By Jinghan Li
Staff Writer
ILLUSTRATION/ Melody Wu
Working with our school’s performing arts program last year, I was glad to witness the diversity and inclusive atmosphere. Here, our choir and theatre programs run
from second grade all the way to high school to encourage participation from everyone, especially boys who are typically underrepresented in K-12 performing arts.
In the 2025-2026 TCHS concert choir, there are 54 treble voices, a majority of whom are female, and 43 tenor and bass voices, a majority of whom are male. Our school has been great at slowly sewing up the gender gap that has
been bugging the broader choral community.
Yet, after participating in several choir programs in other organizations and school districts, I sense that the attention is not as justly divided outside of our bounds. According to the Institute of Educational Sciences, 70 percent of the students in public school choir ensembles are girls. This means that while few male singers audition for opportunities like honors choir and leading roles, women often face harsh competition.
Not only do male performers earn their slots with relative ease, there are more opportunities initially designed for them as well. According to ProductionPro, an entertainment technology company, only about one-third of the 365 titled roles in Broadway shows from 2018 to 2019 were originally written for women.
Part of me feels proud that my colleagues and I earned our roles despite the more intense competition because it’s an indicator of our good performance. Yet, looking back, I also feel bitter because it made us more stressed than the male auditioners.
The solution to this opportunity imbalance is to offer more female roles while encouraging more male singers to audition. For example, our school’s production of High School Musical modified an originally male tenor-bass role for a treble actor. This flexibility supports students’ talents and should be adapted by more districts and performing arts programs.
At our school, we can continue to make our programs more equitable by encouraging more boys to try out. Even though our school has a more equal balance, I’ve noticed that some boys often avoid or look down on participating in choirs and theatre because singing, dancing, and acting are not classified as “masculine” skills.
Society traditionally perceives, for instance, swinging a racquet or casting a sword as masculine. However, performers demonstrate patience, confidence, courage, and occasionally the ability to improvise—qualities that are valuable for all genders. In an era of diversity, outdated stereotypes must be washed away.
Realistically, the number of female singers will somewhat outnumber boys for a while. In the meantime, we can choose songs and stories that feature more female voices when there aren’t enough qualified tenor-bass voices, or vice versa.
Performing arts should be a stage for everyone, regardless of gender or voice range. It’s time to encourage fair competition and shine the spotlight on underrecognized singers