UK theatres promise to only cast trans actors in trans roles

Hang on though...what happens in a play like Charley's Aunt where a male character disguises himself a female? Do they have to switch actors? Or is the concept of doing a play that features cross-dressing not allowed now?

So many questions arise.

Murder mystery? Get the shovels, boys. We'll hit the cemetery, dig up a few potential cast members.

I' m writing a play where a trans character dies of smallpox in the third act. If you don't have the pox, you're ineligible.

Until trans actors are regularly cast to play cis character roles without it being an issue, it seems a fair enough thing to do.

R4 - who say they aren't?

What about the gender fluid actors? What happens if their fluidity tends towards a different gender expression during the run of a play?

Not allowed, r5.

Why should anyone hire a man in a dress to play a woman when they can simply hire a woman?

[quote] Until trans actors are regularly cast to play cis character roles without it being an issue, it seems a fair enough thing to do.

Why? They aren’t cis so why should they being playing a cis character? Isn’t that erasing their transness?

Only rapists should play rapists on screen, how will they get them a pass from prison is the question.

Casting murder victims will also pose some challenges.

Or smallpox victims.

R8 So if trans actors shouldn't play cis roles, then why should cis actors be cast in trans roles?

Bea Arthur is gone. A trans to be reckoned with

R12- You mean a DYKE to be reckoned with.

There are plays with trans roles??????

[quote] So if trans actors shouldn't play cis roles, then why should cis actors be cast in trans roles?

Maybe they shouldn’t. 🤷🏻‍♂️ If only like can play like, then it applies across the board.

At the end of the day no one buys Laverne Cox or the Pose cast as an actual females. They’re always going to be playing trans regardless if the role is written as cis.

It seems to me an easy enough way to give trans actors opportunity. Unpopular opinion?

R16 - surely if they're good enough actors they'll be cast anyway, irrespective of their gender identity?

As we rightly have, for example, colour-blind casting these days, why should trans roles been ring-fenced?

R17 More authenticity for the audience? Just pondering.

I thought it was called [italic]acting[/italic].

But gay roles still go to straight actors.

But if trans can self-identify then what's to stop any actor say they self-identify as trans at the audition? Isn't it transphobic to ask them to prove it?

It is almost as if extreme trans ideology and logic can not co-exist. Who'd have thought it?

Given the high levels of employment in the field, at the evident public demand for trans stories on stage, I am sure this decision will be well received, entirely productive and a real peacemaker within the industry.

TRANS! TRANS! TRANS! -- a new musical

Well if trans actors want to be confined to trans roles, as it appears they do, they're not going to work much.

Unlike the murderers, who will be swamped.

God love um! Another fine British institution of longstanding fucked up the ass.

If trannies are women why does it matter if a tranny or a real woman plays the character? That’s what’s always been hilarious to me. These people spend every minute of the day insisting that they’re just as much a “real woman” as a biological woman but when a woman actor gets a role as a tranny they flip the fuck out. Trannies want to be worshiped and bowed down to.

Brush up your Shakesqueer.

There are next to no actual trans parts, though, even in modern plays, so how is this either meaningful or much of a threat to anything?

Just you wait, 'Enry 'Iggins at R28, just you wait.

This seems like a small concession - at any point in time, how many trans roles are there?

It will keep Rebecca Root in constant employment then, she's pretty much the only famous Trans Actress in the UK.

There's also Adele Anderson, whose been around for decades.

I only know Adele Anderson from singing with Fascinating Aïda. I've never seen her acting in any role on film or TV, she may have and I've missed it?

[quote]What about the gender fluid actors? What happens if their fluidity tends towards a different gender expression during the run of a play?

Every play must be written with multiple versions to accommodate the various gender expressions of said actors.

So Jonah Hill won’t be able to Rachel McKinnon/Veronica Ivy in the upcoming CYCLEPATH THE PLEASANT PEANUT CLIT STORY

So are they now going to stop casting black actors in white roles as well?

How are they going to cast M. Butterfly, The Crying Game, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or Mrs, Doubtfire?!

Looking forward to the stage version of The Danish Girl where a trans woman has to butch up to pretend she's a pre-op fella.

And I'm guessing there aren't any stage productions planned which feature trans or non gender conforming children? That'll be a tricky one to navigate.

How does this affect Everyone's Talking About Jamie?

My dear zir, have you ever considered acting?

[quote]It will keep Rebecca Root in constant employment then, she's pretty much the only famous Trans Actress in the UK.

Boy Meets Girl was a reasonably decent comedy drama, mostly thanks to the supporting actors. The age gap seemed like a bigger challenge to the relationship working than Judy being trans.

And since then Rebecca has played such memorable roles as The Doctor in Last Christmas who inconveniently doesn't tell Emilia Clarke early on that she really needs to look after herself and take her medication BECAUSE SHE HAD A HEART TRANSPLANT and that kind of thing is quite a serious condition, but that would spoil the film being based on the "I gave you my heart" line of Last Christmas on which the film is based. And then Rebecca was A Teacher in The Queen's Gambit. Pre transition she had a role in an episode of Keeping Up Appearances, sadly not as Sheridan.

