Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity
by Ryan Donovan
Buy on Amazon"The Broadway Body I lied about my height on my résumé the entire time I was a dancer, though in truth I don't think the extra inch ever actually made a difference. In the US, 5'6" still reads as short for a man no matter how you slice it. The reason for my deception was that height was often the reason I was disqualified: choreographers often wanted taller male dancers for the ensemble and listed a minimum height requirement (often 5'11" and up) in the casting breakdown. Being disqualified before I could even set foot in the audition because I possessed an unchangeable physical characteristic that often made me unemployable in the industry.…
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"So much of the casting for Broadway musicals depends not on voice range or mastery of dance styles, but on the height, thinness, age, color, ethnicity and lack of disability of certain bodies. Ryan Donovan, an assistant professor of theater studies at Duke, examines the history of the “Broadway Body” over the last 50 years, looking at questions like: Why do some shows use fat suits instead of casting heavier actors? Why are there so many disabled characters in musical theater and so few disabled actors? And most crucially: Is casting based on body shape/size/ethnicity/color actually crucial to the work onstage, or is it just a form of entrenched bias and legalized discrimination?"
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