Working out every day during tough MT dance lessons must be a huge beauty-boon too. And learning make-up and dress skills can’t be bad, either. Four years in an MT program makes students body-aware, conscious of health, and able to take on grueling dance workouts. If they weren’t gorgeous going in, they’ve surely got into shape and know how to make the best of themselves by the time they get out!
@sbc the audition where they had “underweight, healthy weight, or overweight” on their judging sheet was for Montclair at NY Unifieds
I’m on the other end here – with two sons about to do senior showcase; and this has been an interesting journey. I do think the schools and the business and mentors and the competition and the classmates send subtle messages about appearance. It’s not all weight-loss related, although there is some of that for girls and guys. But over the four years, the students do seem to figure out their “look” and refine it, so to speak. Boys start looking more like men; girls start looking like women. They start hitting the gym to tone and/or put on muscle. (I’ve been particularly amazed at some of the boys who started out really lean freshman year who graduate looking really strong and fit.) Hairstyles get more polished, whether they’re edgy or preppy. Clothing is more put together. Fitness becomes a factor, since the kids want to be able to endure long professional dance calls and big show numbers that require stamina. Regardless of the size on the tags insides their clothing, by the time the freshmen become seniors, they start looking really turned out and polished and professional, it’s really quite fun to see.
My son is short at 5’5". He was lamenting it one day to our friend who is an actor in NY. The friend told him that in general (for guys), it’s better to be above average or below average… b/c ‘average’ is what most people are. Better to be different…
Embrace your unique body type, height, look & characteristics and know that to someone, you will be the PERFECT choice!
@toowonderful, Josh Gad himself jokes about never doing MT in college and not being accepted into MT. He said in one article something about Book of Mormon forcing him to dance more than he has since his Bar Mitzvah. My point is (and I am not condoning this, just stating it) that our society is obsessed with beauty and weight, especially for women. I hate it. Women have it worse than men. Megan Hilty is gorgeous. She is NOT overweight. Curvy, yes. But gorgeous. And I think if Montclair saw her they would check the “healthy weight box” on her, not the overweight box. And I’m sorry, but when I look at the CMU kids (girls, especially), there is not ONE of them who isn’t gorgeous. Go check out their 2016 showcase page. Those young women are all stunning. And I’m sure insanely talented. And I don’t blame CMU for taking these girls…not one bit. Who wouldn’t? Talent and beauty is a killer combination.
There is study after study showing that people think beautiful women are smarter. Nicer. Have you read some of the casting notices on Actors Access lately? Someone even made a video called, “Real Female Actors Reading Real Female Casting Calls.” It’s funny at first, but by the end I was teary. It is disgusting. Some ads (not in the video…ads I have seen) ask women to show up to casting calls wearing tight clothing. Gratuitous nudity. All sorts of awful stuff that young women in this business have to deal with every day. LOOKS MATTER. Do we all want that to be the truth? Of course not.
And yes, there will ALWAYS be exceptions. And looks are subjective. And it is getting better…I’ve noticed in several shows lately that body types/looks in some ensembles are all over the map. Which is great. Waitress. Curious Incident. Priscilla Queen of the Desert (when it was open). But there are MORE shows where the ensemble is uniformly skinny and beautiful. So, the ONLY thing I am saying is that if a student (girls especially) are overweight and/or unattractive, they will have a harder time booking jobs, simply b/c there will be fewer jobs to book. In this business full of obstacles and rejections, that could make it very very difficult for a young woman to succeed in this business.
Some schools take ALL sorts of body types and looks, which is great. But I think it’s hard to deny that looks/weight do matter in the professional world, especially for girls. Yes, it’s getting better. But not fast enough.
@Irfmt18
Thank you but I really did not mean anyone had to publicly state,
Had not thought about the retaliation and understand that we are all so careful about not turning someone off a school, person, etc based on our own experience. I am just floored that a school in this day and age would even suggest they were noting weight on a “public” form. I think I may be naive. My post was not thought out in terms of how it might sound.
I am a huge fan of UK tv shows and am always on the look-out for women in starring roles who do not measure up the the US ideal of beauty. There are exceptions, of course, but in general I think UK casting/audiences prefer women to look a little more realistic. Right now, I LOVE Happy Valley with Sarah Lancashire. She is beautiful (and was when she was younger), but she is not tiny–she is a solidly built “real” woman. Same with her co-star, Siobhan Finneran–she is small but is not conventionally pretty. Most of the people in the show look normal, not movie-star like, which is so much the case on US tv. The one exception is the devastatingly gorgeous leading man (a villain)–James Norton! All three are outstanding actors. The two women got their start in Coronation Street, the UK’s longest running soap, best know for its realism.
Yes, @claire74! I agree, British actors on TV look so much more like real people. I love Happy Valley! And Broadchurch is the same way. And Top of the Lake (altho that is New Zealand). And George Gently…all of them.
Yep they are all gorgeous. So are all of the senior MT women graduating from Tisch. Every single one. And I bet it’s the same at Ithaca, Otterbein, U Mich, Baldwin Wallace, etc.
Now I’ve known quite a few kids from my city that have gone on to CMU for both MT and acting. Some of them were (and are) pretty darn goofy looking but by the time they graduated they emerged as swans much like @MTTwinsinCA describes in post #82 above. But they were mere mortals when they started out and they got in. What they had in common was talent. So sorry, I just don’t buy it that CMU focuses on this any more than any other school does. I think it’s a myth.
