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When you are too tall for theatre... where do you go? Screen??
Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2020 7:07 pm
by willywonka
My 9 year old son is 4'11. Still young, but too tall for west end. I have been unable to find youth theatre near us, all of the ones I have found, you need to enroll in their drama courses and most are too basic for him. He trains with Spirit. Where can he continue his singing/acting career? He really loves it. Is very musical, but dance not his thing. He absolutely loves to perform. Music is his biggest passion. He wants to do more screen work, but has done some short movies etc. How can he get more experience and further himself and his passion?
Re: When you are too tall for theatre... where do you go? Screen??
Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2020 7:05 pm
by Rose20
Hi, you probably know far more by now but I suggest you don’t think only of short term childhood opportunities that he is too tall for. Concentrate on his training and improving his dance. Being passionate about music and continuing with that will help as well and allow future opportunities. In the meantime find good local youth theatre groups so that he can experience full productions and working with an orchestra. His height will not affect these shows and provide good training at low cost.
If he has been growing rapidly coordination can be an issue but that does settle down. As an adult, if he still wants to go down this pathway being tall could help him. Certainly the teen males who are tall and well trained seem to get into good colleges x
Re: When you are too tall for theatre... where do you go? Screen??
Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2020 2:17 pm
by riverdancefan
Rose20 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 01, 2020 7:05 pm
Hi, you probably know far more by now but I suggest you don’t think only of short term childhood opportunities that he is too tall for. Concentrate on his training and improving his dance. Being passionate about music and continuing with that will help as well and allow future opportunities. In the meantime find good local youth theatre groups so that he can experience full productions and working with an orchestra. His height will not affect these shows and provide good training at low cost.
If he has been growing rapidly coordination can be an issue but that does settle down. As an adult, if he still wants to go down this pathway being tall could help him. Certainly the teen males who are tall and well trained seem to get into good colleges x
All very good advice here. Think on the bigger picture.
My DS was /is tall and missed out on lots of opportunities so we made our own , via amdram ( some fab roles ) and also NYMT
I was ripped a new one on here a few years ago for raising the point that while he was constantly disappointed as a youngster, he would hopefully get jobs as a tall older teen, by the mums of boys who were on the smaller side and enjoying lots of fantastic opportunities, but were worried this would dry up as they got older. Well, cake and eat it!
He is now 6’3” at a great drama school and has had lots of positive stuff happen from being tall , at last!
Your boy’s time will come, mine did.
Keep the faith!
Re: When you are too tall for theatre... where do you go? Screen??
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 2:25 pm
by RoseTowers4
Hi Willywonka
Has he tried to join an agency to get screenwork? I'm not sure where you are based, but if he has done Spirit training then I presume you can get into London easily? I agree with you that there seems to be a bit of a lack for anything that isn't dance based, but needs more than the ground level performance skills. I know of a few kids who did professional work then found they'd outgrown their local dance school and found it hard to fit back in, for all sorts of reasons. Maybe he could try taking one to one acting classes now or join a music society if music is his thing? What about getting him to learn an instrument so he has more than one string to his bow
