Which path to choose: Broadway Baby or Tinsel Town Tot?

Posted on 26. Apr, 2009 by Hollywood Mom in Child Actors

In a compelling article for Movmnt Magazine, that is thankfully not dumbed down as another Broadway and Hollywood, east coast versus west coast tirade, Writer Matthew Murphy explores the career dichotomy of the child actor working on Broadway and one working in film or television. The ultimate question he asks being: which performance medium better allows the child actor to sustain and transition into an acting career in adulthood?

Murphy delves into the most apparent differences between the mediums, noting that while a film performance lives on forever, a stage performance is “ephemeral” and fleeting. The other compelling difference being that film work places the emphasis on the actor, while in theater, especially Broadway, the show itself is ultimately “the star.”

The personal notoriety one achieves from working in Hollywood can later afford the child film actor a stronger platform from which to move to the next project. However, the relative anonymity of the stage actor permits a child to step out of the spotlight and into “real life” for several years where they can mature through their potentially awkward pubescent years sight unseen. The stage actor can reenter the world of acting in his or her adulthood without having to overcome the burden of being type-cast as “child actor” – a scenario that plays out on a regular basis in Hollywood and that young star go to great lengths to overcome.

In all, Murphy illustrates the glory and the dangers of both stage and film work for kids, leaving one with the view that neither path is necessarily better, just different. Read Murphy’s article at http://www.movmnt.com/broadway-babies_004916.html.