to begin training for a possible career in musical theatre? do you think people reach a point where it will just take too long to prepare or might it depend on how much raw talent he/she already has?
i'm not sure what i think about this (i don't have much information or experience to go on) and am really interested in everyone's input, especially those who are currently working actors.
If you love what you do, it doesn't matter when you start.
Sounds sexist, but I think a big factor in that is if you're male or female.
Males have it easier because there is less of them going into musical theatre.
So I guess they could start later.
But raw talent is the main intangible.
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/14/04
Ha! I thought this topic was going to be about something COMPLETELY different!
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/18/04
hahaha...
i thought about that AFTER i posted it. it's a curious subject line!
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/6/05
It also depends on what you wanna do. It really is never too old to be a singing actor. Even women have started pretty late and been ok. But if you want to dance, there is a time element working against you. You have to have YEARS of dance trainging and then you have to try to get work and build your career. A dancer on broadway has probably about 20 good years where they are "castable". Fosse did a lot to extend this. He likes older dancers but he's an exception.
Angela Lansbury was almost 40 when she started.....I think....with Anyone Can Whistle.....although she might have done stuff before this......Go for it....I am!!!!!!
Louise Pitre didn't get her first Broadway show until she was 45 years old in MAMMA MIA!...
Wasn't the man who won the Tony for the original Man of La Mancha a 43 year old who had never done professional theater before? Or something to that extent.
Pitre (unless there's another) was Fantine on the 91 Paris Revival...
"Wasn't the man who won the Tony for the original Man of La Mancha a 43 year old who had never done professional theater before? Or something to that extent."
Richard Kiley had already won a TONY before Man of La Mancha came around...
http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=48051
I think Man of La Macha is what made him outright famous...I could be wrong...
I do remember hearing someone say that though.
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/6/05
Ummmmm Angela Lansbury started acting when she did her first film at 17.
I believe Angela also performed in English music halls before coming to the US. She also sang on stage in one of her very early films.
Jazzy...I was refering to her Musical Theater....I knew that she had been acting since Gaslight in 1943!!!!!!!
Richard Kiley was a star for several years before LA MANCHA.
It is never too late to learn new skills. You might not have a career as a dancer, but you can learn to dance well enough to have a career in musicals. I didn't learn to tap until I was 31, but now I can do pretty much any choreography that is thrown at me.
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
Kiley had already played the romantic lead in KISMET in the mid-1950's, and starred in NO STRINGS just a couple of years before LaMancha.
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