My point to this, was that not only does casting a 'celebrity' face illegitimise the audition process, but also that it undermines training all together. The majority, although not all of the celebrities you see doing an eight week run in a leading role of the West End, have had no professional training in Musical Theatre.
After I touched on this in my last blog, I felt that maybe I had been somewhat harsh, to tarnish all celebrities as not belonging in the theatre is unfair, and then I went on Facebook, and the first thing that popped up was the following...
http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/21/mel-b-breaks-character-and-goes-all-scary-spice-during-performance-of-chicago-6464265/
Not only did Mel B (former spice girl) break character and start rapping some of her old girl group lyrics, she also instagramed a photo of herself in the production celebrating the fact she had completed an eight week run without cancelling a show.
What about the people that bought a ticket to watch the Musical 'Chicago' and couldn't care less that Mel B was playing the lead? What about the thousands of professionally trained actresses that would give their right arm for the part and have to watch their hard work and talent being overshadowed by celebrity stunts. Or maybe I should lighten up...
As always, I would love to hear some other opinions on this!
Hi Lauren,
ReplyDeleteI found this a very interesting read. I don't think you were harsh at all in your comments about celeb faces undermining the ridiculous hard work and training that professionals would put in place to land a role like that! It is a real shame.
I'll be interested to see how you incorporate this in the rest of your final module :)
Hi! Its swings and roundabouts because without a celeb face, tickets potentially wouldn't sell as well and then people would be out of work. But I can't help but think doing something like this is not only wrong but disrespectful to the other people on the stage, as well as the audience who may not have been there purely to reminisce on the spice girl days. As far as my inquiry is concerned, it adds to the list of factors that are out of our hands when it comes to the casting process and understanding what makes a successful audition.
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