It’s tough to imagine the last century without the civil rights or women’s liberation movements — unless you’re watching this year’s history-themed 2000 Waa-Mu show: “Past Perfect Future Tense.”

The annual student-written musical revue, which opens Friday, has 60 named roles for men, not counting singers or dancers. But there are only 15 named roles for women. And only one of about 40 featured historical figures is not a white European or American.

“It’s definitely sad that they didn’t decide to include more females and people of color,” said Beki Park, a Women’s Coalition executive board member. “When you’re telling history, you need to provide multiple points of view.”

Michael Descoteaux, Waa-Mu writing co-chairman, said early drafts of the script featured skits about Marie Curie, the Holocaust and Martin Luther King Jr. But he said those skits were eventually cut because they didn’t fit Waa-Mu’s traditionally comic tone.

“Where we can make a total buffoonery of Einstein, we can’t make a parody out of Martin Luther King Jr.,” said Descoteaux, a Music sophomore. “Some issues you can’t approach with a sense of humor, and we didn’t want to offend people.

“Our audience is 75 percent alumni and senior citizens, and they’re not going to pay to watch two hours of the voice of minorities and all the terrible things that happened in history,” Descoteaux said. “I’m not sure that a venue like Waa-Mu is necessarily right for that. It can be, (but) with the material we had, it wasn’t going to work.”

But Waa-Mu co-Chairwoman Anne Mannal said increasing female involvement in the show was a priority this year.

“I’m very happy with this year’s show, but a lot of us have been disappointed with the amount of women involvement,” Mannal said. “It continues to be a concern, and has been one from day one.”

Organizers said it was difficult to create female roles given this year’s theme.

“I defy you to look at a history book and name famous women compared to famous men,” said Dominic Missimi, Waa-Mu’s artistic director. “It’s just a fact of life.”

But Park, a Weinberg sophomore, disagreed.

“Perhaps they’re not looking at the right books,” she said. “They need to expand the reference frame they’re choosing from.”

Park listed about two dozen women and minorities who she said would have been appropriate for the show, including Helen Keller, Angela Davis and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Despite the disparity in named roles, female singers and dancers are in the show in numbers comparable to their male counterparts. And though minority roles were few, organizers employed some unorthodox casting: an African-American Elvis, for one.

Organizers said they could use only what the student writers submitted, and the majority of submissions were about white men.

“Our writers are only going to write what they’re going to write,” Mannal said. “There’s not a lot we can do about that.”

But some complained the female roles that were included don’t reflect women’s true place in history. Although Queen Elizabeth, Joan of Arc and Susan B. Anthony appear in the first skit, other female roles tend to be anonymous (“Girl,” “Farmer’s Wife”) or simply infamous (Medea, Madonna, Monica Lewinksy).

“There are so many women who have done so much for history,” Park said. “It’s sad that they were not able to make a conscious effort to include them. It’s perpetrating the eurocentric focus in history.”

Descoteaux said producing a quality show was the top priority, and that the skits featuring minorities did not match the quality or tone of the rest of the show.

“We’re responsible for turning out good, theatrical music — things that stage well,” he said. “If the music’s bad, and the writing’s bad, you can’t put on a good show.”