The 2 kids who have gone there in recent years from d’s school (1 acting, 1 MT) were definitely not polished when they finished HS. One (the MT) still had a mouth full of braces when they started! They have improved with time (one is a senior this year, one graduated a couple years ago) but what they started with was talent.
Love Sarah Lancashire! She was wonderful in Last Tango in Halifax!
Interesting to note that the creator of Happy Valley and Last Tango is a woman. Perhaps as more women achieve director/casting/scriptwriter status we’ll see more “real” women cast in lead roles.
Yep, @halflokum – Another tick in the column for why the BA/BM/BFA route to performing can be valuable as it allows students time to grow, mature, figure out their type/look/packaging and just plain grow up a little. Loving comparing the headshots from the “here’s our incoming freshman class” collage to the ones for senior showcase. With regard to weight issue, I see schools with a range of body types and I think casting is open to that. Maybe not as open as we’d all like, but definitely open. Sure there’ll always be “Rockette” bodies, but there are also Keala Settles and Tituss Burgesses out there tearing it up. Part of the journey is our kids honing in on who they really are, and then perfecting that!
@MTTwinsinCA , I could not agree more with you.
Remember, too, looking at senior showcase head shots, are well, the best presentation possible, and may not appear the same when just walking down the street. 
On a personal note, as an example…my D is not a conventional beauty. If you are FB friends with me, you will have seen I posted recently a photo I took of a very large LED display photo of my D on a sign outside the theater in which she is appearing currently in NYC. The make up and hair person made my D look really good and she just doesn’t look like that when she emerges after the show, LOL (she still looks good, but different). In fact, while bridal dress shopping with her earlier this week, she said she is considering using the make up and hair person from her current show for her wedding day.
I see all this “talk” about height and weight. I have also seen talk in the past about ethnicities and under-represented minorities. In light of all this, can we take a moment of silence in thanks for Hamilton? I dearly hope there are many more “Hamiltons” in the future! I think it is awesome that the Hamilton Tours are starting already giving that many more performers of all ethnicities (& heights and weights) the opportunity to find employment in this industry. It will be interesting to see if the tours find a fraction of the success that the Broadway version enjoys without Lin Manuel & Co.
@addicted2MT I LOVED Hamilton on Broadway, but while I would certainly say that Hamilton has a diverse cast, it certainly does have an attractive and fit cast.
Someone upthread mentioned headshots and it is so true. D had her headshots redone last summer and they were MILES different and more mature looking than what she had for auditions last year. I am also sure that if we had more done this year, they would, again, be quite different. I think many of these programs have enough experience to not only spot talent and trainability, but they are likely pretty good at spotting who will “grow into their looks” -
There is absolutely more variety in looks and body types on the stage than ever before, which is great - and also, being fit isn’t all about weight. Heavier people can be quite fit and healthy and thin people may not always be. Bottom line though, an MT performer puts a lot of stress and strain on their body, and their body is their instrument, so programs that encourage students to develop healthy habits (ideally healthy mind, body and spirit) are ultimately benefiting their students by doing so.
So true. That is one of the most beautiful looking casts I’ve ever seen in a show.
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for having the courage to breach this difficult topic. Looks were a major concern for me going into the audition process, and they still are but not to the same extent. This is actually the reason I opted for MT over straight acting programs: I have no interest in film, and it’s mostly because I know I don’t have “the look for it.” I honestly thought applying for MT would lessen the chance that I would be expected to aim for LA. And I will admit that back in the day I looked at resumes on senior showcase web sites to make sure not ALL the graduating girls weighed under 130 lbs. Sometimes, that ruled schools out.
When I actually got to college, I realized that the main question that needs to be asked is not “is this happening?” but “why should I be concerned about this?” and then “what can I do about it?” I really think our generation has the potential to overthrow some of these stereotypical roles we stick people into just based on how they look (I mean beauty/height/weight, but of course this extends to race, disability, etc. as well). If you ask me, they’re outdated, they’re reductive, and they’re easy to fall back on, for actors as well as the people doing the hiring. In my experience, we performers limit ourselves far more severely than anyone else. Besides, how someone looks is not at all indicative of how the same person will perform. Yes, that’s always going to be part of it, but I don’t think there will always be strict limits on the characters an actor can play (i.e., romantic leads must be classically beautiful), at least not in every kind of theatre. I have a lot of hope for the future, but the fact is, right now a lot of casting breakdowns are sexist, racist, ableist, sizeist…basically every ist you can think of. A great web series that draws attention to what women face in the industry is Lady Parts. All the episodes are on YouTube. It’s a parody, but there’s a terrifying amount of truth to it.
I also came across this relevant article on HowlRound the other day. That one’s actually spookily close to my personal experiences in amateur theatre, but I’ll spare you all the details. http://howlround.com/my-life-as-a-plus-size-actress
It’s hard. I truly believe there’s a place for everyone in theatre, but often it seems like there are fewer places for some of us, the non-conventionally-attractive. The only way that’s going to change is if we set out to make more. We’re not powerless. We get to determine what the future of theatre (and heck, maybe even film too) looks like.