To think school production role allocation is unfair?

[guaranteess]

Dd school production this week, and during the interval i overheard the teacher talk to the lead role's mum, telling her that her son was chosen to be the lead before they even did auditions, based on his personality. Meaning the children that were auditioning for the lead were just wasting their time, as they had already chose the lead. The child wasn't even going to audition for that role, until the teacher asked his mum to encourage him to. I don't think it's very fair, they should either allocate roles based on auditions or to scrap auditions and allocate just on the child's personality, which is practically what they are doing anyway.

Aibu to think it isn't really fair?

Life isn’t fair.

I genuinely think this is a good lesson for people to learn and it teaches resilience.

It's a step up from the teacher this year who put all the kids with special needs hidden right at the back and wouldn't even kids with any speech problems the chance to have a spoken line. If she could have got away with it I think she'd have sat them in the corner with a dunces cap on to be honest.

Over the years the part of Mary has always been thought of as the lead roll, for me the narrator is actually the lead roll. Mary just needs to sit still and quietly hold a baby, the narrator has to learn lots of lines and tell the story

Exactly this ^^

Mary and Joseph are usually given to the more quiet, not very confident children. There are no lines. Basically Mary and Joseph enter the stage, with Mary holding Baby Jesus. They stand centre stage, the choir come forward and they all sing, "Away in a Manger". Then Mary and Joseph leave the stage. The choir gets ready to sing the next song.

Yet they are coveted roles by parents who would dearly love their child to have a "Lead" role. Very often Mary or Joseph will start crying and run off.

I think, sometimes, parents underestimate how scary it can be for any child, or adult, to stand on stage facing an audience. A shy, quiet, nervous child is not going to suddenly become confident if a teacher picks him to stand alone, centre stage a
to deliver lines or sing solo. In fact the opposite is more likely to happen. He will see a load of eyes on him and he will freeze.

The Christmas pudding, usually gets a line or two plus be part of a small group dance - but that's a "crap part". Strange 🤔

The sheep are usually funny roles in our Primary school Nativity. Hence the children, who can deliver humorous lines with good timing and confident speaking voices are chosen.

Angel Gabrielle has to have a clear, loud speaking voice, with good diction. The Angels, again, have no speaking parts. They enter the stage sing a song, with the choir and go off. One or two may have a line.

There is a part for all personality types in the Nativity. Teachers know the personalities of all the children in the class so are best placed to decide which child best fits each role. Better than a parent who has no idea of the different personalities in the class but thinks her pfb should get the 'lead' role - Whatever that may be 🤔

My DC were never chosen for anything at school - every teacher in every class they ever had chose exactly the same children every year. Which is odd.
The kids all know who will be picked, so there's not much point in the majority of them making any effort for auditions as the outcome is always the same.
This has been going on for years and years - it happened when I was at school.

I would love to know why! Every teacher you meet denies this happens, but everybody knows it does.

I think perhaps the solution for some of the parents is

Make a rota, if there are 20 pupils in the class, 20 performances should take place, that way every parent would see their child in the lead role. 😏
(Poor kids, poor parents)

We all see the best in our child, we all hope the best. None of us have equal talent, perhaps the way forward is to teach our children how to tackle not being the shining STAR of everything, that would be a good parental gift to give.

I'm involved in amateur dramatics (off stage) out of school.

We're a small group, so can manage every child that wants to having a line or more. But, when I'm casting these are thing things that come into consideration before I start considering acting ability:

