The 'The Trickiest Roles in Musical Theatre' Thread- Page 2

[TBFL]

Posted: 5/13/12 at 2:51pm

Phantom isnt really tricky... Hes not onstage all that much and your not allowed to do anything with the role except sing it EXACTELY as it wasd done originally. Its a dull role.

[Weltanschauung]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 3:16pm

I'd say that one of the hardest roles is Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof". An actor has to learn to have a distinct accent, be funny and serious in the same show, play paternal well, be able to have a domineering presence onstage, and be able to lead the show -- he has to be a balanced "human". If you don't have a good Tevye, the production is terrible.

Terry Connor in "Side Show" is also a relatively difficult role to tackle. The problem with that show is there isn't any sort of backstory for any of the characters (unless you do the revival which has a backstory to the twins), but Terry has to be played as the character you root for and then end up hating - he's bad without supposing to be bad. He has a huge emotional breakthrough in the second act, but since it's an operetta, lots of the show requires more of an acting challenge than singing, even though his notes (as personal experience from playing the character) are the hardest in the show to sing. He's a complex character.

The kids in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" pose challenging as well. In the script, it even says that they have to be "played with realism". You have to find the right balance of making sure the kids aren't cartoonish and make them real. Coneybear is probably the hardest because I see most actors try to portray him as having a mental deficiency, but the character is more just supposed to have ADD. Barfée is also challenging because even though he is the oldest member of the group and has oldish mannerisms, he is still a child.

[philly03]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 3:20pm

My votes go for the title role in EVITA for the ladies and the title roles in Jekyll & Hyde for the men. Jekyll & Hyde especially considering how campy the whole concept is, added onto the big score and having to maintain playing two characters. 

[gmhots]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 5:02pm

I definitely agree with Baker's Wife. I also think Lily Garland in OTTC is pretty up there in terms of being a demanding role vocally & physically (and the actress needs to have spot-on comic timing and the ability to play off of Oscar Jaffee well.)

 

The Narrator from Joseph is also right up there. It's so easy to get the casting wrong and have someone screech those high notes for 2 hours, or something that the audience doesn't identify with. Already the material (literal biblical story with camels on an acid trip) is difficult to relate, so the Narrator has the thankless task of modernizing the whole thing and infusing it with some warmth and making you care for the characters.

 

Plus, memorizing all those colors is a total b. And Joseph steals the entire show anyway... It truly is pretty thankless.

[missthemountains]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 8:32pm

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say almost any of the roles in ASSASSINS take really, really talented actors. Especially Zangara. There's not a lot of information on his early life for the actor to draw from, but he speaks in a thick accent and is in an electric chair (depending on how its staged) the entire time during his song. If that's not a hard role, I don't know what is.

[Alex M]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 8:38pm

Hedwig in Hedwig in the angry inch seems to be one of the Trickiest Roles out there

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 8:41pm

I've never seen Coneybear as mentally deficient... Maybe it's my work with high school theater advocacy, but he seems to be an extremely clear "home school kid, somewhere on the Spectrum" cliche. I'm surprised they haven't started calling them Coneybears. They are certainly a real thing.

[acekatherineplumber2]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 9:04pm

I think that Glinda in Wicked is a very, very difficult role to get right. No matter how bad the actress playing her is, she'll always get heaps of applause, but I feel that very few of the actresses who've played her have done her justice.

[TexanAddams18]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 9:51pm

I love this thread!

I'd throw in Emile and Cable from South Pacific, both faced with whirlwinds of emotions throughout the show. From my experience, I have seen a lot of Pseduolus' that just don't hit the mark at all. I would say that is up on the list just cause you have to completely nail it in order to receive any good attention from the audience. I'm suprised Albin from La Cage hasn't been mentioned yet, such a demanding role. I'll throw in George from Sunday, Peter from Boy From OZ, and Claude from Hair. 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 10:28pm

The twins in side show. I would not want to have my arm connected to someone else's for 2 straight hours. And I think elphaba is pretty tough.

