Should females play male parts in Christian School play?

what is your basis for thinking it would be wrong?

Jv,

One thing to keep in mind is unfortunately many young men dont like acting and wont do it (or wont do it well). It might be easier to cast a girl who wants to do it (or adapt it to make it into a girls part, if that is feasible). Thinking back, it seems Shakespeer had men playing women parts and I dont think it blurred the line. I think it CAN be done. But I do understand your concern.

As a side note, my daughter is a freshman in a public school. She is very active in several drama things (Fall play, Speech Team, Contest Play, and Group Interpretation team). On the Contest play team she was the student director and understudy. Something happened where the director wanted her to play the role of husband as a woman but make it into a same sex couple. She refused and said she would play the part as a man (to make it husband and wife) but not make it into a same sex couple. The director was angery but she took the stand and actually at least one other cast member backed her up. He recruited another guy for the play.

I guess I gave u that story to remind you it is great to have good Christian School alternatives becasue we dont have that here.

thanks for clarifying. i had assumed they were modifying the part. still, if they do the part with decent costumes and without cross-dressing humor i think it could be ok.

How would the administrator view that? If he says “no” to that but not the other it would be telling.

I think it is a very questionable idea for boys/girls/men/women to impersonate each other for any reason. Is there a “Thou shalt not pretend to be the opposite gender” in the Bible? Nope- but I think a case could be made that it violates some key principles of the proper roles and behavior of men and women.

I’m of the “If you can’t do it without engaging in doubtful activities, you shouldn’t do it at all” camp. No one is going to be traumatized for life because of the lack of a school play, but damage could be done if gender lines are blurred by kids impersonating the opposite sex.

[jvberryjr] In what way?

A striking inconsistency

With it being a solid Christian School, I would opt for strongly encouraging (maybe using chicago style politics) a young man in the school to do it. If my daughter could refuse to play a same sex role at a public high school respectfully than maybe the teacher and administration can find a young man to stretch himself and play the part.

It is impossible to give an answer here without more information. If the play were set in a orphanage and the ideal would be to have an all boy cast, it may work just fine to simply make it an orphanage with boys and girls. In large groups (street scenes, crowd scenes, etc.) the characters can often be either male or female. Just because “George” has one line in a crwod scene doesn’t mean it is necessary to have a male in the part. Etc., etc., etc. Sometimes a character can be cast as either male or female without damaging the script. A single, elderly judge, for instance, might work to change the gender of the character—depends on the script. It is fairly common to do Twelve Angry Men as Twelve Angry Jurors. Of course, if you’re working in an unusual circumstance—an all girls’ school, for instance—your audience of all parents may understand that in order to expose the girls to more than just stories with all female casts, girls will be used to play the boys parts.

That being said … When directors cop out and just use girls in what are obviously male roles, it completely destroys any chance of having any guy try out the following year, can ruin the integrity of the literature and, maybe more importantly, make your audience uncomfortable. At best, the audience is irritated that you’re making it difficult for them to suspend their disbelief. Since all plays are — AND I CANNOT MAKE THIS POINT STRONGLY ENOUGH — pretend, and since everyone understands that it is prented, audiences have a responsibility to choose to suspend their disbelief. And one of the directors responsibilities is to make that suspension possible. (This is not a plea for the exclusive use of realism. Some scripts are best served with minimalism, or even abstraction.)

Why not just produce Little Women or The Little Princess or something with more female characters?

“One thing to keep in mind is unfortunately many young men dont like acting and wont do it (or wont do it well).”

This is true. And it is an excellent opportunity to recruit, mentor, and challenge guys to take spiritual leadership. The tools of acting and public speaking that are developed in the production of a play can be used very effectively by a spiritual man in preaching the Word of God.

“Thinking back, it seems Shakespeer had men playing women parts and I dont think it blurred the line. I think it CAN be done.”

Well, to be fair, they were boys. And the audience of that day understood and accepted that convention. A much more important point should be noted, however, that Shakespeare understood that his audience understood that he understood that this whole play was pretend. There is some multi-layered humor that is missed unless one remembers that boys were playing the female roles.

Dave

If the role is a distinctly male role, then a male should play it. If it can be re-written for a female, then let a female play in the role. I believe that the Bible speaks to a clear distinction be made between male and female.