{"id":1102,"date":"2016-06-27T15:38:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T19:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=1102"},"modified":"2016-06-27T15:41:11","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T19:41:11","slug":"1102","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=1102","title":{"rendered":"Casting Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charlotte Hoppen<\/strong>
\nThe Highlander
\nSeaholm HS
\nDivision 2, News Writing
\nNews Writing<\/p>\n

When selecting students to play the lead and supporting roles in the annual Seaholm Musical, talent, hard work and promise may be the factors that come to mind when dreaming of the perfect performer. However, students involved in the musical believe that the talent doesn\u2019t always outweigh other factors, including gender, favoritism and race.
\nThis year Seaholm will debut the musical Big Fish, which was recently released off of Broadway. Seaholm music education teacher Laurie Frick is the director and music director for Big Fish, and also the music facilitator for Birmingham Public Schools.
\nFrick chooses the musical productions each year, and she believes Big Fish is a musical aimed to pull at the heartstrings while stretching the imaginations of the audience.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s dream sequences and there\u2019s fantasy and gorgeous music, an amazing story line, and wonderful dancing,\u201d Frick said.
\nWhen casting students in roles for the musical, Frick and a team of other adults use scoring during auditions in order to place students in certain roles.
\n\u201cWe did auditions in stages, we auditioned kids musically and vocally for their singing voices, obviously for their characterizations and for their ability to get into character and for their dance
\nauditions,\u201d Frick said.
\nAccording to Frick, the first stage in the audition process involves a ten-minute individual performance on one of the first three days where students simply show the judges what skills they have. After this initial audition, students return for a more critically scored judgment.
\n\u201cThey get another audition,\u201d Frick said. \u201cIt\u2019s a full three hour audition and we have the kids audition in teams.\u201d
\nIn years past, the judges have hosted callbacks, where students would have one
\nfinal chance to prove to them what roles they could hold. However, Big Fish didn\u2019t give students this one final chance to audition.
\n\u201cIn the past I\u2019ve had callbacks on a Friday,\u201d Frick said. \u201cWith this show, because of the scoring, we really didn\u2019t need the callbacks. There was no real reason for it, we had completed the process.\u201d
\nAccording to Frick, in case of a tie in the casting process, the students were double
\ncasted into roles instead of being called in for callbacks.
\nBig Fish originally has four female and six male roles. However, Frick split three of the four female roles and one of the six male roles in order to increase the amount of leads.
\nAlthough Frick split the female roles in order for there to be more leads, senior and member of the musical castAbby Parsons believes that gender equality in the musical isn\u2019t entirely present.
\n\u201cSeaholm’s musical department could also greatly benefit from simply choosing shows that have more female roles,\u201d Parsons said. \u201cThere is a huge group of talented girls that want preform in the show, but the department keeps picking shows with a large amount of male roles and fewer female roles, even though the majority of the cast is female.\u201d
\nFrom the musical Funny Girl in 2006 to Big Fish in 2016, ten out of the twelve Seaholm musicals have been male dominated in the area of lead roles. In 2015 there was an equal amount of genders in lead roles in the musical Mary Poppins, and Cinderella in 2010 was the only musical that had more lead females casted than males, totaling four males and five females.
\nFrick believes the casting is fair due to the extension of the roles outside of the leads. Students not casted in the lead roles were casted in a supporting role or in the technical crew.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s really cool about the show is there\u2019s so many supporting roles. There\u2019s got to be 25 or 30 roles,\u201d Frick said. \u201cAll the roles are important, it\u2019s not just the leads.\u201d
\nParsons also doesn\u2019t believe that the roles are limited based only on gender. She relates a portion of the casting based upon what students take choir at Seaholm.
\n\u201cI think it’s (casting) fair to an extent,\u201d Parsons said.
\n\u201cTalented people normally will get some form a role major or minor. However, I think if you aren’t in choir your chances of getting a lead are drastically decreased, which isn’t fair because not everyone has room for choir in their schedule.\u201d
\nParsons is not alone in this belief. Senior Meg O\u2019Mara, who is involved in the musical, believes that the casting in the musical is not entirely fair to students due to the opportunities the choir is given.