[mamaleh]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 10:58pm

CurtainPullDowner, unfortunately Hugh Jackman pulled out of HOUDINI more than a year ago.  But speaking of Jackman, I'd say his role of Peter Allen in THE BOY FROM OZ is particularly challenging.  Allen is onstage practically the entire show and carries much of the musical burden, both singing and dancing. The producers in NY couldn't even find anyone to take over when Jackman's contract was up and had to close the show.

[FutureDirector]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 11:47pm

Sally Bowles is difficult because everything she does has to be a master class in subtext. it is one of the roles where the dialogue isn't against you per say but it isn't helping either. One of the benefits of musical theatre is that you get to stop, turn full out to the audience and say "this is what I'm feeling right now." However the closest Sally gets is "Maybe This Time" if it's included in the production. Sally has the difficult job of playing all those scene and songs while letting what is going on under the surface of the text carry them.

Also, on another note, and role character that makes questionable decisions is always difficult because you have to be able to play the role without passing judgment on the character. Once you label Sally as "Crazy" or Sweeney as "Evil" or Rose as "Selfish" you've all of a sudden lost a dimension in your performance.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 5/12/15 at 12:10am

The OP addressed the "trickiest" roles, not the most demanding or technically difficult. I'll toss out Jud in Oklahoma!  The ostensible villain who has to bring pathos to bear.  That's tricky.

[Mr Smith]

Posted: 5/12/15 at 1:12am

How difficult is Mamma Rose

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 5/12/15 at 1:42am

Momma Rose is difficult and challenging, but not tricky.  It's all right there on the page.

[AHLiebross]

Posted: 5/12/15 at 5:55am

Tsao, I agree with you regarding both the Phantom and Javert. However, Jean Valjean isn't exactly a cakewalk, with the required vocal range ("Bring Him Home" is too high for some amateur sopranos I know), and the difficulty in reading his motivations. Is he a saint? A sinner trying to atone? An ordinary guy who has learned to make lemonade from lemons? It's very hard to read Valjean.

Another extremely difficult role in my mind is Carlotta Giudicelli, in POTO, because she can easily descend into caricature if not played right. I see her as a good singer who is past her prime in looks (not necessarily voice) and finds her roles usurped by a young upstart. It's very hard to play the role sympathetically, and the vocals are demanding -- they're operatic, even though written by ALW instead of Rossini.

 

[AHLiebross]

Posted: 5/12/15 at 5:57am

Sorry for the double post, but I thought of something else: Other difficult roles include all those in Rebecca, because the characters have to disappear.

[Mr Smith]

Posted: 5/12/15 at 6:16am

boeing boeing???

[RaiseYouUp]

Posted: 5/12/15 at 9:01am

I agree with what everyone has said, but I am going to add Fiyero from Wicked. It's an incredibly tricky part to get right. In fact I've only seen a few guys get it right. The role seems like it has no depth at first, but if you watch the whole show, you see that in fact Fiyero is more than what meets the eye. A lot of actors play him as a deepy shallow and genuinley self-absorbed guy, when in reality, he is not. Elphaba brings out the human side of him.

Updated On: 5/12/15 at 09:01 AM

[ManInChair2000]

Posted: 5/26/16 at 11:36am

Having played Jud Fry, I know that it is hard to do. To make your character 3-dimensional in the right way is very complicated, and quite often, overdone. Shuler Hensley did an AMAZING job portraying him. I will testify to the fact that Lonely Room is the hardest song to sing in the show. It's atonal and dissonant, and also very complicated to act. Also, the belt at the end is only a C-sharp, but it's harder to sing than it sounds.You have to dig into your deepest sorrow to play the character. At the same time of being a hostile, depressed drunk in a situation of unrequited love, you also have to make the audience feel sorry for you when you die.

