Ancient Greece

During the early development of ancient Greek theatre in the sixth century BC, both Athenian women and men performed. By the fifth century, changing Athenian cultural codes excluded women from public life, and thus the theatre. After this point, men played both male and female roles.^[1]

English Renaissance theatre

In Renaissance England, women were forbidden from performing on stage,^[2] so female roles in the plays of William Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights were originally played by cross-dressing men or boys. (See also Stage Beauty.) Therefore, the original productions of the above-mentioned Shakespeare plays actually involved double-cross-dressing: male actors playing female characters disguising themselves as males.^[3] Academic research into the contemporary attitudes towards the practise have yielded a variety of interpretations. Historian Laura Levine argues that "an all-male acting troupe was the natural and unremarkable product of a culture whose conception of gender was "teleologically male".^[4]

Chinese theatre

In Chinese opera specialized male actors who play female roles (dàn) are referred to as nándàn (男旦); the practice arose during the Qing dynasty due to imperial prohibitions against women performing on stage, considered detrimental to public morality.^[10]

Going back as far as the Tang dynasty, both men and women played roles of the opposite sex in theatre. For women in the Yuan dynasty, cross-gender acting was liberating, as playing men allowed to embark on scholarly pursuits typically restricted from women. Despite this partial liberty, female actors were treated like prostitutes.^[11] During the Qing dynasty, women were prohibited from performing at all due to imperial anxieties about female sexuality.^[10] This led to the development of female impersonation techniques such as cai ciao (false-foot skill), which simulated a woman's bound feet.^[11]

Japanese theatre

Japanese kabuki theatre began in the 17th century with all-female troupes performing both male and female roles. In 1629 the disrepute of kabuki performances (or of their audiences) led to the banning of women from the stage, but kabuki's great popularity inspired the formation of all-male troupes to carry on the theatrical genre. In kabuki, the portrayal of female characters by men is known as onnagata. The practice is detailed in a story of the same name by the Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima. All roles in Noh dramas are traditionally played by male actors; actors playing female roles wear feminine costumes and female-featured masks.

Spanish theatre

Cross-dressing in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain was frequent among actors, and the theater was at the time the most popular form of entertainment.^[12] There was a fascination with female cross-dressers particularly (women dressed as men), who were "extremely popular" in the "Golden Age Comedia".^[13] Male actors might play the "women dressed as men" parts. Spain eventually found this cross-dressing to be threatening to social order, and passed laws targeting female transvestites throughout the 1600s.^[12] Despite the negative reactions and disapproval, it continued to remain very popular in the comedia.^[12]

French theatre

Much like England, France also had a tradition of cross-casting, but by the second half of the 17th century these roles had dwindled. They existed in unique forms during the reign of Louis XIV however—mainly in comedy, school drama, ballet, and opera. By the mid-sixteenth century, female actors in France became more and more common, but they were selective in the roles they wished to play. French female actors did not want to play unglamourous or “ugly” women, so these roles were often cross-cast. One example of this is the nourrice, or “nurse” archetype—a male-acted older, humorous, post-menopausal woman whose undesirability contrasted the primary female roles played by women.^[14]

In the Ballet de cour tradition, men often played women. Famously, King Louis XIV performed in many such roles. For Louis XIV, cross-dressing in a theatre context was not satirical but rather a show of power.^[15] When performing, these men dressed in distinct costumes. They wore skirts, but their hemlines rose above the knee, displaying their thighs in a style that would have been prohibited for women but was permitted for men. This placed these roles in a third category that was neither man nor woman precisely.^[14]

American and European theatre, operas, plays, ballets and pantomime

A travesti is a theatrical term referring to the portrayal of a character in an opera, play, or ballet by a performer of the opposite sex. More specifically, a theatrical or operatic role in which an actress appears in male clothing is called a "breeches role" ("pants role" or "trouser role"), and roles once performed by a male soprano castrato may instead be performed by a female mezzo-soprano or contralto.

In the late 19th century, one of the most famous actresses was Vesta Tilley, who worked in a music hall from age five well into her fifties. In the late 1890s, she was the highest paid woman in Britain. What made her so famous was her tendency to dress as a man and act out "masculine" scenes and roles.^[16] Centuries before, Julie d'Aubigny, aka "La Maupin" (1670–1707), had also been famous for her breeches roles.

