What makes a FEATURED or LEADING Actor/Actress
What makes a FEATURED or LEADING Actor/Actress
#1What makes a FEATURED or LEADING Actor/Actress
Posted: 7/14/11 at 11:00pmI was just wondering what the "rules" are for naming a role featured or leading? I was thinking about Light in the Piazza and wondered why Clara (and maybe even) Fabrizio weren't considered leading actors (for the nominations). They were really both in most of the show, almost as much as the role of Margaret.
#2What makes a FEATURED or LEADING Actor/Actress
Posted: 7/14/11 at 11:11pmIf an actor is above the title, they are considered leading. Below the titled is considered featured. Producers can petition to have an actor moved to the other category. And sometimes the committee moves performers themselves.
#2What makes a FEATURED or LEADING Actor/Actress
Posted: 7/14/11 at 11:20pmUsing your example, I think Margaret guides the show much more than Clara does. They might have the same amount of stage time, but Clara isn't as much of a force in the show as Margaret is.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
#3What makes a FEATURED or LEADING Actor/Actress
Posted: 7/15/11 at 6:05amIf we're going by awards' standards, then ljay's definition is the strictest. A famous example of this would be Joel Grey being considered a leading actor by the Tony nominating committee for playing Amos Hart in Chicago, which is obviously a featured role. Grey won the Drama Desk Award for Featured Actor and was widely favored to win the Tony, but because the producers didn't petition to have him moved, he was considered Leading and wasn't even nominated. But I think givesmevoice makes a good point about which character is the catalyst for the action of the show, or whose role contributes most significantly to the play.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#4What makes a FEATURED or LEADING Actor/Actress
Posted: 7/15/11 at 6:08amSomething that has interested me, actually, is when roles are recategorized when shows are revived. For example, Viola Davis was considered a Leading Actress for Fences, whereas Mary Alice was Featured.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#5What makes a FEATURED or LEADING Actor/Actress
Posted: 7/15/11 at 6:21am
Viola was billed as a star of Fences.
Mary Alice wasn't in the original production. Only James Earl Jones had star billing.
"Featured" has come to mean "supporting." That's not what it meant originally. It just meant "featured billing." I wish they would change that.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
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theatreguy
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/31/03
#6What makes a FEATURED or LEADING Actor/Actress
Posted: 7/15/11 at 10:17am
Viola Davis was billed below the title and had to be petitioned into the Leading Actress category. Here's the article from Playbill on that: http://www.playbill.com/news/article/139184-Tony-Rulings-Enron-Fences-Royal-Family-Eligible-for-Best-Score-American-Idiot-Fela-Are-Not.
As for The Light in the Piazza, I could see the argument for both Margaret and Clara being leads . . . but between the two Margaret makes more sense AND splitting them up gives each a real opportunity to win.
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