehouse significantly revised by the writing team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, the music has been altered over the years to incorporate other songs written for other shows by Cole Porter.
A different kind of jukebox musical?
The songs that were heard on Broadway in this era were the songs you would hear on the radio. It didn’t really matter if you’d seen the show or not. The songs were written by the songwriters of Tin Pan Alley, who knew what would sell. Many of the shows have not survived; but the music did. Sometimes the songs and the title of the show would be kept, but an entirely different story would be written around the music. (A sort of jukebox musical, which we’ll talk about later.)
An example would be Girl Crazy (1930) by the Gershwins, in which Ethel Merman made her debut and became famous of her rendition of “I got rhythm.” It was made into a movie in 1932 (with only three of the songs), in 1943 with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, and had a name change to When the Boys Meet the Girls in 1965, starring pop singer Connie Francis, and pop icons Herman’s Hermits, Louis Armstrong, and Liberace. Another stage version, Crazy for You, came out in 1992 and completely changed the plot, with success (winning the Tony for Best Musical in 1992, the Olivier in 1993, and the Olivier for its 2011 revival).
There’s so much more I could talk about, and I think I will in another post – specifically about how this era has impacted subsequent composers. More on that later.
If you would like to work on music of this era with me privately or have me come in and work with your theater students, drop me a note and I’d be happy to discuss the possibilities!
Tin Pan Alley to Today: 100 Years of Musical Theatre History
Vocal Styles and Techniques
When I first began entering high school musical theatre students in the NATS auditions back in the early 2000s, there were three requirements for repertoire:
One piece must be written prior to 1960
One piece must be written after 1960
Three different composers – you couldn’t have two pieces by the same composer, even if one was written before 1960 and one after (even if their styles had radically changed)
And college auditions were pretty much the same way.
Now, the requirements for the NATS HS MT auditions are:
THREE contrasting musical theatre selections from musicals including film musicals, revues, operettas, musical theatre song cycles, or musical theatre song literature. Only one selection may be chosen from an operetta or musical theatre song literature.
And according to getacceptd.com, the common musical theatre repertoire requirements for college prescreens are:
One musical theater song from any time period.
One song of your choice from any time period and in any style that best suits you (musical theater, pop, hip-hop, folk, rock, rap, soul, country, punk, etc.). This song should contrast the style of the first selection.
Why learn about earlier eras?
So a lot of people are simply not familiar with or interested in older musical theater. Why even bother?
Because in 2025, Broadway musicals can be originals (Hadestown, The Outsiders, The Great Gatsby), they can be jukebox musicals (MJ, & Juliet, Moulin Rouge) or they can be revivals (Gypsy, Sunset Boulevard, Wonderful Town). A well-rounded performer will know how to adapt their vocal style and technique to suit the era in which the piece is written (while still appealing to modern sensibilities). I’ve sat in on auditions where people are auditioning for a pre-1970 musical but bringing repertoire that is contemporary and not at all in the right style.
One of my former students is Lissa deGuzman, who is currently standby for Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway, after playing her on the national tour for a year. Lissa can belt her face off, as is evidenced in multiple videos on YouTube:
Other roles she’s played on national tours, Broadway, and in regional theatre are Jasmine in Aladdin, Ann in King Kong, Vivienne in Legally Blonde, and Dawn in Waitress. All roles where you need to belt your face off.
But she’s also played Cinderella, Guenevere in Camelot, Maria in West Side Story, and recently did a symphony concert in which she sang Christine in Phantom, Audrey in Little Shop and Evita. So she’s not a one-trick pony.
She’s working regularly because she can sing anything and sings in the appropriate style for the roles she’s hired for. (And by the way, she could belt when she came to me – I didn’t teach her how to belt like that, just how to be healthy while doing it.)
