Analyzing Female Contemporary Music Theatre Roles through the 

Lens of the Estill Voice Model and Feminist Research

In contemporary music theatre there exists a disparity between the image of the strong leading female onstage and her voice. I aim to identify the factors involved in the female contemporary music theatre vocal recipe and how the representation of a character can be heavily influenced by a performer’s vocal choices. Through inspection of the score and by listening to recordings of the rock musical Spring Awakening, I compare the notation and indications in the music to the auditory (and in some cases, visual) performance. In this way, my research focuses on the extent of agency that is possible for a female music theatre performer. 

This research project is based on analysis that integrates two different frameworks - the Estill Voice Model and feminist research. Earlier research has used the Estill model to deconstruct vocal qualities, and used feminist theory to understand depictions of women on stage. There has been no model that integrates those depictions with voice analysis for a deep understanding of all elements of music theatre performance - the visual and the aural. This layering of the Estill Voice Model with feminist theory is the first of its kind in the field. I will be integrating feminist research into every aspect of my analysis, including the works of Stacy Wolf, Grace Barnes, Michelle Boyd, Maya Cantu, Barbara Freedman, Betty Friedan, and others. The result will be a theoretical framework for analyzing music theatre vocal qualities through a feminist gaze that is free from male-dominant, Western classical perspectives. This framework, utilized in this research for study of Spring Awakening, could further be applied to any music theatre voice analysis.