5 Times Women Shook Up Convention on Broadway in Gender-Bent Roles

When women make history on the Great White Way, they’re often doing so through a role specifically written for a woman. But there are times when their mark on Broadway is left through stepping into the shoes of a character that was originated by a man and intended to be portrayed as such. 

The practice of subverting this expectation is called gender-bending and the latest actress to be cast in a role turned on its head is rap phenom Megan Thee Stallion. Today, she makes her Broadway debut as Zidler in Moulin Rouge! The Musical. The eccentric cabaret owner has never before been played by a female identifying performer on Broadway or any of the musical’s worldwide productions.

Megan Thee Stallion’s history-making turn is one in a line that Broadway has seen in its long, vibrant life in the arts. Who else has bent the norm and brought new energy to a role? Here’s a short list of women that changed the game by portraying characters that had been played by men.

1. Whoopi Goldberg
2. Melissa Etheridge
3. Glenda Jackson
4. Katrina Lenk
5. Lillias White

Whoopi Goldberg

In 1997, Whoopi Goldberg took over the role of Pseudolus from Nathan Lane in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Her casting was a change for the musical comedy as the character is a male Roman slave who’s working to earn his freedom by helping his master Hero win the favor of Philia, a courtesan who’s promised to the soldier Miles Gloriosus.

Goldberg’s iteration retained the name, but she played the role as a woman and with a less manic flair than Lane. Laidback and dripping with sass, Goldberg’s Pseudolus made the audience laugh through the same irreverent sense of humor the actor is known for. She even ad-libbed lines for late arrivals to the theater and changed bits of dialogue on the fly to acknowledge how race and gender shifts the role.

Melissa Etheridge

The award-winning 2010 production of American Idiot, a Broadway adaptation of Green Day’s Grammy award-winning concept album of the same name, saw Melissa Etheridge make her debut on The Great White Way in 2011. She played St. Jimmy, the drug-dealing punk rock rebel that Johnny admires who turns out to be a manifestation of his own imagination.

Known as a rocker with a bluesy, country tinge, Etheridge’s casting wasn’t just against type in regards to gender—the role was originated by Tony Vincent and occasionally played by Green Day’s lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong—but sound as well. However, she growled, shaked, rattled, and rolled with a pompadour mohawk that set the stage alight.

Etheridge graced Broadway for a one week stint and, in doing so, gave the play’s audience an opportunity to see a woman be idolized as the embodiment of a young man’s ideal of what it means to be cool and disaffected while portraying the sinister siren song of addiction.

Glenda Jackson

Coming off a Tony-winning turn in Three Tall Women, Glenda Jackson’s next Broadway play in 2019 after decades spent as a politician was King Lear. She played the eponymous character as she had in her 2016 critically acclaimed West End performance that had shook audiences to their core in London.

Jackson’s casting was an example of another side to gender-bent roles. She did not play Lear as a woman but rather embodied the aging and maddening king as he is. As a man in the twilight of his life, determining how to bequeath his power and land through a love-test as his influence dwindles before his eyes.

The actress was ferocious and unflinching in her approach. She took the tragic figure of a declining monarch, ravaged by time and his own choices, and breathed new life into him.

Katrina Lenk

The gender-reversed production of Company, dreamed up by Tony-winning director Marianne Elliott, got its start in London’s West End in 2018 before hopping the pond to Broadway. The role of Bobbie, played stateside by Tony-winning actress Katrina Lenk, turned the musical on its head. Instead of a bachelor celebrating his 35th birthday with friends who’ve all paired off, it’s a bachelorette.

Questions of singlehood, coupledom, and marriage are seen through a fresh lens in the 2021 Broadway revival because a woman is the lead. While no one likes for their choices to be examined, observed, dismissed, or placated there’s particular stigma toward single women of a certain age who are still playing the field.

As Company is wont to do, the revival explores the ways people change, hide, blossom or resign themselves while looking for love or committing their life to someone else. It also sees Robbie navigating romance with three different men and Jamie, a gender-swapped Amy played by Jonathan Bailey in the West End production, who has cold feet over marrying his fiancé, Paul.

Broadway’s version won five Tony awards including Best Revival of a Musical, Best Direction for Marianne Elliott, Best Featured Actress for Patti LuPone as Joanne, and Best Featured Actor for Matt Doyle as Jamie.

Lillias White

Disney fans may recognize Lillias White’s voice as Calliope’s from Hercules, but she’s best known for her work on the stage. The award-winning actress has brought the house down with her performances in musicals like The Life and Fela! (to which she earned a Tony nom!). But in 2022, it was Hadestown that gave her the opportunity to switch up the style of a beloved god.

White took over the role of Hermes from T. Oliver Reid, but it was André De Shields who put the defining stamp on the character. When he originated the play’s iteration of the Greek god of messengers and travelers, he did so with a stately grace and juxtaposing whimsical nature that befit the herald in a gorgeous silver suit.

The actress donning similar attire, but with flowier sleeves, imbued her Hermes with a jazzier tone, one that could soar to the rafters with gospel-inspired notes when called upon. She was grittier and, due to White’s time as Calliope, had a serendipitous wink about her since the muse is Orpheus’s mother and Hermes’ old friend.

The adoption of a female Hermes wasn't a one-off. R&B icon, and the originator of Dorothy in The Wiz, Stephanie Mills stepped into the role as well in 2024.

You May Also Like: