| I was at Rent Live | |
| Posted by: Glamourboy 12:29 am EST 01/29/19 | |
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| I was pretty thrilled when a friend had extra tickets for the Sunday night live taping of Rent on the Fox lot. It has been one of my favorite shows since I saw one of the first performances on Broadway. I hadn't heard of too many of the performers but I expected something really special. We waited in an outdoor holding area for about 2 1/2 hours--there were about 300 people. Finally, we were lead inside and given our seats where we waited for another 45 minutes. About 10 or 15 minutes before the show started, producer Marc Platt came out and talked to the audience. He was very high energy and excitedly told us about how we were going to see something groundbreaking. He mentioned injury and how the actor was now in a wheelchair--but we were still going to see a smashing show. We would watch tape but also see the cast in a performance that no one else would see. He said that we'd be seeing the last act LIVE. The crowd really reacted to his positively..but as we walked away people started whispering...what..what...tape? The shown began and we sat in the audience and watched a tape from the previous night's dress rehearsal--the same one that the TV audience would see. The first few numbers were the same--we just watched the monitor. The mood in the studio deflated. People in our group talked about leaving. It is dull and very disappointing after waiting so long. Finally they had the cast out to do a number--they sang and the orchestra played....to the tape. The performances were so casual that they bordered on unprofessional. It was like watching a drama club goof off when the teacher was late--they goofed, played with the wheelchair, tossed aside choreography...they just played around. And afterwards they gave themselves hearty rounds of applause. It is disheartening watching the incredible production values of the show while watching the cast just mess around on the stage. Marc Platt came out again and told us that we'd be going LIVE in about an hour. That is when it occured to me that he wasn't dividing Rent into two acts...but ten or twelve. And it meant that only the very last scene would be performed Live. Even more disappointing was the fact that the stage had 4 sides...and only one quarter of the audience would be able to view the only part of the show that was actually being seriously performed. We had to watch it on the screen. We also missed the reveal of the original Rent cast. After the taping, an announcer (could have been Marc Platt again...didn't see him)...made a lot of congratulatory speeches. Our group left speechless...not only because we had gone to all this trouble to watch a taping, but the performances..the voices seemed off..saved for performance, perhaps. To answer someone's comment on here...the audience wasn't asked to be loud and noisy--although the pitt where the youngest and most attractive were placed--certainly set a tone (and I didn't mind not being in there seeing that they had to STAND through the entire thing. The crowd was actually asked to quiet down....let the viewers hear the singers voices....and to understand that the next scene was a 'sad scene' and didn't quality for screams and cheers. |
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