RENT - Fox's Next Live Musical

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.

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. 

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?) 

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!

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

10 minutes later I'm quoting myself to say that after Today 4 U, I do sort of hate her voice. Spoke too quickly.

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!

NBC just cancelled the Hair Live! Part of their reasoning is to focus on the family friendly musical after the ratings failure of RENT.

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.

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.

They've definitely muffled the audience reaction at least... but it is still audible in the background.

Hmmm

www.adweek.com/tv-video/why-nbc-pulled-the-plug-on-hair-live-which-was-originally-supposed-to-air-on-sunday/


While a variety of factors seemed to have caused the about-face—including the anemic viewership for Fox’s Rent Live! on Jan. 27 (which put up the lowest ratings ever for a live musical) and the September departure of Greenblatt, who had brought live musicals back to the network in 2013, to great success—the new network chiefs told Adweek that neither one was behind their decision.

Instead, NBC Entertainment chairman George Cheeks (who runs the network alongside Paul Telegdy) said that HBO was primarily responsible for scaring them off the May 19 date, once the premium cable network scheduled the series finale for a little show called Game of Thrones on the same night.