In this next series of posts, I’d like to give you an overview of the evolution of musical theater from 1925-2025, exploring the shifts in vocal style and technique required for each era. We’ll start out with:
Tin Pan Alley, 1925-1942
The Golden Age, 1943-1959
The Classic Era, 1960-1970
The Concept Musical and the Mega-Musical, 1971-1989
The Second Golden Age/The Disney Renaissance, 1990-2004
Pop Goes the Musical!, 2005-2005
(The start and end dates of these are not drawn in stone – there is some overlap, which we’ll talk about. But these are convenient benchmarks.)
Stay tuned for an overview of the music of Tin Pan Alley and the Jazz Age!
***
The content for this series is drawn from the musical theater course of the same name I gave online in 2020, which was the source material for the workshops I gave last weekend for the Maryland Thespians Festival at Towson University. If you would like to know more about musical theater style, either for you or for your students, contact me to find out about lessons, workshops, or masterclasses!
Ask a silly question and you’ll get a silly answer.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
And the phrase that really cemented my choice of this word as my 2025 Word:
If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.
This phrase is attributed to writer Nora Roberts, and the full quote is actually:
“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.”
I have no idea in what context she used this phrase. She’s a romance novelist, and I haven’t read any of her work. I’ve heard the phrase from other people, and it means a lot to me.
There was a time when I didn’t ask for things. My mom told me, “Oh, don’t ask, they’ll just say no,” and the implication was that the person would think less of me. That I was presumptuous, entitled, too big for my britches. And so I didn’t. I didn’t ask for favors, opinions, people’s time, because I didn’t want to be perceived badly.
The hell with that.
In the last year or so, I’ve asked for a few things and gotten them. Most recently, for paid parking for a gig (which would have otherwise eaten up 1/3 of the fee that I was getting). And for a collaboration between MDDC NATS and a major performing organization (which I can’t talk about yet and is still in the works). I’ve heard no a couple of times, or not yet.
Last year I didn’t have a word of the year. I didn’t do a brain dump to kick off my year. Or at any time during the year. I feel as though I got things done, but it was an accident. I certainly didn’t have any kind of focus, which was my word of the year in 2022. Maybe I lost my mojo after the events in July-August 2022, when I lost a student I didn’t expect to lose, had Covid, tore my flexor tendon, and had surgery for that and cataract surgery on both eyes. (That was a really bad summer.)
So I started off this year with the intent to be more organized and to take more chances. I thought of my word of the year being Discovery, but that seemed so ephemeral. And then I wasn’t even thinking – I was just asking someone for something, and it came to me.
Just ask.
******
If you are thinking about taking voice lessons, just ask someone about it. Like, maybe, ME.
There’s a good chance I’ll say yes, at least right now, when I have a few openings. Find out how to work with me.
**
(Also, for those of you wondering what’s happening with the book, I took a break during Fidelio and haven’t gotten back on track, but I plan to do so this week.)
In some ways, it’s been a rough year. It’s been a year of endings. It’s been a year of dashed hopes (especially politically). And it’s been a year of some beginnings.
Endings
At the beginning of the year, I totalled my VW Beetle (actually, it happened on 12/31/2023 at 7:43 am – I know the time because I had glanced down at the dashboard to see what time it was and when I looked back up, a car was in the intersection). I am now driving a 2024 MINI, which I love (although my insurance rates skyrocked as a result of the accident plus having a brand new car).
My husband lost his job of 12 years. They eliminated the fast track in the ER at University of Maryland-Midtown, and his last day was September 30. (I know, who thought a doctor would be out of work?) He had anticipated staying there until retirement, which we saw as 8-10 years down the road. (I had a similar anticipation about my job at the Cathedral, and we know how that turned out.) He has started a new job this week (which is, weirdly enough, with Concentra, the medical company he used to work for in Milwaukee).
The Archdiocese of Baltimore closed 30 churches, two of which I was singing at regularly. A third stayed open but the organist retired and they shifted the services so that it’s not really cost-efficient for me to stay. (And there was a fourth church I was singing at in the county that simply was not paying enough for me to schlep out that way. It has been a very sad few weeks of final Masses at these churches, which are seeing record turnouts at their Mass of farewell that they haven’t seen in years.
