Shows with only 2-3 male singers with many female singers?

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March 5, 2009
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Does anyone have some good suggestions for musicals with only a few male singing roles (2-3) with many female singing roles? This seems to be our typical search for our annual fall musical at my high school.
21 Answers

November 13, 2009
Bill, we did Godspell two years ago and we did the same - brought it to modern day. It was very easy to do. I also updated a few of the pop culture references (though not all), to appeal to a wider audience. But Godspell is very easy to manipulate when it comes to males/females.

November 13, 2009
Matt, I would luv to chat with you in detail regarding you did with GODSPELL. I work at a private catholic high school that has a hugh following and the musical is THE event of the school. Do you have pictures/time available to chat?

Staff Answer
November 13, 2009
Also, some shows work just fine in school settings with a woman playing a male character. We've had many female Music Men and Willy Wonkas. As long as you don't change the gender of the character and/or any lines, (IE - It's still Mr. Willy Wonka - a male character, just played by a female actor) it often works very well.

November 13, 2009
This is always the struggle at our school. Each year we have to be overly creative to even put on a show because of the lack of males trying out. It's really unfortunate, because we have so many incredible females that we end up having to cut some good people. And there is such an imbalance between the males and females in terms of skill that the guys are often blow out of the water by the girls. The shows are always fantastic, but just once I'd like to have a show that suited the number of good guys we had! Unfortunately, that would probably have to be one about nuns or something since we average 3-5 decent guys and 20 great girls haha. I found that Fame, Godspell and Footloose only required a few REALLY good guys, and that you can get away with some not-so-strong guys in some other roles, or changing them to girls.

June 26, 2009
Take a look at Baby--it's only got three male roles, and it's a really fun piece. Dear Edwina is also worth considering; that's got four male roles. You could also think about a song cycle like Songs for a New World. You could do that with just two guys. Hope that helps!

April 13, 2009
Singin' in the Rain could be an option too. There's only 3 male roles/singers in the show: Don Lockwood, Cosmo Brown, and the Production Singer for Beautiful Girl.

April 4, 2009
Once Upon a Mattress has two singing parts that are males. You can change the minstrel and wizard to girls, and that would work fairly well.

March 18, 2009
Annie Jr. has only Warbucks and Rooster featured in featured solos, We had Burt Healy played by a female and the orphans sing Never Fully Dressed anyway.

March 14, 2009
1776 is typically done with an all male cast, but I did hear of a rather interesting production of a high school in my hometown that switched all the sexes of the roles which meant only 2 men in the show. It sounds like an interesting concept and could definitely be a great social statement :-)

March 7, 2009
Millie has two male roles and many female singers. It is a great option for female heavy casts.

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