Changing the ending of Rent — Page 3

"It is impossible to say what his intentions were for the final product"

I will give you that. I meant, that was the way he had decided to end it at the time. And he probably meant it that way. At that point he wouldn't have changed it most likely. It is a MAJOR plot point to change, and changing it is still technically illegal. You guys go on with your show, you're right that most of us haven't seen the show. I hope you all have a great time for the rest of your run, it's clear you are proud of it. That is all that matters.

Updated On: 4/26/11 at 08:50 PM

Also, he died the night before it opened off-Broadway. There was no "Broadway Workshop," whatever that means.

"Please keep in mind that Jonathan Larson passed the night before the show even opened in the Broadway Workshop, where even after shows can still be drastically changed. It is impossible to say what his intentions were for the final product,"

Actually, no. It's not impossible to say when his friends, family, producers and director all agree that it was his intention for Mimi to live. He made the point that Mimi lives very clear from the beginning, on multiple occasions with his collaborators and in his own materials. You're in Towson- go check it out in Library of Congress.

Stop trying to use Jonathan Larson's death as an excuse to cover up the fact that what your production did was illegal and you're lucky MTI is just letting you change the ending back and not pulling the rights completely.

---

"When I do MY Evita, she's gonna live."

Bitch, I laughed so hard I almost peed.

You still killed Mimi. YOU KILLED MIMI.

Eva is different. BUT MIMI.

Updated On: 4/26/11 at 10:53 PM

MY GOD JORDAN. Stop it. EL OHH EL.

Updated On: 4/26/11 at 10:56 PM

Attention castmember13 and anybody else associated with this production:

First off, castmember, this is a discussion board whether you choose to put quotation marks around the phrase or not. How can you tell? Because we are discussing this topic.

Secondly, you're young, it's sweet, but I think you're being sold a bill of goods. I do not mean to cast aspersions on Ms. Smith-Sajak, but really. Are you really lecturing us about theater being more than ink on a page? So many of the regular posters here have been involved with professional theater (audiences, performers and creatives alike) since way before you were born. Many of us saw the original RENT with the original cast. But here you are, giving us a stern talking to as if we are your peers.

The coverage in your "school paper" (oh that IS fun) goes on and on about how different this production of RENT is, but except for the illegal unauthorized change to the ending you made (and seem to want to justify) but then changed back before you got the cease and desist letter (Come ON! Scaredy cats! As joanne would say, "That's selling OUT!"; Where's the artistic integrity to maintain your ground because you know better than to honor the contract you signed?), the nicely shot clips provided on the website make it look like every other production of RENT I've ever seen, including a recent Rent, High School Edition I saw done by people even younger than you. Ms Smith-Sendak may make it a big point that she never saw the movie, or whatever, but she saw SOMETHING, because nothing up there is original. And guess what you guys? She did NOT invent the inclusion of homelessness and addiction and AIDS in the script. It was all there.

It's sweet, you think you're doing something radically different with this "period peace" (quote marks used because it is an actual quote by the incredibly hunky kid playing Tom Collins in the video), but you're not. You're doing RENT. It's hard to swallow you guys talking about an era and a show like it was from 100 years ago. Most of us were there too, Ms. Smith-Sleestak did not take a time machine from ancient history and invent your production from whole cloth.

Stay passionate, but PLEASE, keep learning. You've got a long way to go.

---

Updated On: 4/26/11 at 11:11 PM

Updated On: 4/27/11 at 12:45 AM

"So please, if you have a comment, I would appreciate if we could direct this conversation to speaking about the ending of RENT, rather than bashing our production."

Ok. Why does your director thinks she knows better than the show's creator about the ending of Rent?

---

Can you kill her RIGHT before the last note of "Tomorrow"? I think that would really add the extra message. Like.... I don't know. The sun won't come out tomorrow. Because you'll be dead. Isn't that what Annie is all about?

Bway--didn't Kathleen Turner do that in Serial Mom?

That poor old lady....dying from a chicken leg at the end of Annie.
Wonder if she got the AIDS message out of that one.

The director speaks! Ms. S-S bravely connects the dots between her choices to violate the performance contract and those corporate cowards who will not make that "leap of faith." Lawyers are decried. Fear is invoked. Aw shucks, let her speak for herself, but the way she goes on about it you would think it was more than five lines of Sprechstimme text she had to put back where they belonged:

"Diane Smith-Sadak said:
Our Leap Of Faith
Diane Smith-Sadak, Associate Professor of Acting and Directing
Towson University Department of Theatre Arts, Spring 2011

The RENT production you are going to see from now on is not the RENT that was previewed in this theatre days ago. Was this past week’s incarnation unfinished? No. Was it not selling well? No, we had sold out our opening performances, and the rest of the run has been selling spectacularly as well. Was the production unsatisfactory to audiences? No, we had gotten rave feedback from almost everyone, including university administrators. So why is this show different than what we opened only days before?

Lawyers and contract law.
Copyright clauses.
Fear.

What had I chosen to put onstage that incited such a call to change? I had eliminated approximately 5 lines of Sprechstimme text towards the end of Act II (that’s all I’ll say. No spoilers here). If you’re a RENThead you’ll probably know exactly what I mean. Please keep in mind that nothing had been done secretively, nor without departmental oversight, nor without the deepest respect for Jonathan Larson, the exceptional creator of RENT. All angles were explored AND rehearsed, and the choice that we previewed with on Thursday, April 21st is one that I will always standby.

However, within 2 days of our opening, grumbling reached our department through online anonymous bloggers and in person patrons and a chain of fear-based, legalistic decisions was handed down to me. To put it bluntly, I was told: change the show, put the lines of text back in as written, or face imminent shutdown by copyright holders, Music Theatre International, Inc.

And so, like the characters in RENT who faced the ongoing struggle to create art in an increasingly corporate mindset and money-driven and fear-driven attitude we in tonight’s production came in and reworked our ending into what you will see tonight. The “traditional” ending of RENT. We complied only under duress. Only if you saw one of the original 3 performances of our RENT will you be able to judge which was “better”. And is “better” really the point at all? Instead, I question the place of genuinely felt and articulated Art in the Institution. I, like Maureen, wish more of us would take that leap of faith so necessary to create truly magical moments of Art in our lives. Copyright law has its place, and playwrights have valid arguments about their work needing protection, but at what point do we take that inflexibility too far? Jonathan Larson died the night of his first preview about 15 years ago; had he not I would have been proud to bring our work to him with either ending. We will be putting it in front of the original production’s producer during the run. I have, nor had, anything to hide.

But when fear dominates – fear of reprimand, fear of shut downs which cause loss of box office revenue – the artistic process and perhaps the product – suffers. In this case, electronic media spread the word (and some of the word incorrectly, I might add) faster than imaginable straight to the legal offices of MTI, which called our department on Tuesday afternoon. I was then charged by my dean, my chair, university counsel and MTI that the end would be restored or the entire production would face shutdown. We will be in compliance by the time we open tomorrow evening.

I thank the cast and crew for their undaunted faith in me, and hope that the situation with RENT, if nothing else, teaches a real-world lesson about the harsh hazards of making art in today’s world. Remain willing to take a leap of faith."

---

Updated On: 4/27/11 at 01:20 AM

You're such a Benny!

---