776 posts
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Post by latefortheoverture on Jan 29, 2019 0:13:28 GMT
Just watched this. Ofocurse heard SoL but other than that I haven't listened to anything else or knew any other parts of the story.
Valentina was shocking; I'll get that out of the way. Did she even audition?
Oh my lord, I did not expect to be so moved by this. Angel's funeral, with BVD's singing I'll Cover You..... I was a mess.
Vanessa Hudgens was amazing IMO, just when it dipped a little for me she came along and picked it back up.
I loved Jordan Fisher, outstanding voice, cannot wait to see what he does next.
Tinashe wasn't as bad as I thought she'd be. She went up and down, but overall I liked her Mimi.
Brennin Hunt was fine, didn't do anything special for me.
I started chocking up at a few parts, but during the 2nd SoL, when they mention Jonathan Larson's story I immediately burst into tears. I haven't been overcome with emotion, like that, in a musical for years. Thought the finale was nice but a bit messy, everyone singing/screaming but nonetheless was nice to have the originals there.
I liked the set. Wouldn't that set make a great space for Rent? It would be a perfect way to stage the show, for audiences every night. I kinda want an 'immersive', if you would, production of Rent!!!1
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2019 0:18:28 GMT
Yeah I really liked the staging of it. I think it could work, if they could find an old warehouse or something like that, or a purpose-built venue.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2019 0:27:12 GMT
Well it's officially the lowest-rated live TV musical. www.playbill.com/article/ratings-how-did-rent-on-fox-fare#To compare: The Sound of Music (18.62 million) Grease (12.18 million) The Wiz (11.5 million) Jesus Christ Superstar (9.6 million) Peter Pan (9.21 million) Hairspray (9.05 million) A Christmas Story (4.25 million) Rent (3.415 million) Such a shame.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2019 0:37:07 GMT
Wow people really like Sound of Music, don't they? I think it's terribly boring. It was the first one that was done though, so I guess a lot of viewers were just curious.
Sad this was the least watched musical.
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2,545 posts
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Post by viserys on Jan 29, 2019 0:56:33 GMT
Not surprising though, is it? Rent is much lesser known than any of the others and long past the time when it was a massive hype (like Hamilton is now). Plus, people may have become tired of the concept. I mean, I've been a musical lover for +30 years but even I couldn't be bothered to watch ALL of them because either the show or the cast didn't appeal to me (or both). The only one I enjoyed was The Wiz, I thought Grease was pretty awful. Anyway, still want to see Rent as it's been a favorite of mine ever since it came out in the mid-90s. I had hoped this would create enough buzz to get a new generation of musical lovers interested in it, but seems it's not to be. Glad to read a somewhat positive review though, thanks latefortheoverture
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2019 2:13:57 GMT
Oh viserys, I did enjoy it! I've seen it twice already actually. Valentina is the only part I hated. It's one of my favourite shows ever (heck, I even have one line from it tattooed) and I was nervous about it, especially as I read the first negative reviews. But I was pleasantly surprised, way better than expected!
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Post by leanne23 on Jan 29, 2019 7:18:16 GMT
Yeah I really liked the staging of it. I think it could work, if they could find an old warehouse or something like that, or a purpose-built venue. That is precisely what happened at the Frogmore Paper Mill in July! Vivo D’Arte staged a stunning fully immersive performance of RENT where you moved between three different derelict rooms.
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Post by sparky5000 on Jan 29, 2019 11:32:06 GMT
do it get hit by you all if i say i don't like Kealas voice in "Seasons of love"? its so "screechy" , for loss of words I kinda feel the same. Don’t get me wrong, I like her and think Kerala has a strong and powerful voice but I do think she’s hit and miss with live performances (maybe a bit tooooo emotional sometimes) and I think it’s almost like, because of the success of The Greatest Showman and ‘This is Me’ we’re almost conditioned now to be all “Keala slays EVERYTHING” even if she actually doesn’t.
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98 posts
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Post by haz23 on Jan 29, 2019 14:51:41 GMT
I was pleasantly surprised by this, and enjoyed it way more than I thought I would (having seen the recent UK tour I didn't think anything could compare!)
Jordan Fisher was the star, beautiful voice and acting. He will go far!
Didn't think Valentina was that bad - yes Today 4 U was weak but she was pretty cute throughout. Collins was brilliant.
Vanessa Hudgens was the biggest surprise, she was so funny and I had no idea she had that much of a powerful voice.
Mimi looked and sounded great, thought she could have done a lot more acting in the second half, Roger was hot and sounded so much like Adam Pascal (on a side note, I thought it was really sweet that AP sat at the back of the stage with him at the end whilst the other original cast members were at the front so he didn't feel left out!)
