Glance an eye over the professional pantomime posters for the upcoming Christmas season and you’ll notice there are far more men than women featured.
One producer once told me that venues prefer not to cast female stars because they don’t sell as many tickets. Even for some of the more ‘princess’ themed titles.
Does pantomime have its own special brand of misogyny? It’s possible, and it wouldn’t surprise me. Too often pantomime has been caught behind the times on similar topics.
One thing that struck me when I was thinking about this problem is that this is rarely the case with amateur theatre productions.
In amateur productions, casting teams are usually awash with female applicants leaving the traditionally male roles more difficult to fill. But does it have to be like this?
Wouldn’t it be easy to flip the situation? Why not cast a female pantomime dame, or comic for that matter. Even a character whose gender is specified as ‘male’ could be played by a woman in drag. I know of brilliant female actors who would send up a brilliantly funny pantomime King, Squire or Police Officer.
It’s well documented that Elaine C Smith is one of the finest pantomime dames of her generation, having starred at the largest theatres in Scotland for years. Anyone that caught Dawn French at the Palladium a few years ago would surely agree, female dames can be just as fantastic as male dames. And with female principal boy roles firmly out of fashion, perhaps it’s time to usher in a new era.
Either way, since my scripts are written specifically for amateur productions, I’m always trying to think of ways to include the maximum possible female roles in every production.
I’ve removed gender suggestions on my character lists for precisely this reason. If you’ve got a brilliant female villain in your company, why shouldn’t they play Fleshcreep in Jack and the Beanstalk? Indeed, my Small Cast Jack and the Beanstalk features a female villain named Poison Ivy.
Two of my most recently released scripts take this a step further. In Robin Hood, the merry men are actually merry women in disguise. They find they can get more done in medieval england that way! And in Treasure Island there’s a whole host of female pirates ripe for pillage and plunder.
Then there’s The Little Mermaid which features two female royals Queen Neptuna and her sister Octavia. Plus a magical fairy, Mother of Pearl, and her daughter Pearl(!) Another royal panto title is Snow White, and my recently released version features a central wicked queen, plus a Magic Mirror and seven dwarfs all of whom could be played by any gender.
If you’re thinking about a less conventional title, The Wizard of Oz has some brilliant roles and has proved successful with lots of groups thanks to the popularity of the recent Wicked movie adaptations. As well as Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West, there’s Dorothy’s three friends the Scarecrow, Tin Man and cowardly Lion who could all be played by either gender, along with the pantomime dame Aunty Em.
In short, the world is your oyster. And as always with casting, it’s important to cast to your individual group’s strengths. So if you’ve a queue of brilliant women keen to be involved, don’t turn them away – rethink the traditional casting of characters, and let them shine!
Got any stories about a brilliant piece of casting? I love to hear from you, so do get in touch.
