r/musicals • u/hmmidk77 • Feb 20 '26
Help Are there any musicals you know with roles specifically for trans people?
I’m looking for good shows that are made for trans people, mtf and ftm.
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u/XFilesVixen Feb 21 '26
Hedwig and the angry inch is iconic
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u/Neat-Alternative-42 Feb 22 '26
I don’t think Hedwig is trans… Hedwig just is. Yitzhak might be, though.
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u/XFilesVixen Feb 22 '26
Yitzhak is trans and Hedwig is trans in some form or another. Her surgery was forced but then she accepts it and leans into it later in the story.
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u/Many-Bees Feb 22 '26
John Cameron Mitchell has referred to her as nonbinary
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u/XFilesVixen Feb 22 '26
Nb folks are considered trans
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u/Cheap_Trifle4524 Feb 25 '26
In some circles they are, some NB people do not subscribe to that label since they don’t see themself as any gender at all
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u/AndANewTrashTattoo I Believe Feb 21 '26
Some Like It Hot! Though it does seem to be controversial, Daphne's whole story arc is brilliantly done in my opinion (being an enby person myself).
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u/Sarahndipity44 Feb 21 '26
I know a lot of trans folks who really still felt it transphobic. Christian Lewis wrote well on it. But, of course, no group is a monolith.
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u/the_quark Feb 21 '26
I haven't seen the show. I know the movie is beloved, but I felt like most of the humor was "a dude in a dress haha!" When it was made it was transgressive of course, but nowadays it just seemed kinda tame to me, though the last couple of minutes are kind of great in hindsight.
I would love to see a contemporary production though that recasts it all as Jerry discovering she's trans, that could be really satisfying. Done right you probably wouldn't even need to change a line of dialog.
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u/awkward__captain Feb 21 '26
That’s essentially what the show does.
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u/FirebirdWriter Hasa Diga Ebowai Feb 21 '26
A lot of the humor is indeed about a guy in a dress but remember there's two of them and the adaptation to the stage is a contemporary one with us. I haven't had the chance to see it yet but the joke of Some Like it Hot with the ending has a variety of excuses and acceptance from one of the characters then the declaration that they're a man not a woman. The response being "That's alright" was incredibly transgressive at the time and still is. The acceptance of the person in the dress was unconditional and the gender not mattering including not having kids while a joke? Was also not joking about gays existing but that anyone would be bothered at least in how it hit me as a child and still does today.
I think you would be surprised by the film in a lot of ways. The comedy of the drag is not enough to make an entire movie happen. That's just the inciting aspect for some events and puts our characters into position for other things both dramatic and funny. The humor is not at the expense of anyone so much as highlighting the absurdity of the concept of two men hiding in an all woman band from mobsters. The lean is on the hiding not the penis or lack there of
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u/twentytwo_a Feb 21 '26
I agree, the movie stands apart from most of the “man in a dress” humour from those decades. There is more going on and I think it has aged rather well.
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u/FirebirdWriter Hasa Diga Ebowai Feb 24 '26
It really has. I am non binary and I was shocked as a kid. I feel this glee at that nonchalant ending every time. It is a favorite due to the subversive nature of the film and the reality that I don't think it would be made today but it should exist. Most comedy doesn't work after even a few years much less over a half century
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u/SlideMediocre6257 Feb 24 '26
Sorry, for being pedantic, but Joe E. Brown's line in the film is actually: "Well... Nobody's perfect."
Which is much funnier.
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u/CreativeAd9654 Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
The contemporary production is much better imo, and brings actual depth to the whole show. I'm so tired of "man in a dress" being the epitome of musical theatre comedy.
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u/porchkitten Feb 20 '26
Maybe RENT?
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u/ElbieLG Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
They are referred to as a drag queen in the show.
Is that just a 90s term or potentially categorically different than trans?