I think Rebecca Root is great in everything that she is in, my point was that we don't have many trans Actors.

I suppose it won't matter as there are also very few theatre rolls that would require one. I can only think of Bernadette Bassenger in Priscilla off the top of my head.

^^ roles not rolls^^ autocorrect caught me again...

Only actual murderers can play murderers! Full respect for killer actors.

I hope Eliot Page is planning to move to the UK.

Adele Anderson was in The Romanovs, playing the older transitioned version of Hugh Skinner. She's also done quite a lot of stage work.

I never quite got to the end of episode 1 of 'The Romanoffs' I'm afraid. It was a bit of a bomb for Amazon and got swiftly cancelled, which stopped trying to engage with it later.

The very British tradition of Pantomime Dames may present a few problems?

R47 - not really a problem.

Most pantomime dames, despite playing female roles are exaggeratedly made up so they are obviously men and failing to pass at all.

Sounds like its a perfect fit for most mtf trannies to be honest.

I hear they're recasting the Queen Mother in series 5 and 6 of the Crown. Some old doll called Roy, from the Brighton Seaside Amateur Thespian Guild.

[quote]Every play must be written with multiple versions to accommodate the various gender expressions of said actors.

"Today's performance of Romeo & Juliet has been changed to Romeo & Julian."

^ But it's closer to the original than you think!

And no more muggles playing wizards!

What a brave stance for them to take. Now they have to cast those thousands and thousands of plays with trans characters differently than they've been doing all these years. Bravo!

It's the logical and natural extension of reality tv, isn't it?

Cinema verite for the new century.

Some of the best T performances weren't Ts - Crying Game, Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Also, by this logic, shouldn't they stop color blind casting?

I have no problem with this as long as they're only being cast in trans roles; none of this 'what's yours is mine and what's mine is mine bullshit'. If we can't play you, you can't play us.

R56 - Good luck with that.

So can non binary play trans parts? How about gender fluid? Can they only play the roles for whichever gender they are cosplaying that day?

How could you ever cast a transwoman in a trans role since all trans women are women full stop? Wouldn't that be casting a woman in the role?

R1 Alec Guinness would be up the creek now as Lady Agatha. And Burt Lancaster couldn’t play the woman protesting against the fox hunt in The List of Adrian Messenger. Lemmon and Curtis as well.

Victor/Victoria, you in danger gurl!

TRANS!

Stunning and brave! Well, stunning at least.

No-one's named an actual trans role yet. This was transparently a meaningless gesture.

R59 "How could you ever cast a transwoman in a trans role since all trans women are women full stop? Wouldn't that be casting a woman in the role?"

That's just the kind of logic Trans don't like to hear.

TRANS! TRANS! TRANS! -- 20 of 'em -- LIVE on STAGE!

It's not Trans we should be getting mad at, it's British theatre. Those arty types don't live in the real world and will fall for anything.

I see nothing wrong with the idea that a current play with a trans character casts a trans actor - I can't really see how they couldn't. But these are the only parts in play - there are no trans parts in classic theatre.

That’s nice. We’ll go back to not having trans characters in anything.

The key is box office. If trans being cast in these roles means a lack of box office, it will go back to anybody being cast in those roles.

TRANS!

The Theatre Royal is Windsor is doing a special version of 'Hamlet' this month.

The tragic Danish prince is 30 years old but the actor pretending to be him is 82 years old.

It certainly makes it easier to cast Kurt in any future Sound of Music revival.

[quote]The Theatre Royal is Windsor is doing a special version of 'Hamlet' this month. The tragic Danish prince is 30 years old but the actor pretending to be him is 82 years old.

A menstruator is also playing Hamlet this year.

Maybe Laverne Cox can show the world her sassy Hamlet as well. "To be or not to be, that *IS* the question, ummm hmmmm?"

I'm trans! I'm trans!!

Now the SJWs will bitch and moan that there are no plays about the trans-experience without acknowledging there are no actors to play the roles.

"I also hope in future that the roles of murders are only played by murderers,"

So you automatically equate trans with murderers and you aren't a bigoted shit heel?

Sure, Jan...

R77

Nice selective editing...shall we have that sentence actually quoted in full?

"I also hope in future that the roles of murders are only played by murderers, parents and children by actual family members and characters killed in the course of a play actually die."

So no, not equating trans with murders any more than being siblings or people who die (which we all do eventually, in case you didn't know). What was being said was if you extrapolate this rule then any actor playing a part has to to have a personal "lived experience" for any role they play. Which is bollocks. It's called acting. What is is you don't understand?

Sorry to defeat your sense of outrage with the actual facts, rather than selective quoting, of what was said, but that's how arguments work.

Still rev up your outrage bus if you must, all aboard!

The issue here is something about empathy is about imagining yourself in a situation and feeling you too could be that person . If we are being told there is no way you can be that person or feel what that person feels or pretend to be that person then you lose any chance of Society moving forward. We will each be attached to our own lane and fuck anyone else

Only trans actors in trans roles. Trans actors also in cis roles ("because of inequality, oppression, discrimination, blah blah"). Never enough? Turn cis roles into trans ones, too!

* They never pull this shit for Allah, Mohammed, etc. btw. Cowards who fear beheading?