As I've become more experienced at writing plays for high school students, I've also become better at writing roles that may be played by either male or female actors. Writing gender neutral roles is a particular skill that is often challenging, frustrating and limiting. Ultimately, however, it can also be quite rewarding.
Back when I started writing plays, I was pretty set in my ways. The characters I wrote were often based on people I knew and I wanted them represented exactly as I had imagined. But when I went to a production of one of my first plays and saw that they had changed the genders of several of the characters (all male to female, I might add), I was blown away at how much it impacted the message of the play. The structure was still the same, but with each scene being told from a different perspective, it was almost a completely new play. At first I was put off by the changes, but as the play progressed, I was pleased that the material still worked, and actually took on a whole new flavor. It was different than what I had come up with, but different in a good way. I appreciated that the actors and directors were able to turn the material on its head and come up with something equally as good as what I had written.
From that point on, I have always tried to make the roles in my plays as neutral as possible. Not only does it mean the plays will cast a wider net by being accessible to more schools, but it also means that I cannot rely too heavily on stereotypes that come from being a boy or a girl. Even when I write scenes about boys and girls in love, I think about the possibility of them being two boys or two girls in love. I know productions that feature gay relationships will be few and far between, but I like knowing that the option is there for brave students, teachers and administrations that are not phased by the facts of life.
I have written many plays that feature completely gender neutral casts. Split, Attention Detention, Epic Fail, Apostrophe's, Note to Self, Smarty Pants, Outside the Box and Drama Geeks all have widely flexible casts. Occasionally I still write plays that have fixed characters because there are times that the battle of the sexes is important to the plot. But even in those instances, I may be pleasantly surprised someday by a director who asks to switch one of these roles to the opposite gender. My only hope is that it will be from a female to a male. Drama is for boys, too!
Back when I started writing plays, I was pretty set in my ways. The characters I wrote were often based on people I knew and I wanted them represented exactly as I had imagined. But when I went to a production of one of my first plays and saw that they had changed the genders of several of the characters (all male to female, I might add), I was blown away at how much it impacted the message of the play. The structure was still the same, but with each scene being told from a different perspective, it was almost a completely new play. At first I was put off by the changes, but as the play progressed, I was pleased that the material still worked, and actually took on a whole new flavor. It was different than what I had come up with, but different in a good way. I appreciated that the actors and directors were able to turn the material on its head and come up with something equally as good as what I had written.
From that point on, I have always tried to make the roles in my plays as neutral as possible. Not only does it mean the plays will cast a wider net by being accessible to more schools, but it also means that I cannot rely too heavily on stereotypes that come from being a boy or a girl. Even when I write scenes about boys and girls in love, I think about the possibility of them being two boys or two girls in love. I know productions that feature gay relationships will be few and far between, but I like knowing that the option is there for brave students, teachers and administrations that are not phased by the facts of life.
I have written many plays that feature completely gender neutral casts. Split, Attention Detention, Epic Fail, Apostrophe's, Note to Self, Smarty Pants, Outside the Box and Drama Geeks all have widely flexible casts. Occasionally I still write plays that have fixed characters because there are times that the battle of the sexes is important to the plot. But even in those instances, I may be pleasantly surprised someday by a director who asks to switch one of these roles to the opposite gender. My only hope is that it will be from a female to a male. Drama is for boys, too!
I do agree that drama is for boys. I am a girl who usually got stuck in the chorus or as a minor character because there were always girls that were better than me, while we could barely get guys to sign up. At my school doing drama was considered one of the worst things that a guy could do. Sure we had a few that did it and quite enjoyed it but most considered drama weird. But last year I was talking to my brother whose drama class at his small town high school was putting on a play that actually had to change several female roles to male because they didn't have enough girls. On the same subject I once saw a production of your play "Conversation Therapy" done by all girls and well there were moments that were pretty awkward to watch. I do think that boys should do drama more and as a result I like to write plays with both fixed and open gender characters.
ReplyDeleteOh, wow, I can't imagine an all girls production of "Conversation Therapy." That would be awkward! How interesting that your brother has more guys than girls in drama. I addressed this exact situation in "Drama Geeks." In that one, a young boy figures out a secret his classmates have not...drama is a great place to meet girls!
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