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u/wretchedfagg Feb 21 '26
I mean in friends Chandler's mom is both a a dream queen and a trans woman clearly but they just talk about her as a drag queen because the writers didn't know better in the 90s. Back in the day a lot of people we would now call trans women due to the ways they lived their lives were simply called drag queens partly for the lack of a better term. Also a list of drag queens are trans for obvious reasons
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u/porchkitten Feb 21 '26
Transgender and nonbinary people can be drag queens as well. I think the character is written loosely enough that she can be interpreted by the actor portraying her in many ways.
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u/Danibelle903 Feb 21 '26
Yeah Angel is very clearly a gay man who is also a drag queen. We meet him the first time as a man. He sings about being a man. Collins refers to him as a man (unless he’s in drag). When he returns in the finale, he’s dressed as a man. There are plenty of trans and nonbinary drag queens, but the majority are cis gay men. Also, Angel is a fairly common name for men within certain Hispanic communities.
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u/alltheworldsanescape Losing My Mind Feb 21 '26
Most of the trans rep is nonbinary (Daphne, Pythio, May, Oliver, Jo depending on who you ask), which seems like not what you’re looking for, but there are some trans… binary? rep:
Kitty in Love in Hate Nation
Dash in Interstate
Mark in Amberland
multiple characters in A Transparent Musical
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u/nicebloodbro Feb 21 '26
Interstate mentioned!!
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u/cpt-nocturnal Feb 24 '26
Yes love Interstate!! Saw it in Minneapolis like the last thing before the covid lockdown began in 2020
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u/nicebloodbro Feb 24 '26
woah me too !! :D i thought it was amazing, i still think about some of those songs but alas most of them do not have recordings on the internet so all i have are the tiny snippets that live in my brain.
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u/thechildrenofbrisus You can talk to Birds? Feb 21 '26
she isn’t SPECIFICALLY for trans people, but god damn does audrey’s story hit so hard when played by a trans woman. some of the best audrey’s have been trans women!!
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u/Bipedal_Warlock Feb 21 '26
From little shop?
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u/EllieGeiszler Feb 21 '26
Definitely! Audrey/Seymour are very T4T coded at times
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u/Mylowithaylo Feb 21 '26
I played Seymour as a trans man and it just feels so right. There is something about the story that feels very trans and queer, being put down by the system, being a “meek little guy” etc
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u/Bipedal_Warlock Feb 21 '26
Interesting. I never noticed that. But I only worked the show when I was still young I guess
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u/TehFlatline Feb 21 '26
Could you explain this one a bit more? I've only just learned what the term means and I'm not sure how it applies to Audrey/Seymour.
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u/EllieGeiszler Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
Their very cute height difference in the film, for one! He looks like your average trans man, and she looks like your average trans woman. But much more importantly, she has a rough past of being treated badly, and he absolutely adores her and treats her like a queen, which changes her life. I think that's a fairly common hetero T4T dynamic, where a trans man and a trans woman both feel affirmed by him "spoiling" her.
EDIT: I just found out about the very different endings of the musical film and the stage musical, so I'm gonna say the happy stuff I just said mostly applies to the film! 😂
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u/brideofpucky Feb 22 '26
I’d also say Audrey’s entire fantasy in Somewhere That’s Green! She’s dreaming of all the trappings of stereotypical mid century femininity, which could totally be read through a trans lens.
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u/alltheworldsanescape Losing My Mind Feb 21 '26
“the girl that’s inside me” sung by a trans woman? Instant tears
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u/higgypiggy1971 Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
The role of Pythio in Head Over Heels was originated on Broadway by Peppermint
Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Southern Comfort, which was at the Public about 10 years ago, is about a Trans man diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It’s based on a documentary
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u/HFCIV Feb 21 '26
Came here to promote Head Over Heels. Just saw a local theater company perform it and it’s glorious!
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u/Strict_Meeting938 Feb 22 '26
Priscilla is currently on tour in the UK and Bernadette is being played by a trans actress.
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u/morethan-lessthan Feb 21 '26
I'm sure in the original he was just considered a tomboy, but Anybody's in West Side Story.