I’m still subbing at Immaculate Conception, and I’ve just picked up some days here and there at Govans Presbyterian.
I sang in the chorus of Fidelio with Washington National Opera this past fall, and I’ve decided that, at least for right now, the drive to the Kennedy Center is too much for me. I started singing with what was then the Washington Opera in 1988 (!) and left in 1996 when I moved to Milwaukee. I returned in 2018 (after auditioning a few times and being waitlisted) and did 5 shows before the pandemic shut everything down in 2020. I did a couple of things since they reopened in 2021, but at this point, I think I’m done. So I’m not planning to reaudition in January 2025, and I’m going to suspend my AGMA membership until I make a final decision to “retire” from opera chorus.
Kamala Harris did not win the White House, which I think is a completely travesty.
Beginnings
I started my book! I haven’t done much with it since Fidelio went into production week back in October, plus I was preparing people for the MDDC NATS auditions. I’m going to get back on it on Friday.
I also started a novel, but haven’t done much with that – I want to get back to it.
Maryland Thespians just asked me to present as a teaching artist. I’m not sure which topic yet – I offered two:
Musical Theater History/Performance masterclass (a very shortened version of the course I offered in the fall of 2020)
Basic vocal technique for musical theater singers, which will probably be similar to the vocal boot camp I did in January 2021 (I was really working hard on staying relevant during the pandemic, wasn’t I??)
I’ve picked up some new students, and I’m feeling much more positive about how the studio is going right now.
My term as president of the MDDC NATS chapter seems to be going well, and we’ve done some great things as a chapter. In fact, I intend to run for another term! And I may have a big announcement to make after January 24 – stay tuned!
In fact, these beginnings are why I’m thinking that my opera chorus days are behind me.
So on this Thanksgiving Eve 2024, I have gratitude. Gratitude that I’ve continued to survive and make things work, that I have supportive family, friends, students, and colleagues who feed my curiosity, recognize my accomplishments, and encourage my ideas, no matter how fanciful they might be.
Usually, this is an end of year kind of a post, but I want to get back to writing my book, and this was on my mind.
*****
Happy Thanksgiving! If you are a new student and are interested in trying a four- or twelve pack of lessons (in-person or virtual), you may register here and use the code GRATITUDE2024 to get 10% off your purchase. This deal is good through Cyber Monday, December 2.
In these days of non-traditional casting, it is not unusual for BIPOC women to be cast in roles originated by White women. However, the reverse is rarely done, and for good reasons.
Color-blind casting is perfectly acceptable, as long as it doesn’t affect the storyline. For example, non-traditional casting would destroy the point of the story of Hairspray (and yet it’s been done). Casting White people in Once on this Island (the full production or the junior one), even in the roles of the light-skinned Black characters, is inappropriate and unnecessary (and yet it’s been done). Casting White people in Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess is supposed to be prohibited by Tams-Witmark on behalf of the Gershwin estate (and yet, it’s been done).
As someone who has played Katisha (twice) and Pitti-Sing (once) in The Mikado and has been in the chorus of Madama Butterfly (twice), I can say, with more than a little embarrassment, that if a show cannot be cast using the people of the race intended by the story, the show should not be done. If there is no one in your studio who would sing “Your daddy’s son” or “Waiting for life” in a production, you simply don’t teach that song to anyone until you get a student who could be cast in those shows. Doing otherwise would cross the line from appreciation to appropriation.
There are tons of songs to sing and to teach. If a song is for a character in a show and that show is racially or culturally focused, like Ragtime, like Hairspray, like Porgy and Bess, it is not for you or your students if neither you nor they are a POC.
