"Non binary" character in a musical

[CocoPlum]

This has been driving me nuts and I just need to get it out here, no real point, just wanted to mention it in a "safe" space.

I went to see & Juliet recently. I loved it. And as eye roll-y as I find the whole NB thing, I just accepted the non binary character of May. However, as far as I can tell, the only people to play this character have been obviously male. There's a whole thing when one male character kisses May and sings "I kissed a girl" and May then says "... but you do know, I'm not actually a girl?".

If it's really a non binary role, why is it only male sexed people playing it? This is all part of the problem isn't it.

This IS all part of the problem. It's all about more ways for male people to get more, and female people to be more marginalised.

Gosh, this sounds tiresome. The tour came to my city and I'd been on the fence about seeing it. Glad I gave it a miss now.

We took DC to see it. I loathed it. I hate jukebox musicals so it’s on me that I went to see it.

The NB character is annoying AF (as are all the characters) but due to the songs he sings it can only really be played by a male, because otherwise the story doesn’t work.

I hated it as well @AgathaMystery. I was eye-rolling the entire way through. The ‘non-binary’ character was the final straw. Ham-fisted and tiresome.

Yeah. I don’t care about the NB character per se. It was just crap.

"NB" is just more tiresome NLOG in women, opportunities for sexual predation in men, and a clear statement from every last one of them that they are terminally self-centred wankers who have nothing of interest to say. How can one write a character like that when all the evidence suggests they don't have any character?

I knew this would get opinions on tbhe actual show 😆 I didn't really care that the character was NB, but realising that this character is always played by a male "NB" person made me think.

Same, I read about it before I bought tickets so glad I knew not to bother. So tedious this nonsense is everywhere

I tend to think that some people obviously consider themselves trans/non-binary in real life and therefore it's OK, in general terms, to have characters who consider themselves trans/non-binary in fiction. I don't think their beliefs are right but that doesn't mean I never want to see them in stories. I don't agree with Mormons either but I wouldn't complain about a Mormon character in a play.

I could have written this post OP. I saw this recently and really enjoyed it - but found myself looking back through previous casts to see if the character is always played by a male. Seems to be.
The storyline did feel a little crowbarred in.

Yes I think that too. My point here though is that this role is supposed to be ungendered so why has it never been played by someone who was of the female sex identifying as NB? Having looked at the programme for the cast we saw, only one understudy had they/them pronouns, the others were he/him (and clearly biological males). The character being NB isn't my issue.

@FlamingoGo have you seen We Will Rock You? That was my first jukebox musical and it got to the interval and I felt like I was still waiting for the story to start!