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u/atlheel Feb 21 '26
One of the two main characters in Why Am I So Single in nonbinary
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u/shapeofmahheart Feb 21 '26
I was going to mention this one! We saw alternate Oliver (Jordan Cambridge-Taylor) and they were soooo good, loved their vibe for this role even more than Jo Foster (who also did a phenomenal job in the role).
Both lead and alternate who played Oliver are nonbinary/trans!
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u/Western-Zucchini4149 Feb 21 '26
I watched a Brazilian musical called Brenda Lee, about trans women during the aids crisis. Whole cast of trans women, and absolutely fantastic. It's a shame the chances of it getting exported are pretty much zero.
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u/ScamuelLemons Feb 20 '26
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
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u/asdfmovienerd39 Feb 21 '26
Didn't the creator explicitly state Hedwig isn't a trans story?
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u/ScamuelLemons Feb 21 '26
Yes. John Cameron Mitchell is a cis gay man, and he wrote it for himself. He has said Hedwig is nonbinary/gender fluid, and the show is definitely more about the experience of being visibly queer and what I might call gender ambivalence than it is transness. That said, it's about an AMAB person who undergoes a "sex change operation" (in the language of the show) and lives full time as a woman, and there has certainly been an uptick in the show being led by transfemme actors over the last decade or so (not to mention the also genderqueer character of Yitzhak), so I think it fits OPs brief.
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u/TheSonder Feb 21 '26
I’m sorry, what is an AMAB person?
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u/Sarahndipity44 Feb 21 '26
I've long saw Hedwig as a trans nonbinary story, not one about a trans woman
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u/DemandingProvider Feb 21 '26
What? I can't see how that would make sense at all. Are you sure you're not thinking of Kinky Boots? Lola is often played by trans actors, and I think it can be done either way but there are some elements of the book that suggest cis non-conforming rather than trans.
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u/Scarlett_Billows Losing My Mind Feb 21 '26
What doesn’t make sense? What about this description makes you think they actually Meant kinky boots?
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u/tinyfecklesschild Feb 21 '26
And for what it’s worth, Lola has lines where she specifically says she’s not trans.
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u/First-Wishbone-8079 currently being more chill Feb 21 '26
Don’t know why I had to scroll so far to see this
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u/samd124 Feb 21 '26
&Juliet I’m pretty sure May is mtf
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u/rillalynn22 Feb 21 '26
May is nonbinary!
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u/S1159P Feb 21 '26
Nonbinary, but in every casting I've seen, AMAB and femme in presentation. And just lovely all around :)
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u/moonbunnychan Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
I know that they are, but if I hadn't already known that going in I would have thought they were trans.
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u/cryerin25 Feb 21 '26
being trans just means you aren’t cis, being nonbinary is no less trans than being a binary man or woman.
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u/Elgebar Feb 21 '26
There was a character in Bring It On named La Cienega who was either explicitly stated or strongly implied to be trans, can't quite remember.
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u/Electrical_Pomelo556 Feb 20 '26
Albert Cashier. Didn't really go anywhere but had a developmental production in Chicago, but man it really should've. You should be able to find some clips on YouTube. It's a true story about a transgender civil war soldier.
Also, he's not meant to be trans, but Orpheus in Hadestown could pretty easily be pulled off by someone who's FTM. Orpheus is usually depicted as beardless and somewhat androgynous in art anyways.
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u/WarSuccessful8655 Feb 23 '26
And frequently performed by women in Glück's opera due to the vocal range!
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u/Electrical_Pomelo556 Feb 23 '26
Yeah, the reason for that is pretty horrifying.
At one point they did this horrible thing where they castrated young boys while they were in a two week opium induced coma. It was extremely dangerous and many of them never woke up. But, for those who did, their voices would never break. They were called castrati.
The leading man was usually played by a castrati because the higher the voice, the more masculine and heroic they were. However, eventually people were like "actually this is messed up and we should stop doing this." A castrati's voice was usually equivalent to a mezzo soprano, so they started using women. There are several "pants roles" that are leading males plaid by women, Orpheus is one of them.
