Exploring Theatre Hot Takes: Fat Characters & Actors Deserve Better
by Chris Peterson
Theatre people always have opinions and sometimes those opinions come in hot. Recently, I put out a call on social media asking for your boldest, spiciest theatre takes, and the responses did not disappoint. From thought-provoking critiques to eyebrow-raising declarations, you gave me plenty to chew on.
So here’s what we’re going to do: I’ll be exploring as many of these submissions as I can in this column series. Some I may agree with, others I may not, but that’s the fun of it. Theatre thrives on conversation, and even the most out-there hot take can lead to surprising insights and fascinating discussions.
Think of this as an open forum, where no opinion is too bold to examine. Ready to dive in? Click on the “Exploring Theatre Hot Takes” tag at the bottom to keep up with every installment.
Noah Webster wrote the following:
“There need to be more roles written for fat actors that don’t also lock fat actors out of playing other roles in the show.
E.g. Tracy in Hairspray, Nadia in Bare, and Martha in Heathers are good roles—but the way that their stories center around fatphobia and, specifically, the contrast of their fatness/perceived “ugliness” compared to other characters means it would be pretty difficult to cast a fat actress as Amber, Ivy, or Veronica.
Ideally, more directors would just cast their shows without regard to body size. In practice, that almost never happens, and the vast majority of productions only cast thin actors. So while I’d love to one day just see more fat actors cast as actors whose role has nothing to do with their body type, in the meantime, I’d love to see more roles written specifically for fat actors that 1) don’t revolve around fatphobia and 2) don’t lock fat actors out of playing other roles in the production due to the script necessitating that one (and only one) character must be uniquely fat.”
Noah’s comment about “fat roles” in theatre isn’t exactly a hot take, but it landed. It cuts straight to something we still do not talk about enough: the way scripts and casting habits quietly shrink the world for fat actors.
On paper, theatre has a few go-to “representation” roles. Tracy in Hairspray. Nadia in Bare. Martha in Heathers. These parts get cited all the time because they are visible, they are substantial, and they are not just ensemble wallpaper. At first glance, that feels like progress.
But look closer and you see the catch. These roles are not simply played by fat actors. They are about being fat. Their entire dramatic function is tethered to body size. Tracy is the bright, lovable heroine who still has to push through a world that treats her body as something to overcome before she can be seen as desirable. Nadia’s pain and isolation are written as inseparable from her weight. Martha’s purpose is largely built around being the contrast, the one who does not measure up next to Veronica or the Heathers. These characters are framed through fatphobia, which means the audience is trained, once again, to read the fat body as the story.
And here is the part that makes it worse. Once a script labels one character as the fat one, it does not just box in that actor. It locks down the entire casting ecosystem around them. If Tracy must be fat, Amber almost has to be thin so the contrast works. If Martha is coded as undesirable, Veronica has to register as conventionally attractive. What looks like representation on the surface can actually deepen the divide underneath it, because it turns one body type into the exception and the other into the default.
This is why “just cast without regard to size” is such an appealing idea, and also why it so rarely happens.
Technically, nothing is stopping a director from casting a fat actor as Veronica or Ivy. There is no rulebook that forbids it. The barrier is not logistics. It is imagination, bias, and industry habit. Theatre still defaults to thinness for leads, love interests, and anyone the story wants us to read as desirable. That default is not about talent. It is about conditioning. We have been trained to equate thinness with certain kinds of humanity, and that training shows up in casting rooms even when people believe they are being progressive.
So where does that leave us.
First, we need new work. We need writers creating roles for fat actors that are not dictated by fatphobia. That does not mean writing a character who happens to be fat but spends the entire show talking about it. It means writing a romantic lead whose obstacle is not their body. It means writing a villain who is compelling because of their choices, not because the script treats their body as grotesque. It means writing an ingénue whose voice soars, whose heart breaks, whose story matters, without a single reference to her weight.
But the second piece matters just as much. We need to dismantle the idea that fat actors can only play fat roles. Representation is not solved by designating a handful of parts and calling it progress. It is solved when fat performers have access to the same full spectrum of characters that thin performers have always had. When a casting team looks at a breakdown, the question should not be where does the fat actor go. The question should be who is the best artist for this story.
That is the vision Noah put forward. It is one worth holding onto. Theatre cannot call itself inclusive while continuing to police bodies onstage. If our stages are meant to reflect the real world, then fat actors deserve the same range of opportunities as anyone else, without restriction, without caveat, and without apology.