When the Director’s Kid Always Gets the Lead...

by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder

High school theatre should be a magical place. A refuge. A community. A low-budget, jazz-hands-filled utopia where teenagers get to take creative risks, make big weird choices, and discover who they are under the glow of a ghost light.

But for a lot of us, that magic came with an asterisk.

At my high school, the director’s kids were always the leads. Always. Every fall musical, every spring play—it was basically their home-cooked dinner theatre. Didn’t matter how strong your audition was or how much time you spent preparing—those roles were locked down before you even entered the auditorium.

And listen, I want to be fair. The kids were talented. This isn’t about them being undeserving. It’s about what it felt like to be everyone else. It felt like the rules didn’t apply equally. It felt like showing up didn’t matter. And that feeling? It sticks with you.

It creates this quiet erosion of trust. Students stop auditioning altogether or settle into the ensemble and decide, consciously or not, that they’ll never be seen as lead material. It’s discouraging, disheartening, and honestly, just kind of depressing. Theatre kids already face enough self-doubt—do we really need to add “your last name isn’t on the faculty roster” to the list of obstacles?

Here’s the bigger issue: high school theatre is supposed to model what the real world should be like. Not the broken, politics-ridden parts of the entertainment industry—but the dream of it. A space where collaboration, preparation, and growth actually matter. A space where your best effort means something. So when directors cast their own children in lead roles year after year—even if those kids are great—it tells the rest of the cast that merit takes a backseat to proximity.

Directors, I’m not saying your child shouldn’t be involved. Of course they should! Theatre families are real, and the love for the craft runs deep. But if your kid auditions, you have to take yourself out of the decision-making process. Bring in guest adjudicators. Use rubrics. Create a transparent system that students can trust. Because the second the cast list feels like it was written at the kitchen table, you lose the room.

And I say this from experience: you have no idea how powerful it is when a student who didn’t think they had a chance sees their name in a lead role. It’s life-changing. It builds confidence, trust, and genuine excitement. That’s the kind of culture that makes a program thrive—not just survive.

So yeah. Let your kid be in the show. Let them shine. But don’t hand them the spotlight. Make them earn it like everyone else. Because every student deserves to believe that the stage is big enough for them, too.