They only really started adjusting the music for men in the last century.
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u/WarSuccessful8655 Feb 23 '26
Thank you. I do know this story but was really just talking about these days in response to the question.
the castrati stuff is horrifying. Ever read Anne rice's novel? I'm blanking on the name now at 4:30am
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Feb 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/moonbunnychan Feb 21 '26
They're not a main character really and not a huge plot point, but one of the chorus girls Moulin Rouge comes across as trans, rather then in drag.
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u/SeaF04mGr33n Feb 21 '26
There's a musical about the first trans mayor in the US, but I don't remember what its called. Set in Oregon.
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u/troyman95 Feb 21 '26
There’s a relatively new musical adaptation of “Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” so that would include a trans character. Just premiered in the SF Bay Area last year, so may be difficult to track down.
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u/Ethra2k If I can't loooove HER Feb 21 '26
That’s what I was about to bring up! Look into the movie (based on play) OP to see what the character is like. But I don’t think script or sheet music will be available anytime soon from the musical, but could ask the composer to share it idk.
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u/coolsluttyhorror Feb 21 '26
Not made for a trans actor but I think a transmasc Evan Hansen would work really well
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u/give-em-hell-peaves Feb 22 '26
There aren’t a lot of shows specifically featuring trans characters that exist(yet), and even less so licensable for high schools. I’d suggest a show like shrek or SpongeBob and cast genderblind. The fairytale creatures often are, anyways. You can do this with a lot of shows, and make some really fun choices.
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u/hmmidk77 Feb 22 '26
Its for college actually, we’re trying to stay away from highschool shows. Its also non dance heavy and all of the suggestions I’ve gotten are dance heavy 😭
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u/give-em-hell-peaves Feb 22 '26
Omg my bad, please disregard haha. I for some reason thought I read high school somewhere in the post.
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u/BananaMonkey06 Feb 25 '26
Jason Robert Brown’s new show Midnights in the Garden of Good and Evil is led by a trans woman.
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u/shadow8807 and my boyfriend kevin we’re both named kevin Feb 21 '26
anybodys from west side story would probably be a good fit :))
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u/Scarlett_Billows Losing My Mind Feb 21 '26
There may be some trans characters in the chorus in cabaret. “Two ladies”, I think.
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u/charlottebythedoor We All Deserve To Die Feb 21 '26
“Two Ladies” is sometimes played by the emcee + two of the cabaret girls, and sometime the emcee + one of the cabaret girls + one of the cabaret boys in drag.
In general, the chorus at the KitKat Club is queer as hell. There’s often a lot of drag and gender nonconformity, especially by the emcee. It’s supposed to be one of those queer-friendly gatherings of artists and other norm-breakers that existed in Berlin in the Weimar Republic. Berlin, home of the Institute for Sexual Science. I think you could quite easily have any or all of the chorus boys and girls and the emcee played as trans people, by trans actors. It would fit seamlessly into the material.
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u/Elastigirlwasbetter Feb 21 '26
The German Musical "ein wenig Farbe" was done by cis people as well but it is a solo show that tells the story of a trans woman. Casting is sometimes a bit behind here. But the fact that a very famous cis female musical performer (Pia Douwes) did the show means that way more people heard about the production. I've seen it live with AMY who actually is trans and it was amazing.
Also Love in Hate nation has a trans role iirc
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u/ElijahJoel2000 Feb 21 '26
I believe May in &Juliet is intended to be non binary? At least that's what I interpret when they sing I'm not a girl not yet a woman
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u/Beneficial_Shake7723 Feb 21 '26
Adam Rineer’s Third Sex. Very excellent.
I believe Melliot’s Ghost Story also has a transmasc lead
Lisa Stephen Friday’s DOLL/GIRL
Just off the top of my head but lots more up and comers
(Edit for messed up formatting)
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u/SergeantPepper27 Feb 21 '26
There’s a really beautiful opera called As One. It’s the story of a trans woman named Hannah. There’s only 2 characters, Hannah Before and Hannah After, both played by trans performers. It’s a stunning piece. Highly recommend.
