Role Distribution, Show Selection and Audition Pools

[lillibet]

This subject came up tonight at Steering Committee and there just wasn't time to explore it past the immediate issue at hand, but it seemed like there was more discussion to be had and perhaps more voices to be solicited, so I thought I'd go ahead and post about it. You don't have to be part of Theatre@First to have an opinion. I'm going to start with a poll, so I can get an overview, but I do encourage you to comment, because I realize this may have a lot of nuances and complexity for many people that won't be captured in my options.

[Poll #1498617]

Comments

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

The question is a bit too narrow, in my opinion. I would not be overly concerned about a *particular* single-gender play among the eclectic mix that you guys do, but if this became a regular pattern of plays that exclude one gender or the other I'd start to become concerned simply because it would reduce opportunities for the excluded gender to participate.

As for *soliciting* single-gender plays, I'm curious as to *why* you would want to do this. Would this be part of a theme of exploring gender in society, or an exercise in gender-bashing, or what? In other words, motivation would affect whether or not I could support such a solicitation.

Which raises a question: when you did "Twelve Angry Jurors", was there any consideration given to doing "Twelve Angry Men" as per the original?

[dpolicar]

I gave some consideration to it, sure, but I saw no benefit to doing so and many benefits to not doing so.

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

One reason to solicit a single-gender play might be to balance a decision to produce a single-gender play of the other gender.