Reliability -no point giving the main part to the person who will manage less than 50% of rehearsals/tell me the night before that they can't manage the dress rehearsal
Memory -can they learn that amount of lines
Behaviour with others -do A and B wind each other up? In which case I'm not going to given them the parts that interact all the time (often not because of on stage, but then because they're together all the time backstage and we can do without arguments backstage)
Props -can they handle the props (eg don't give a part that involves popping a balloon if you know they hate balloons)
Songs -will they go to pieces if asked to sing in a small group (it's not always the ones you expect)
Pressure/stress -will they struggle under pressure (again it's not who you expect)
Behaviour -I don't want little robots, but the laws around theatre work are strict. If I have a child who is likely to wander off (SEN or otherwise) I have to consider how best to deal with it. It might be that I don't want to give them the part that has a certain amount of hanging about at the back of the hall because it gives them more opportunity to wander. I also need to consider things like microphones are expensive, can't afford for one to be damaged by silly behaviour.
Costumes -sometimes I've had children who are fussy about costumes, I'll avoid a part for them where refusing the costume will be an issue. Also to consider if a part has lots of changes-will they cope with that?
And size/looks - I watched an Annie Jr once which was really well done. But the policeman arresting Miss Hannigan (aged around 18yo) was a very small 8yo. He acted it very well, but the audience was just creased up because the difference in size made it funny. I will, where possible, have little ones playing the younger ones, and the big ones playing bigger ones/adults. Big brothers should be taller etc

And I do try and not give the main part repeatedly to the same person. Sometimes (especially with boys) it does happen. And I have children who don't want big parts too, which can mean it looks like that sometimes because I have a small group to choose from.

But I have an advantage over the schools in that. I don't have as many children to deal with. I write the play as a basic plot. Sometimes it will be clear to me that some parts will probably go to specific people.
However after we'd had the auditions I rewrite the play. I add in parts to give everyone something. I might increase a part for a child who is ready for it, and I might decrease, or split in two a part that I think will be too much.

Not quite sure why anyone thinks that putting a very shy child on stage to perform in front of hundreds of people is a good way to boost their confidence. It could kill them stone dead.

I’d have hated a main role as a kid At our school every child that wants a line or two gets on but we have kids that rather be in the back and kids that love centre stage. Some of those are good and some are not

A lot of it does depend on capability in many areas. Not just acting.

Every year I ask my pupils who wants a big part and who wants a small part. Loads of children volunteer for a small part because they don't want to learn lines or to be very visible on stage, but I still get the odd parent coming in to complain.

Honestly, some parents are delusional. If your kid has mucked about in drama all year or sat at the back daydreaming, has regularly frozen up in whole class guided reading, has 80% attendance, has a week off every year at around the time of the performance, regularly forgets PE kit/letters/homework, doesn't work well in a team, can't do what you need the lead to do (speak in an accent, sing a solo, comic timing) or requested a small part...they're getting a small part.

I bloody love the kids, and their parents, who take that small part happily and do the best job they can with it.

My DC were never chosen for anything at school - every teacher in every class they ever had chose exactly the same children every year. Which is odd

Every teacher in every class chose exactly the same children every year......

Why do you think that's "odd"? Do you think every teacher got it wrong every year?

@TwoPupsandaHamster it's favouritism.
@hellodarkness so you're saying children with illnesses and disabilities like mine, who cannot achieve 95% attendance due to illness they cannot control and would gladly get rid of if they could, should be excluded from any possibility of a decent part?
That's disgusting and disabilitist.

Not quite sure why anyone thinks that putting a very shy child on stage to perform in front of hundreds of people is a good way to boost their confidence. It could kill them stone dead.

Well said.

BiBiBirdie, if there's a high chance that you'll miss loads of rehearsals or not turn up on the day of the concert, you're not going to get an integral part, regardless of the reasons for those absences.

I don't think I'm disgusting or disablist because those children are given parts, just not ones where the concert would collapse if they didn't turn up or hadn't had an opportunity to rehearse.

I have given big parts to children with SEND over the years if they win the part on merit and have reliable attendance.

A child that has low attendance through no fault of their own would be given other opportunities to shine.

this discussion made me think of this. Everybody should have a chance to shine. I bet there were some shy kids in this group.

This reminds me of my friend who, upon finding out my DD had got the role of the Queen in the school production, told me she'd only got it because I was on the PFA at the school. I did point out the Queen was only actually in one scene and had a handful of lines, hardly the star role! Her DD had been the title role a couple of years earlier!