What Musical??

[tptstrong]

So I go to a fairly small high school school, usually with a cast of 25ish (no joke.) stronger in girls than guys. Our pit typically consists of 10 players, and our sets and stage space is limited. This upcoming fall we'll have maybe three good guys, tenor and baritone, with many talented girls. Our main dancer is moving this year, so dancing needs to be something fairly easy. Like I said before, our theatre program is dominated by girls.

In the past, musicals done included Pippin, Once Upon a Mattress, and, most recently, Hello, Dolly! They were thinking of doing Anything Goes for us this year, but a) nobody at our school taps and b) we just don't have the people to play these roles and c) a HUGE school did it last year.

Everyone is racking their brains for a musical our small, low-budget, tiny cast, and miniscule theater (seats...200?) can do. Any suggestions?? All are greatly appreciated!!!

[Annie]

There is Into the Woods which doesn't really require any dancing. I think that you could get away with only 3 of the guys being especially talented vocally. Cinderella's Prince would probably have to double as the Wolf like he does in the broadway production, unless you find you have more guys than previously thought.

I know that this isn't the best musical, in fact the writing is terrible, but Cinderella is a female dominated show.

State Fair is another good one if you're looking for a balanced show three couples with a fair amount of singing. You need a fourth guy at the very least to play Harry, but he doesn't have to sing any solos. There is a quartet, but you could probably cut the number since the song is about a pig and is kind of silly.

I think Aida is a wonderful show, but it really only has two great female roles.

Too bad there aren't more female dominated shows, at least that I can think of right now...

~Annie

[dannyboy]

How about Chicago? Yes it is raunchy and probably too risque for a High School but it is mainly girls, can be done without a huge cast and there are only 2 boys needeed as lead singers (there is also Reporter Mary Sunshine who is known to be a cross-dresser in many productions and many smaller guy parts that you could stick in like in all that Jazz). Chicago is also known for its bare minimum in sets BUT it does require a lot of dancing, but lots of it can be dumbed down.

Some other ones could be The Wizard of Oz as it has three main males (Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion), very little dancing, a very main female lead as well as Glinda (and in some versions the Wicked Witch sings) BUT you would have to think how to minimize the sets.

This year my school did the Pajama Game. There needs to be 3 male singers and 2 female singers, there are also many other (some smaller) parts for guys and girls (Brenda, Poopsie, Hasler ... etc) as well as a chorus that is mainly female (it is set in a Pajama making factory and most of the workers are girls). As for dance there is not too much, there is the legendary Steam Heat scene and although it is a Fosse it can be made easier than the original (like ours) and the two male dancers can be played by females (like in ours). The scenery is not too full on, I have seen clips of it being performed with amazing amounts of scenery, and others with very little scenery. It depends how low your budget is. In ours we had a cast of more than 25 but at times I felt there were a few too many people on stage.

Thats all I can think of at the moment seeing that most of the musicals we look at are largely male based I(well we want them to be because it is a conjoined show between a Male and Female show but normally guys do not get as many leads in the shows) with larger casts, a bigger budget and a big enough performing space.\

Daniel

[tptstrong]

Yeah, in the past we were looking at Into the Woods (that was one we were thinking of doing this year, but for some reason administration said no...gah!) and Chicago.
Hello, Dolly was a really good musical for us because it had numerous female parts (Irene Molloy, Minnie Fay, Dolly, Ernestina, Ermengarde) and a few male parts (Cornelius Hackl, Horace Vandergelder, Barnaby Tucker, Ambrose Kemper). Our Horace graduated this year and our Cornelius isn't doing the musical next year, leaving us with only a few people.
Dancing isn't as big of a deal as the acting and singing and just number of parts. The biggest problem is, in fact, finding enough guys to play the part well. We can make the dancing easier, and just keep practicing. It's the special dancing (tap, acrobatics, really flexible parts) that's difficult for us to manage.
Thank you for your suggestions!

[SomedayBroadway]

I've got suggestions if you still need them =D
Little Shop of Horrors, there are 4 really good girl parts, and three guy parts.
Thoroughly Modern Millie is good too. Actually, did you say dancing was weak? if so, nevermind.
I'm going to say Threepenny Opera because its an amazing show (3 major male parts, 4 major girls) and has amazing girl parts of Jenny and Polly. But, even though they did it at my VERY LIBERAL high school, it is way too inappropriate for most high schools.
Eh, thats about all i've got.

[dreamlesleep]

oh! My high school did Anything Goes this previous year and we have the same situation as your school. In the cast we actually had exactly 25 people and we just had some sailors act as a reporter and the F.B.I and people just played more then one part. It was really hard to acomplish but in the end it was a good show. Though the changes for those who were two characters was really dificult and fast.

[dramaqueen0627]

u could do GODSPELL . u only need 5 girls and 5 boys because ensemble is optional.

[Gigi24601]

How about Fiddler on the Roof? That could be great for a cast with many talented girls because there are so many good girl parts--the five daughters (three leads), Golde the mother, Yente the matchmaker, etc. And not so many male parts that require strong singers--three or four at most. There is dancing but mostly very easy. In the production I was in, the more complex dances like the bottle dance and the Russian dance were done by girls dressed as men. And even those dances could be dumbed down faily easily if necessary.

Plus Fiddler is just an awesome show!

And as someone else mentioned, Cinderella could work too--my dance/performing arts school is considering it, as we have the similar issue of having a small and primarily female cast.

[starflower]

How about Damn Yankees? You really only need two guys for leads: one for Joe and one for Applegate. There are a couple fun smaller parts, like the coach, for guys also. For girls, as long as whoever plays Lola can dance, the rest can be put into a bunch of chorus spots in many scenes and dont have to dance much. There are two other good girl spots, the reporter and Joe's wife, which don't require any dancing.

[chivepicker]

Honk, Jr. is very cute. So is Annie, Jr.
Look into them.