I was just wondering if I could fish for opinions on whether or not this situation is fair. I’m feeling rather conflicted about it, even though it’s my child who benefits.
My dd is 11 and in Year 6. At her school, the two year 6 classes join together to do a play, as one of their end of primary school celebrations. In recent years, the play has been a musical.
My dd is a really good actor, I would say one of the best in her year. She won a school competition last year where all the kids in her year recited a poem from memory - she did a funny one by Roald Dahl and she got to perform in front of the governors. She’s also had major roles in all the previous school plays. She’s confident and she’s funny. I’m not just saying this as a biased Mum - I fully recognise the many things she is absolutely terrible at, including anything sporty. She can’t draw either. But when it comes to exuberant acting and making people laugh, she can do it.
The problem is, the one thing she is shy about is singing. She doesn’t have the most amazing singing voice ever, though she can sing in tune, but she is adamantly opposed to ever singing solo in front of other people.
And the school play this year, as it has been in recent years, is a musical. For this year 6 school play, they held auditions (for previous plays further down the school the kids were asked to write down their top 3 choices of parts and teachers allocated them, my dd always ended up with a big part). And these auditions were singing only, and took place in front of the whole of year 6 and all the year 6 teachers. The children were told they could either sing a song on their own or with some friends, but had to sing at least a few lines solo.
Dd decided not to do a singing audition. I obviously wasn’t there, but dd tells me that almost every other child in Year 6, including all the other girls, auditioned. Many of these kids were clearly terrified of singing in front of so many people, and many couldn’t sing very well or in tune, but, unlike my dd, they faced their fear and did it.
However, when the parts were allocated, my dd was given the main comic role - it’s a role that had a lot of speaking lines, and didn’t have many solo singing lines, and those it had the teachers told her she could sing in a group rather than on her own. She’s in every scene, she loves the role, and she’s so good at it and so funny (I’ve seen a dress rehearsal as I’m helping put costumes and props together.)
But... many of the kids who actually sang by themselves to audition, and who were very shy, and sang very quietly or a bit out of tune, have been given rubbish parts. Two of them don’t actually have any lines, and just follow around my dd (they’re playing her servants, which rubs salt in the wound, somewhat...)
Many of the mothers of the kids in her year are really unhappy with this. They think the auditions were a stitch up and the teachers had decided who would play each part before they even held the auditions. And they don’t think it’s fair that my dd gets a huge, fun part when she didn’t have the courage to audition. I’m not really sure how to respond when I hear these whispers/insinuations, because, on one level, I can see how good my dd is in that part, but on the other hand, I can see the injustice of it.
So, what do you think? Should my dd have been given the main comic role because of her natural acting talent? Or should she not have been given a major part because, unlike other kids who probably have worse voices and far less confidence than her, she couldn’t pluck up the courage to do a solo singing audition?