In 1904, Nina Boucicault originated the theatrical tradition of cross-sex casting for Peter Pan, continued thereafter by Maude Adams, Marilyn Miller, Eva Le Gallienne, Sandy Duncan, and Cathy Rigby, among others.^[17] In 1954 Mary Martin portrayed the title character in the musical Peter Pan. "The boy who would never grow up" is a classic trouser role, as is Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro (by Beaumarchais).

In pantomime plays that are traditionally adaptations of fairy tales and performed around Christmastide, the role of lead male was once commonly played by a principal boy—a young, attractive, female. This practise has fallen out of favour recently, with popular male television and pop stars taking these roles. Conversely, the role of a pantomime dame, a middle aged woman played by a man in drag for comic relief, is still one of the mainstays of panto.

Similarly, Georgy Millyar played a role of Baba Yaga, an ugly old woman with supernatural abilities in a dozen of films, including Vasilisa the Beautiful (1940) and Jack Frost (1964). He used to say that an actress does not ever allow anyone to make her that ugly, while he does.^[18]

Chinese theatre

After the May Fourth Movement in the 1910s, women were once again permitted to perform in China, and both men and women were cast true to their gender.^[11]

Many of the characters in Chinese Opera were performed by men; they cross-dressed to play the roles of women. A famous cross-dressing opera singer is Mei Lanfang.^{[citation needed]}

In the early 20th century, the Shanghainese Yue opera genre developed from an all male to an all female genre. During a particularly turbulent period of Chinese history, Yue opera offered female actors and audiences a voice beyond the nationalist narrative often associated with the May Fourth Movement and Cultural Revolution. In a society undergoing drastic social change, including shifting ideas of gender and family structures, Yue opera catered to two of the public's new fixations: women and romance. The singers explored the realities of womanhood, being an immigrant, urbanization, and voicelessness, creating a women's culture and supporting the idea that women should be at the forefront of a modern nation.^[20] Although male performers were introduced into this opera in the 1950s and 1960s, today, Yue opera is still associated as the only all female opera and the second most popular opera in China.^{[citation needed]}

Japanese theatre

Ethiopian theatre

Throughout the 20th century, a Western theatre tradition developed in Ethiopia, starting in 1913 with the play Ye Awrewoch Commedia by Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam. All parts were played by boys. As the tradition grew over the decades with the development of new theatre companies, the boys themselves were unhappy playing women; some feared embarrassment, while others were afraid of being recognized in their feminine roles. At the boys' urging, the troupes began actively recruiting girls.^[26]

At the Empress Menen Girls' Boarding School, Ethiopian scholar, writer, and politician Senedu Gebru wrote and directed plays for her female students between 1942 and 1955. With the students' parents as audience members, these plays were performed at the end of the school year.^[27] Girls played both male and female roles.^[26]

After the fall of the Government of the Ethiopian Empire and with the opening of the Theatre Arts Department at Addis Ababa University, the 1970s saw further efforts to involve women onstage. Male-as-female cross-casting thus fell out of fashion.^[26]

Indian theatre

In the Indian context, Parsi, Gujarati, and Marathi theatrical traditions from the 19th and 20th centuries cast men in female roles. Where women lacked public visibility, these roles introduced audiences to the idea of women in public life. Female impersonators allowed audiences to engage with femininity. Women could then use the traits that were considered acceptable in theatre characters as a pathway into their own public life. Within theatre itself, female impersonators also created niches that female performers could occupy later.^[28]

Film and television examples

Meta examples

• Tootsie (1982) - The character Michael Dorsey (portrayed by Dustin Hoffman) star as Dorothy Michaels in the show-within-show soap opera Southwest General
• Victor/Victoria (1982) - The character Victoria Grant (portrayed by Julie Andrews) pretends to be Count Victor Grezinski and finds work as a female impersonator.
• Flickan vid stenbänken (1989) - The character Carolin (Anna Edlund) briefly portrays a man in a (show-within-show) play.
• Shakespeare in Love (1998) - The character Viola de Lesseps (portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow) disguises herself as Thomas Kent and then plays the part of Juliet in the show-within-show Romeo and Juliet.
• Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) - The character Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) dresses as nanny Mrs. Doubtfire and is hired to host a children's show.
• High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2019–present) - The character Seb (Joe Serafini) plays the part of Sharpay Evans in the school production of High School Musical.

Video Game examples

• New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009) - A few Koopalings, including Larry, Lemmy and Morton were voiced by Lani Minella.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising (2012) - Pit was portrayed by Minami Takayama, who majorly voiced as him for the Super Smash Bros. series.