To a certain extent, exceptions may be made in a jazz or cabaret format – the song “Summertime,” taken out of context, has been sung by men and women of all races and ethnicities. I believe “Something wonderful” could also be sung in that setting. But above all, if you are singing a song that has a dialect written in and you are not of the race that uses that dialect (or if you are and it feels uncomfortable for you), DO NOT USE IT. (Which reminds me of the judge at the Wisconsin State Music Association Solo-Ensemble Festival who told my Polish-American blonde HS student that she should be singing “Something wonderful” with an Asian accent. Oy.)
Here are a few roles and songs that should be sung by BIPOC women of a certain age:
Subscribe to see more about musical theater repertoire for women of a certain age or other topics in vocal pedagogy, repertoire, and style. Or find out how to work with me, either in person (Baltimore) or online!
This is not only intended for the student and teacher, but for production staff so that they may make casting decisions that are fair and true to the character and the show.
But sometimes it’s hard to say what that “certain age” is.
This post is about Casting and Women of an UNcertain Age.
Age Breakdowns
Casting calls usually have some kind of age breakdown so that an actor knows if they could be considered for a role and should make the effort to go to the audition.
Stageagent.com uses the categories “Adult,” “Mature adult,” and “Elderly.” There isn’t a designation of just when a regular adult ends and a “mature” one begins. Sometimes, it will be in the character breakdown, but not always. The director may have to make the call based on other facets of the character from the script.
In Steven Gross’ wonderful website, musicaltheatersongs.com, which is a major source for this book, he breaks down age categories more specifically:
Under 13
14-17
18-24
25-32
33-39
40-59
60+
(Honestly, I’d like to see the 40-59 range broken up into 40-49, 50-59 because there is a big difference between a character in their early 40s versus late 50s.)
Music Theatre International (MTI) also has character breakdowns with approximate age ranges and is also a good source, as is a Google search for casting notices of other productions.
Note: Both Stage Agent and Musical Theater Songs are subscription websites. MTI is not, but you are limited as far as seeing the material unless you have a rental license.
What if the character is a mother?
Since current trends show that women can expect to live to about 80 years old, and women are having children later in life than before (the current median age is 30), the range of age for a character who is a mother may be wider than it would have been. In such cases where there is an overlap between age groups, it may be necessary to look at the show.
For example, Mother in Pasek and Paul’s A Christmas Story: The Musical, is listed as a character either 33-39 or 40-59 (this listing alone is why the latter age group needs to be divided further). By contemporary standards, it’s very likely that Mother could be in her 40s, if she had Ralphie and Randy after 30. But the show is set in 1940, and women generally had their first child by the age of 25 in the 1930s, so the age range of 33-39 is more likely.
The role of Mother in Ragtime would also be subject to this same rationale. Sometimes looking at the age of the actor at the time they created the role is helpful – for example, Marin Mazzie created the role of Mother at 37.
BUT Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast is defined on Stage Agent as a mature adult, and Musical Theater Songs says the titular song should be sung by someone 40-59. She has a pre-pubescent son. The show is set in the 1700s – it is highly unlikely she would be an elderly woman. But the role was created by then 66-year-old Angela Lansbury in the 1991 animated movie of the same name – she was never seen on screen. But as a result, Mrs. Potts is generally cast on the older side. Although the character displays the wisdom of an older person, she really should be cast by someone in her 30s or very early 40s.
Research, Research, Research!
However, if the character is based on someone non-fictional, then research can tell you what age range the character can be. Marmee in Little Women is listed as 40-59. Her oldest daughter, Meg, at the beginning of the story is approximately 16 years old, and her youngest, Amy, is 12. Based on the average age that women gave birth back in the 1800s, it would make sense if Marmee were under 40 at the beginning of the story. However, MTS classifies her in the 40-59 range. The role was created in 2005 by Maureen McGovern, who was 56 at the time. Was Ms. McGovern too old for the role?
Not really! The real Marmee, Abigail May Alcott, was born in 1800 and had her first child at nearly 31. She was an educated, professional woman (teacher and social worker) and an activist in the suffrage and temperance movements. She defied the traditional norms of her day and did not marry until she was 29. So casting an actor well into her 40s or even 50s is perfectly appropriate for this role. (At least this was what I told myself when I cast myself in this role.)
