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| re: 'Rise,' NBC's new drama about high-school theater, will tackle 'Spring Awakening' in 1st season | |
| Posted by: Ordoc 05:05 pm EST 01/10/18 | |
| In reply to: 'Rise,' NBC's new drama about high-school theater, will tackle 'Spring Awakening' in 1st season - WaymanWong 12:34 pm EST 01/10/18 | |
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| "Drama High" is not a novel; it's non-fiction. Lou Volpe, the teacher in it, is gay. In Rise, the teacher is straight because the show runner can't identify with a gay character. The preview for "Rise" looks over produced and melodramatic. "Drama High" is wonderful. | |
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| Ordoc, thanks for the correction. I took that info from Deadline.com, which was wrong. | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 02:09 am EST 01/11/18 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 01:58 am EST 01/11/18 | |
| In reply to: re: 'Rise,' NBC's new drama about high-school theater, will tackle 'Spring Awakening' in 1st season - Ordoc 05:05 pm EST 01/10/18 | |
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| According to the synopsis of ''Drama High'' at Amazon.com: ''Why would the multimillionaire producer of 'Cats,' 'The Phantom of the Opera' and 'Miss Saigo'n take his limo from Manhattan to the struggling former steel town of Levittown, Pennsylvania, to see a high school production of 'Les Misérables'? To see the show performed by the astoundingly successful theater company at Harry S Truman High School, run by its legendary director, Lou Volpe. Broadway turns to Truman High when trying out controversial shows like 'Rent' and 'Spring Awakenin'g before they move on to high school theater programs across the nation. Volpe’s students from this blue-collar town go on to become Emmy-winning producers, entertainment executives, newscasters, and community-theater founders. Michael Sokolove, a Levittown native and former student of Volpe’s, chronicles the drama director’s last school years and follows a group of student actors as they work through riveting dramas both on and off the stage. This is a story of an economically depressed but proud town finding hope in a gifted teacher and the magic of theater.'' Sadly, it sounds typically Hollywood to change a heroic gay character to a straight one. (And reminiscent of Mr. Schue in ''Glee.'') I imagine the network probably also felt TV audiences might more identify more with a straight teacher, too. Which is why Alan Cumming made news yesterday since he'll play the first openly gay lead of a network TV drama (''Instinct''). |
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| re: Ordoc, thanks for the correction. I took that info from Deadline.com, which was wrong. | |
| Last Edit: JereNYC 03:30 pm EST 01/16/18 | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 03:29 pm EST 01/16/18 | |
| In reply to: Ordoc, thanks for the correction. I took that info from Deadline.com, which was wrong. - WaymanWong 01:58 am EST 01/11/18 | |
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| Do they really mean Levittown, the Philadelphia suburb in Bucks County? That's not a "struggling former steel town," it's a planned community built specifically for post-WWII boomers, just like the similar town on Long Island. It's always been a middle class suburb for people looking for an easy commute into Center City Philadelphia. The description "struggling former steel town" sounds like any number of place out in western PA, but the Philadelphia suburbs were never built on steel the way Pittsburgh was. |
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| Producer Jason Katims defends changing the gay teacher into a straight one | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 03:41 am EST 01/11/18 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 03:33 am EST 01/11/18 | |
| In reply to: Ordoc, thanks for the correction. I took that info from Deadline.com, which was wrong. - WaymanWong 01:58 am EST 01/11/18 | |
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| The lead character of NBC's ''Rise'' is Lou Mazzuchelli, who is based on the real-life Lou Volpe, who came out late in his career. However, on the TV show, Mazzuchelli will be played as a straight family man (by Josh Radnor). Katims, who's straight, says: ''I hope and believe that we carry a lot of [Volpe’s] spirit into the show. We took that as inspiration.'' However, the former “Friday Night Lights” writer and executive producer added, “I felt like I needed to make it my own story. With Lou's family, there's a lot of reimagination. ... It was important to honor the source material, but to also make it my own so we’d be able to lean into it.” But a critic of the ''straight-washing'' tweeted: ''Jason Katims, you don't need to want to f*ck the same people as your protagonist to be able to relate to them. Having a gay male lead on a major network would've been huge—your erasure of that is a huge f*cking shameful letdown.'' |
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| Link | Huffington Post: The Gay Drama Teacher Who Inspired NBC's 'Rise' Will Be Portrayed as Straight |
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