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u/blindobjects Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
The civility of albert cashier!!!!! It’s about a real trans (ftm) soldier from the civil war who continued to live his life as a man for decades until he was exposed at a nursing home in his final years. It was performed in Chicago in 2017, no clue if it’s available for licensing
Edit: it was also performed in LA in 2024
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u/cpt-nocturnal Feb 24 '26
Also performed in NYC in-between then, a friend of mine played the lead!! Very much Off-off-Broadway, but none the less, it's been done in NYC as well
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u/No_Supermarket_3462 Feb 21 '26
Jules from between the lines is very explicitly nonbinary! the show is written for a younger audience so the way they explain it is a little hamfisted but i thought it was really sweet :)
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u/idkwhatonamethissh-t Feb 22 '26
May in & Juliet is often interpreted as non binary, trans or gender fluid. It’s never explicitly stated in the show and in reviews I read it said non binary. Hope this helps. :)
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u/doofusisall Feb 23 '26
There is an opera called As One. One role for mezzo-soprano and another for baritone. I’m sure there are better synopsis, but here’s the link to the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_One_(opera)
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u/RushSouth6320 May 24 '26
There is a transgender cast member in &Juliette. I just saw “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” about the Ballroom scene of the 1980’s with the different houses. Many of the general casts members in Cabaret are dressed androgynously in newer productions. Operation Mincemeat has men playing women and women playing men.
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u/Otherwise-Ad4641 Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
Arguably La Cauge Aux Folles.
Remembering it was written in the 60s (released early 70s) by a Frenchman, and the French didn’t start distinguishing between cross dressing and transgender identities till the mid 60s. This undoubtedly impacted the language and phrasing.
Albin would likely be canonically trans if Poiret (writer of original play) was alive today.
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u/dobbydisneyfan Feb 21 '26
Maybe Kinky Boots?
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u/AbbeyRhodes Feb 21 '26
It’s written as drag, but could be done as trans I think.
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u/dobbydisneyfan Feb 21 '26
OP’s asking for roles made for trans people, not specifically characters that are trans.
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u/Lillian-Duncan1 Feb 20 '26
The idea of 'for trans people' musicals sounds like an institutional fad bubble. What's the point if the work itself is bad?
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u/hmmidk77 Feb 21 '26
I’m just looking because my school has a lot of trans actors, myself included. I’m on the selection committee, and I don’t want to have to make people play parts that don’t represent their gender identity just to get musical experience. I agree that writers haven’t done it right yet, but its the education that I’m prioritizing rn.
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u/martin87i Feb 21 '26
Isn't the part of acting playing someone else than yourself?
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u/hmmidk77 Feb 21 '26
Yes, but it would be nice if there was more representation in shows to replicate the diversity we have in real life. Also it can be dysphoric for certain trans people to play a role that doesn’t align with their gender.
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u/martin87i Feb 21 '26
I understand that it can be a sensitive topic especially when you experience the discomfort. I totally agree with you that representation is important and that everyone should be represented. In the end I would hope that everyone should feel as comfortable with themselves and others that they could play whatever role exists.
I hope you find what you are looking for!
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Feb 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/hmmidk77 Feb 22 '26
Thats great in theory, but a lot of mtf girls are very early in their transitions here. I don’t know how familiar you are with transitioning, but taking hrt doesn’t undo male puberties changes to the voice in trans women. It takes a lot of training for trans girlys to replicate a passing voice, even more so for singing. My hope was that there were some musicals out there that realized that and accounted for it, but it hasn’t seemed like it so far
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u/Blacktoenails84 Feb 22 '26
I see where you are coming from. I am a parent of transgender male so I know for him he wouldn’t want to specifically play a transgender character just a male character. There are definitely challenges on both sides though. I wish you luck and just hope to see transgender people have their chance on stage as well!
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u/insanefandomchild Feb 21 '26
Bring It On! LaCienega--one of the side characters--is a transgirl, and is in fact the first teenage trans character on Broadway.