Lacking this kind of specific historical knowledge, often, the director has to look at someone and decide if that person looks like she could have a child of that age. Or at least will look like it from the audience’s perspective. (As Mrs. Meers says, regarding the role of Juliet in “They don’t know” from Thoroughly Modern Millie, “And if the house were big enough, I still could play her yet!”)
What if the character is a wife to a male character who is described as older? Or what if you just don’t know how old she’s supposed to be?
The character of Vicki in The Full Monty is categorized as 25-32. This would imply that she is a “trophy wife” that her husband, Harold, is afraid of losing because he’s so much older than her.
But other casting notices that I have found describe Vicki as 30s-50s or even 60s! This implies that it’s really up to the director to decide how he wants Vicki played. Is she a golddigger who might have married Harold for his money, which the 25-32 age category could imply?
Or is she his contemporary? Was she the hot cheerleader and he was the nerd in high school who never thought he could get anyone like her but then made good? Did they never have children so he was able to lavish his money on her in an attempt to keep him from realizing she could have done better? (Imposter Syndrome!) I personally find that approach much more interesting.
If the script doesn’t tell you how old the character is, there’s a good argument to be made that the character can be any age that the director wants and that the actor can play.
Casting TOO Young or TOO Old
In opera, it’s common for singers to play characters that are much younger that written. Although in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, the original singers were actually the ages of their characters:
Many of the singers in the original Figaro, as in other operas of the time, were extremely young by modern standards. Nancy Storace, who sang the difficult role of Susanna, was only 21, Cherubino was 23, Basilio 24, and even the countess was still in her 20’s. Amazingly, Anna Gottlieb, who sang Barbarina, was only 12. — Boston Baroque
With the exception of Cherubino, who should be an adolescent, and Basilio, who should be an older man, all the singers were within the window of believability for their characters. This is a contrast to contemporary productions, where the singers have usually completed bachelor’s degrees, master’s or artist diploma programs, and Young Artist Programs (YAP) before being cast in professional productions.
And especially for dramatic roles (Wagner, Verdi), a singer needs to grow into the role vocally. Opera is heavy lifting, and the heavier the role, the more likely it is that the singer will be more … seasoned.
But in musical theater, especially in community or regional productions, an actor may be considerably younger than the character they’re playing. A recent professional production of Grey Gardens in Baltimore featured a 26 year old actor playing Little Edie in Act 2, who is supposed to be in her late 50s.
By the same token, roles are often cast by people too old for the roles. Reasons for this may include:
Being famous! A famous name brings in the audience, who is often willing to suspend disbelief in the interest of seeing their idol on stage.
Legality – if a show features sexuality involving minors, you generally don’t want to have actual minors simulating sex onstage. It’s kind of frowned upon.
Logistics! Who showed up at the audition that day?
Casting decisions aren’t always made based on the actual age of the characters, and, in many cases, who is actually right for the role. There are so many variables involved in casting. Some are practical, some are not.
However, if the show has older characters, and there are actors of the right age who are available and qualified to perform them, there is no reason to cast a younger actor and. age them artificially. Plus age makeup is often just weird and unrealistic
It is our duty as singers and teachers of singers to find the roles that suit us and our students and prepare them for those roles to keep them singing for as long as they want. And it is the duty of producers and directors, especially in community and regional theater, to utilize actors who are available and qualified to play the roles that suit them, and not just look for the next bright shiny object to come along.
*****
Subscribe to this blog to read more about Growing Older: From Ingenue to Grande Dame and other musings on vocal style and technique! Or find out how to work with me, if you’re looking for a more hands-on approach to finding your own voice (in-person or online)
This site uses cookies 🍪 (but never oatmeal raisin)
Continuing to use this site means that you are cool with cookies