\n\u201cUsually, before auditions for musical start, students will ask to review audition music in class,\u201d O\u2019Mara said. \u201cIt\u2019s great if you need the extra help, but it\u2019s definitely a drag for choir students who aren\u2019t interested in being involved in the musical.\u201d
\nFrick has been the choral director for Seaholm for the past six and a half years. She claims that all of the work done on the musical occurs outside of school time.
\nParsons also believes that the favoritism of students in choir leads to casting inequalities.
\n\u201cI think there is a lot of favoritism that goes on in musical department,\u201d Parsons said. \u201c[There are] a lot of talented seniors who didn’t get parts this year because there where sophomores and juniors who where more well liked than the seniors.\u201d
\nAccording to Frick, the judges during the audition process have a strict set of scoring that narrowed the original 65 students into the lead roles available. She said they first look at the student\u2019s talent and abilities to play the roles available, and then the student\u2019s physical appearance comes into play.
\n\u201cYou look towards first their singing and acting ability,\u201d Frick said, \u201cand then once you narrow a field of people, then you go towards the way they look.\u201d
\nIn the 2015, the Seaholm musical was Tarzan. Students were cast into the roles of people and animals in the Disney film, and Tarzan is portrayed as a muscular, tall male.
\n\u201cI would probably not have cast a five foot two boy to be Tarzan because Tarzan needed to look like a Tarzan,\u201d Frick said. \u201cWhen you only have one or two people who look like a Tarzan who audition, you\u2019re probably going to go towards those people that auditioned.\u201d
\nHowever, Frick does believe in certain roles the students can be changed to fill the need of the role without necessarily exactly fitting the physical description.
\n\u201cYou can change the way people look,\u201d Frick said. Senior Jiiya Stubbs, who is involved in the musical, believes there isn\u2019t an equal opportunity for students ofdifferent ethnicities to be involved in the musical.
\n\u201cMost shows won\u2019t specify the ethnicity of a character, but I feel that if traditionally there is diversity within a show directors should aim to model that,\u201d Stubbs said.
\nNo matter what ethnicity the character is written to have, Stubbs believes that the ethnicity should be ignored and students should gain a role-based solely on talent.
\n\u201cSeveral members of the show have expressed their concerns to me, and just on a personal level as an actor, I don\u2019t think any roles should be handed to anyone based on skin color, but there should definitely be equal opportunity for those roles,\u201d Stubbs said.
\nIn 2010, the Seaholm musical was Cinderella. Shea Renne, a senior at the time, was cast as Cinderella. Renne is currently working in the Broadway musical Allegiance. Renne is not white, so she didn\u2019t fit the stereotypical view of Cinderella being a white female.
\nHowever, she didn\u2019t believe that her race would lessen her chances of receiving a lead role.
\n\u201cI wasn\u2019t worried,\u201d Renne said. \u201cI trusted that challenge and hard work could get me through.\u201d
\nRenne said she doesn\u2019t believe that Seaholm would ever discriminate against an actor based on their skin color.
\nStubbs, O\u2019Mara and Parsons all believe there can be changes made to the musical in order to cast out the casting controversy that students think exist.
\n\u201cThe root of the issue with this years, show and previous shows done at Seaholm is that on a large scale people are feeling that equal opportunity is never presented,\u201d Stubbs said.
\nParsons stated that the choir class should be completely separated from the musical, even though Frick already believes that the work goes on outside of school only.
\n\u201cIt needs to start being more about talent and dedication then it does who\u2019s most liked by the director,\u201d Parsons said. \u201cMusical is supposed to display Seaholm\u2019s most theatrically talented students not who\u2019s in choir or is really well loved.\u201d
\nBig Fish will show at Seaholm beginning on February 26, 2016. Frick believes the production and performance by the cast and crew will display the work ethic each student casted for the roles put in.
\nWhile the students work together to create the musical, Parsons aims to change the way students feel during the production and casting process.
\n\u201cThe musical can undoubtedly grow to be a better environment for all involved,\u201d Parsons said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Charlotte Hoppen The Highlander Seaholm HS Division 2, News Writing News Writing When selecting students to play the lead and supporting roles in the annual Seaholm Musical, talent, hard work and promise may be the factors that come to mind when dreaming of the perfect performer. However, students involved in the musical believe that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53,4],"tags":[135,21],"class_list":["post-1102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-newsanalysis","category-nw","tag-2015-16","tag-division2","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kelsey Parkinson","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=3"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6K0n6-1102","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}