Keala Settle is a powerhouse, I cried during the finale and when the original cast sang. Loved it. Also did I see they are releasing a soundtrack with this cast?
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jan 29, 2019 15:05:54 GMT
Having pondered about it some more, I think the best that can said of it was it was anodyne.
The staging - which could have been immersive and gritty - was just too polished, too heightened. Yes, I know it was a TV special - but it was just too much for me. It lacked real atmosphere.
The performances were clearly a mixed bag. Jordan Fisher was good - but didn't really fit in with the rest of the quartet - just too baby-faced for me to believe that he had a past. Excellent work from the Collins and Joanne.
Ms Settle as I noted on her live X Factor performance is not the greatest live performer. She has great moments and then moments when she just misses the note completely.
It wasn't a complete write-off - it is worth catching the finale with the OBC and I'll Cover You reprise. The rest was just a bit meh. Perhaps the fully live version would have had more zing. We shall never know.
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2,041 posts
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Post by 49thand8th on Jan 29, 2019 17:16:20 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2019 17:26:21 GMT
A dress rehearsal should always be treated as a real performance. Generally there is an audience of some description, and it is a chance for the creatives to see the show before it is put in front of a paying audience. None of them had any excuse to hold back. There was an audience there, play for them.
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2,041 posts
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Post by 49thand8th on Jan 29, 2019 17:37:13 GMT
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Post by emicardiff on Jan 29, 2019 18:56:20 GMT
I honestly don't know what to think about it all- I would imagine, and I'd agree with Rapp in the post above that nobody was holding back in the Dress, especially given there was an audience there and that I guess they were also forewarned it was being recorded as 'insurance' for the live broadcast. That in itself isn't unusual- the NT Lives do the same, and assume the other Fox live ones did. The actual evening of the thing sounds like a bit of a sh*t-show to be honest. I haven't had chance to catch up on reviews and reports but when I heard 'concert version' I assumed, they all did it just sitting/standing on stage, like, you know...a concert. But that sounds awful. As much as I get that they had their reasons, the element that does irk me is, that I feel the show should have gone on. That doing it with an understudy (hell shove Adam Pascal on he knows it!) or with the actor in a wheelchair/sitting, feels more in the 'spirit' of Rent, and of theatre. And I hate to say it, but if the original cast got up and did it that awful day after Jonathan died, I feel a bit let down, that not the dress rehearsal was shown so much but at the kind of half assed mish mash it became.
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2,041 posts
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Post by 49thand8th on Jan 29, 2019 18:58:13 GMT
I was just talking to some theatre-fan coworkers about this — if they had gone on with the show as it was, flat, with Roger in a cast, well, Rent is hard enough to follow when Roger is standing up. We tend to forget that. The playbills had a family tree in them, for god's sakes!
One of my coworkers also put it in a way I hadn't thought of: "I don't think they were holding back, but they were singing thinking they had another chance," which makes a lot of sense.
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Post by emicardiff on Jan 29, 2019 19:07:00 GMT
I was just talking to some theatre-fan coworkers about this — if they had gone on with the show as it was, flat, with Roger in a cast, well, Rent is hard enough to follow when Roger is standing up. We tend to forget that. The playbills had a family tree in them, for god's sakes! One of my coworkers also put it in a way I hadn't thought of: "I don't think they were holding back, but they were singing thinking they had another chance," which makes a lot of sense. haha a valid point, I remember a man explaining it to his daughter using the family tree the first time I saw it!! I think to be honest I'd just have rather they ran the dress tape, and not gone on with the weird half and half approach they had (though as much as they claim TV ratings I still think an understudy wouldn't have hurt, I'm too old to know but your man playing Roger isn't THAT famous is he?)
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Post by 49thand8th on Jan 29, 2019 19:12:29 GMT
I had honestly never heard of Brennin Hunt before they announced the cast, but apparently he's a bigger name in the country scene than elsewhere. I also thought that TV musicals normally didn't even have understudies, but apparently The Sound of Music and a few others did: www.vulture.com/2019/01/rent-live-fox-brennin-hunt-broken-foot.html
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5,495 posts
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Post by Baemax on Jan 30, 2019 11:25:16 GMT
I don't know, I'm quite into country myself, and I've never heard of him either. Not that that necessarily means much, UK country radio has a very different approach to US country radio (they play female singers over here, for one thing) and I suppose it's very likely that there are dozens if not hundreds of performers who have a thriving live performance career but haven't broken into the mainstream or racked up much air time. Also it's totally possible for "a bigger name in country than elsewhere" and "not a big name at all" to be true at the same time!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2019 20:59:50 GMT
OMG!
