Gender-Bending Musicals/Roles that would be fun!

#1

Gender-Bending Musicals/Roles that would be fun!

Posted: 8/17/07 at 5:58pm

What shows/specific roles would be really fun to switch genders?

imo - Gypsy (what gay boy wouldn't dream of playing Gypsy Rose Larry?)

Aida!!! Let's have the Princess be a guy - wouldn't that had a whole new level of fun/controversy to the love triangle?

Updated On: 8/17/07 at 05:58 PM

#2

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 6:02pm

This is going to sound nuts but I've always wanted to see a female Tobias in Sweeney Todd. Not so much turn the character into a girl but just have a girl play him. Much like Pirrelli in the recent revival.

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#3

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 6:23pm

I've always wanted Dorothy Brock in 42nd Street to be a male in full on drag.

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"Are you sorry for civilization? I am sorry for it too." ~Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck

#4

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 6:33pm

I would love to see Dolly Levi played by a man in drag.

I would also like to see Morales be played by a boy as a boy. I think you could change the wording a bit and pull it off.

A female Emcee in Cabaret.

I like this thread.

#5

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 6:42pm

I know my friend would make a killer Mrs. Lovett. It is one of his dream roles.

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~Sara~

#6

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 7:54pm

I think Zangara from Assassins could be played in the same vein as Pirelli in Doyle's Sweeney - but that might just come from the characters being vocally similar and, um, Italian.

(But c'mon - Zangara with an accordion? Pure awesome. If I wasn't set on being Squeaky Fromme once before I die, I'd be first in line to audition.)

#7

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 7:57pm

Patti LuPone has inspired me to somehow, somewhere (even if I have to stage the show in my apartment) play Mama Rose!!

#8

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 8:14pm

A male Elphaba and Glinda would be fun..

A male
aurora in Kiss Of the Spider Woman is my dream role.

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"I saw Pavarotti play Rodolfo on stage and with his girth I thought he was about to eat the whole table at the Cafe Momus." - Dollypop

#9

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 8:21pm

I always had a bizarre desire to play the Phantom. Don't ask me why I'm attracted to a role of a deformed musical genius who keeps kidnapping a teenage opera singer, hoping to marry her and keep her in his lair.

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"I'm-Not-That-Boring-Low-Ass-Girl?! You better go up at the end!" - Seth Rudetsky to Julia Murney about her Solo CD choice

#10

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 8:27pm

I'd love to see a gender-switched Last Five Years. Oh, and Matron Mama Morton in Chicago as a drag queen seems too perfect to pass up.

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"Why, I make more money than... than... than Calvin Coolidge! PUT TOGETHER!"
~Lina Lamont


My name wasn't, isn't, and will never be Scott.

#11

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 9:24pm

Slightly off-topic, but I always thought a girls version of Oliver (called Olive) would be interesting. Olive would be a modern, inner city girl who got involved in a gang. I can definitely see all the songs being modernized...imagine a hip-hop version of Who Will Buy.

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"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson

#12

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 9:29pm

i've seen a female emcee in cabaret at the barter theatre in virginia a few years ago. however, it was unclear if she was playing it as a man or woman...this same woman was also playing adelaide in "guys and dolls" at the same time.

barter also cast a man as ms. meers in thoroughly modern millie. i didnt get to see it, but my friends said he was very funny and didnt know the role wasnt supposed to be in drag.

#13

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/17/07 at 9:34pm

When the Papermill did Mame, Mother Burnside was played by a man.

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"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson

#14

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 1:15am

This isn't strictly musical theater, but I was once in a production of the Mikado where the guy playing Ko-Ko would've made a better Katisha than the actress who was actually cast in the role.

Also, Enjolras would totally be a trouser role if Les Mis were an opera.

#15

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 1:34am

I've always wanted to direct Les Miz in years to come with Eponine as a guy. Imagine the show then and the Marius is just friends with Eponine when he/she wants more. I think it would be amazing.

#16

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 1:41am

Liza and Judy in The Boy from Oz.

Witch from Into The Woods

i want to do a gender swaped version of L5Y soooo bad.

#17

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 1:41am

I always thought that the role of Mrs Andrew in Mary Poppins would fit a drag artiste perfectly!!! Someone like Lily Savage ehehe!

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**Anything Can Happen If You Let It** SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS

#18

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 1:42am

The Full Monty--with all women.

#19

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 1:55am

the national tour of cinderella freatured a male actor as the stepmother the actor was everette quinton.

Updated On: 8/18/07 at 01:55 AM

#20

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 1:57am

I'd love to see a gender-switched Last Five Years.

I actually had that exact idea the other day, too. I think it would work wonderfully, really.

#21

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 1:58am

My friends and I were stupid once and staged Gypsy and Sweeney Todd in her living room with a malee Mrs. Lovett and Rose. Not in drag, just genderless.

#22

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 2:03am

yeah i could see mrs.andrews cast in drag.

#23

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 2:11am

when i first saw pictures of phantom when i was 5 i thought the phantom was a girl.

#24

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 2:29am

Ever since I saw Avenue Q, nothing can express how much I would want to play Christmas Eve.

#25

re: Gender-Bending Musicals?

Posted: 8/18/07 at 5:00am

How about a man playing Victoria Grant in Victor/Victoria?

A man playing a woman playing a man playing a woman!

No, wait, that would just make the show even more confusing.

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