"If It's Not Right, You Have To Put It Right": The Play and Work of Children in Matilda the Musical

Authors

Kristin Perkins

Keywords

Musicals, Matilda, Broadway, depictions of children, girlhood, sexism

Abstract

Perkins considers issues of subversive theatrical criticism and exploitative child labor as they combine in Matilda the Musical, examining the performances as a holistic, if ambivalent, production. In a play where the lead figure is a little girl, this essay uses the lens of gender and age to provide context for the revolutionary character of Matilda in a female-dominated play that critiques established norms, at the same time that the play is produced in, and by, a system that reproduces troubling power structures.

Biography

Kristin Perkins graduated from BYU's Theatre and Dance department in 2017/ She is currently a graduate student in the Performances as Public Practice program at The University of Texas at Austin. She has had poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction published in literary journals including Degenerates: Voices for Peace, Peculiar and Inscape. In her spare time, Kristin watches theatre, reads books and attempts cooking.

Recommended Citation

Perkins, Kristin (2018) ""If It's Not Right, You Have To Put It Right": The Play and Work of Children in Matilda the Musical," AWE (A Woman’s Experience): Vol. 5, Article 3.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/awe/vol5/iss1/3