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jan 31, 2019 21:34:33 GMT
He was the vocal star of the show - but given his pedigree, that was to be expected. Still a very powerful performance - recorded and concert-style
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128 posts
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Post by beatrice on Jan 31, 2019 21:55:38 GMT
Juuuust started this, 10 minutes in. I wish I loved Valentina. I was hoping to love Valentina. I don't HATE her voice. But her acting is just...not great?
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128 posts
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Post by beatrice on Jan 31, 2019 22:07:36 GMT
Juuuust started this, 10 minutes in. I wish I loved Valentina. I was hoping to love Valentina. I don't HATE her voice. But her acting is just...not great? 10 minutes later I'm quoting myself to say that after Today 4 U, I do sort of hate her voice. Spoke too quickly.
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2,041 posts
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Post by 49thand8th on Jan 31, 2019 23:40:53 GMT
Someone at my bar yelled "ELIMINATED!" at the end of Today 4 U.
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Post by talkstageytome on Feb 1, 2019 0:12:57 GMT
I also caught up on this tonight and ... I kind of loved it! Not all of it, there were a few odd casting choices, strange lyric rewrites, and the audience was A LOT, but overall I had a great time with it! I'd forgotten how much I used to worship this show (whilst watching it tonight I realised that I still know every line and lyric. I guess all Musical Theatre kids had a Moment with this show at some point or another.) Casting high points for me were, as I expected Jordan Fisher, Vanessa Hudgens, and Brandon Victor Dixon. I'm a longtime fan of Fisher and he really pulled off a completely different yet totally believable Mark (oh, and the nose ring? Exceptional). After this and Grease Live (not to mention Hamilton on Broadway etc.) I hope it's not long before we see him in another musical. Benny in the In The Heights movie, anyone? Vanessa Hudgens was also great in Grease Live and in this she was hilarious. As someone who grew up on the High School Musical films (lame to say, but honestly, HSM2 was 11 year old me's whole life ) , I'm excited to see her musical theatre rep keep on growing. Brandon Victor Dixon TOTALLY got me during the I'll Cover You reprise. I FELT it! It's a real shame that they had to air so much of the dress run though, because it really felt like it lacked energy throughout. When it amped up, the numbers were electric (Rent, La Vie Boheme, Halloween, What You own) and I think that if it'd have all been live the whole thing would've buzzed from start to finish. But accidents happen, I suppose, and they covered Brennin Hunt's (I'd not heard of him before this - great voice!) broken foot well at the end. After seeing so many neutral to bad reviews, I was going in preparing for the worst, so I'm extremely happy that I enjoyed it as much as I did in the end!
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Post by oxfordsimon on Feb 1, 2019 0:24:42 GMT
I must say that I really didn't like the moments when the cast and audience interacted - I had forgotten about those bits until just now.
High five-ing the audience just isn't right.
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Post by raider80 on Feb 5, 2019 2:51:27 GMT
NBC just cancelled the Hair Live! Part of their reasoning is to focus on the family friendly musical after the ratings failure of RENT.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2019 3:15:33 GMT
NBC just cancelled the Hair Live! Part of their reasoning is to focus on the family friendly musical after the ratings failure of RENT. I'm not surprised. Both were never going to appeal to a wide audience but matched with the ratings fail and the negative reviews, I guess we should of seen this coming.
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Post by craig on Feb 5, 2019 15:54:57 GMT
He was exceptional throughout but the reprise of I'll Cover You on the OBC recording is just simple, tender perfection and I didn't really like his vocal acrobatics for it on Rent: (Almost) Live. Just sing the tune. Also... I don't claim to be an expert on pitch, but I often think Keala Settle sounds a bit off. Am I alone? I wish they'd gone for a more soulful / gospel vocalist though I get the commercial appeal of her casting.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2019 15:56:57 GMT
Soundtrack is out now on Spotify.
I went in with an open mind, hoping the recording in the studio would be more promising. Then I realised they made a fatal error. The soundtrack is what we heard and saw on the broadcast. That's right people, audience cheering throughout songs, lackluster performances for the most part, sound issues and Valentina.
I mean, thank god for Brandon Victor Dixon and Vanessa Hudgens.
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Post by talkstageytome on Feb 8, 2019 16:56:30 GMT
Yeah, I was very disappointed that they didn't rerecord all the vocals for release on the album (I think some recordings are different from the live version, e.g. La Vie Boheme, but certainly not all).. some bits are really enjoyable but others are quite flat. Such a shame as I really believe some cast members could've done a much better job if given a proper chance.
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