Young MT roles played by older actors?

[Composer94]

Posted: 2/21/19 at 6:46pm

What are some young musical theatre roles that are often played by actors older than what the script suggests?

Like the female leads in West Side Story, The Sound of Music, or My Fair Lady

[Hairspray0901]

Posted: 2/21/19 at 7:22pm

Most shows with teenage characters areplayed by actors in their twenties and sometimes thirties. Take Hairspray, Mean Girls and Wicked for example.

[SomethingPeculiar]

Posted: 2/21/19 at 7:58pm

It all comes down to how someone's age reads onstage, and what the director envisions for that specific production. Just because Laura Benanti and Lauren Ambrose can convincingly play Eliza Doolittle at 40ish does not mean that any 40-year-old soprano could. Same with Bernadette Peters playing Annie Oakley at 51.

In Follies, Sally and Phyllis are written as 49, but the main 2 couples are often cast with people in their 50s-60s. Depending on the actors and the way it's directed, it usually works. Not a musical, but at age 86, Robert Morse played a role written for someone in his 30s-40s in The Front Page. It didn't really work, but it was fun seeing him onstage.

[TheGingerBreadMan]

Posted: 2/21/19 at 8:01pm

Tobias in Sweeney Todd is sometimes played by an older actor. There are arguments over whether Toby is a child or a grown man with a child-like mind.

[StephieElise]

Posted: 2/21/19 at 10:11pm

The children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (apart from Charlie) are all played by adults.

[Fosse76]

Posted: 2/21/19 at 11:29pm

Hairspray0901 said: "Most shows with teenage characters areplayed by actors in their twenties and sometimes thirties. Take Hairspray, Mean Girls and Wicked for example. "

Dont forget the two female leads in Frozen, who should be 18 or 21 (at the oldest).