Another very demanding role for musical theatre, although not much singing is involved, is Man in Chair from The Drowsy Chaperone. If the show is performed without an intermission, the character doesn't leave the stage but for one small song, and comes back on quickly after. You must memorize monologue after monologue, have impeccable comic timing, explore both despression and joy, and be good at connecting with the audience, because quite honestly, no one else interacts with him onstage.

For females, I'd say Elle Woods. Like Man in Chair, Elle rarely leaves the stage. When she comes on, she hardly leaves. Also, half the score is written for her and it spans almost two octaves. It's all higher belting as well.

Tracy Turnblad could be considered another one.

Updated On: 5/26/16 at 11:36 AM

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 5/26/16 at 2:59pm

Rose is definitely a demanding role, but that script is so perfect and everything is so perfectly timed and laid out that you have to be a truly lousy actor to not at least get some of it right and have a few moments of brilliance here and there. I've seen it played A LOT and even though I have my favorites and least favorites in the role, I'll admit that even the performances I didn't care for had a moment or two that I loved. 

The Baker's Wife is one of the roles I've seen screwed up the most. Maybe it's because the role was tailored for Joanna Gleason and no one has ever come close to what she did with that role (thank God we have it captured forever). 

Assassins is a good example, because every part in that show is literally "walk in, do a quick scene, have a song, and then disappear until the finales of each act." You don't really get to know any of these people at all. You have to make up backstories and subtext out of nothing. 

Sally in Follies is tough. She has to still be slightly perky and girlish with a sort of malice lurking below the surface. It's easy to overdo one or the other and then she just appears truly crazy or annoying. 

Now that someone mentioned Sally in Cabaret, I'll admit that I was surprised by how tiny Sally's role really is in the show the last time I saw it. Yes, she has the most musical numbers of anyone in the show, but I've seen some Sallys that disappear into the background and the whole thing feels like an ensemble pieces. Sienna Miller, for instance, disappeared during that show. I can hardly even remember her Sally, whereas Emma Stone's, Natasha Richardson's, Jennifer Jason Leigh's, and Jane Horrock's interpretations will be forever etched in my mind. They stand out as the "stars", but they don't overwhelm the show as a whole. The title song is one that's been butchered so many times that it's wonderful to see when someone truly gets it and plays all the subtext. 

[sarahb22]

Posted: 5/26/16 at 3:07pm

Not a musical, but I don't think it gets much tougher than Nicholas in 'Nicholas Nickleby' - eight hours worth of show, and Nicholas is in just about every scene. TONS of dialogue to memorize and stage stuff to do. Smike is also tough because the actor playing him usually has to contort himself in some way, and also keep that contortion for long periods of time.

And I'll agree that the Phantom is tough, not dramatically but because he has to wear a facial prosthetic covering most of his face and lips for the entire show, AND a mask.  Michael Crawford remarked once it was very difficult to sing around, especially if the prosthetic came loose during the course of the show.

[KCW]

Posted: 5/26/16 at 4:02pm

I am extremely suprised no one mentioned the Leading Player in Pippin. That role takes extreme skill to play well. Finale and I Guess I'll Miss the Man are REALLY tough to get right.

[¿Macavity?]

Posted: 5/26/16 at 6:02pm

I'd certainly go with most roles made for children. Most notably Billy Elliot...especially during the Angry Dance. Also, I imagine that the ensemble in Matilda could be very difficult to coordinate/choreograph. And while not usually played by a child, I think that Tobias from Sweeney Todd is a very tricky role! Acting like a child/teenager sounds like it would be very difficult, most notably during the Final Sequence.

[gypsy101]

Posted: 5/26/16 at 6:19pm

ComingUpRoses2 said: "Assassins is a good example, because every part in that show is literally 'walk in, do a quick scene, have a song, and then disappear until the finales of each act.' You don't really get to know any of these people at all. You have to make up backstories and subtext out of nothing. "

Well you don't have to make up the backstories technically because all the characters are real people.