Happy Sunday! Think of this as your Sunday morning paper. We’ve been diving into some really vulnerable topics all week that were inspired by a conversation I had with my friend Rachel Farr at the beginning of the month. We ended our conversation talking about type and Rachel brought up a really interesting point which I feel inspired to share. This post is the shortest out of the four that came from this conversation. My hope is that it will inspire you to question some of the restraints that we put on ourselves when forcing our talent, look, and persona to fit into one specific type.
Rachel: I’ve always prided my industry, theater as my industry, my chosen place, to be the most liberal and the most accepting and the most modern and at the forefront of everything. And in the past two to three years I’ve been a little disillusioned with the actual business itself you know, because why are we still in this place where we’re typing everyone… type, type, type, type, type is so important and if you spoke to me two years ago I would’ve been like ‘type is so important’ and I would’ve laid it all down for you and now I’m in this place where I’m like ‘but why?’ And you really understand that. We’ve talked abut type before. You are a really fluid type, how do you put you in one of those perfect little boxes…
Becky: I’ve given up. I’ve liberated myself from being a type.
Rachel: But when you step back you realize that the founders of musical theater are all just white men. I mean, now there’s women writing and stuff and things are changing and people of different races and religions but that’s not what our industry was built on so these types are just more regurgitations of white man’s views of people and society and women and I wondered why it was so infuriating that I didn’t fit into the alto, sexy, villain or the soprano, innocent, virginal, ingenue… my personality, my look, my voice doesn’t fit into either of those categories and I was like ‘because a fucking man made up those categories, not anyone who knows any women!’
Becky: And because you are a human being! You are not a characteristic portrayal of someone’s idea of what those types are.
R: Right! And yet musicals keep coming out and the ingenue is always still the soprano and I just find it so boring.
Interesting, right? At least I think it is…maybe I’m the only one. Regardless, that’s it! This was the last blog post from my conversation with Rachel Farr. For now, at least. We could’ve kept going for hours and probably would have if I didn’t have to go babysit. Rachel can be found on instagram @ray.rich.farr so be sure to check her out for pictures of her adorable dogs and good music recommendations every Sunday! And as always let me know what you think by becoming a member and commenting on these posts or message me privately if that’s more your style. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss my next conversation with Maria Pedro. Thanks for reading! All my love.
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