Heathers: The Musical - TRH / The Other Palace / @sohoplace

Was also at the matinee today (5th time, possibly got one more visit before it closes). Carrie in fine voice so no worries there! That’s a really tough role to sing 8 times a week.

Only just noticed today oh my fifth viewing that Kurt and Ram appear in the ensemble of dead gay son!

Nathan now doing his full track and I though he did very well.

I’m assuming the weight issue is to do with Carrie? But there is nothing about the role that requires a certain weight. In fact there is a line that says she could do with losing a few pounds. So I don’t see how it is an issue.

Well damn nobody told me it looks 'odd' when fat people have sex....how VERY dare they. I mean, it's a scandal. Also that a 'fat' * person have (fake stage) sex with a not-fat person. I mean it defies BELIEF. It's like totally unrealistic when people who don't look like models are put on stage, and dare to do this thing called acting. Next thing they'll be singing and dancing about murder as well...oh. Wait. 

Seriously though what a disgusting comment. And if my friends were saying such things I'd certainly keep that to myself rather than broadcast it in a way that looks like I endorse it. Which it seems you do. 



* Carrie is NOT fat. But also, as above Veronica isn't supposed to look as 'perfect' as the Heathers, that's sort of the point. Though I'd happily look like Carrie. 

But that perm. Oy.

Exactly. So wake up. They would never have a size 16/18 Elphaba in Wicked. That’s not being bad or evil or nasty - that’s just the casting!

Wow. Sarcasm goes REALLY over your head doesn't it. 

Ok let's play that game. It's less likely that Wicked would cast a bigger girl there, yes, because they've established an 'aesthetic' for it (for better or worse). And it's a long running show. Same with say Christine in Phantom. Or any of the Les Mis girls...oh wait Carrie played one of them. So maybe it isn't set in stone for the right person. 

Heathers is a new musical (give or take, as this was a very much in development production) and oh look, the director/producers have gone for, in your opinion someone 'fat' showing that in fact, your mysterious 'rule' that nobody over a size 10 can be cast is false. 

Yes the acting industry has a problem with discriminating against larger people. But it's people like you with frankly disgusting attitudes that are making it worse, when a director DOES show that a perfectly normal sized girl, can be cast in the leading role, and have audiences lapping it up. 

Are the teenage girls this show is aimed at saying 'Carrie is too fat?' NO they're loving her performance (and her youtube videos) because they aren't a narrow minded dinosaur like you. Perhaps, to quote the show, your asteroid is overdue. 

Heathers is a show that attracts a very young female audience. A group that suffers like no other from all the crazy ridiculous pressure exercised through (social) media when it comes to body image. I thought it was fantastic that they cast Veronica with a normal-sized young woman and not a stick-thin waif. If a role-model like Carrie helps just one girl in the audience to accept herself as she is and not fight perceived overweight with ridiculous diets leading to eating disorders and depression, that's fabulous. And I think it matters even more when the character is a "real" high school girl and not some fantasy figure like Elphaba or Elsa.

So the "they" in your post is actually an "I" I presume?

Dear Imelda, 

Tell me it's your 'turn' as much as you like but unless you lose three stone and grow two feet you'll never work in this town again. (I don't care who your hubby is footman for). 

kisses!

I mean I know @ryan and I joke that 'hotties only need apply' sometimes, but in the real world (not our twisted fantasies, which are best left alone anyway) I'd much rather see 'real' people (including Neurodiverse ones sorry spelling?) 

Which is why I'm also proudly the chair of a theatre company that puts disabled actors, who come in all shapes and sizes just like non disabled ones, at the centre of their work. Which isn't related to Heathers, but this has become a horrible thread for anyone who feels outside the 'norm' to see so I wanted to put that out there, into the theatre universe, that bitching aside, some of us really really don't think like that. 

I think it's really important that everyone is represented onstage, especially for a show like this, where the target audience is largely impressionable teenagers where it is really easy for us to think that we must all be stick-thin and perfect due to misrepresentation in the media.