DEH November 19 The Day Has Come! — Page 3

Allowed? This man created this role, won a Tony for this role, sacrificed his health and well being for this role. Yes, it was that long, and yes, every person involved in the production allowed him to soak of up every bit of love and strength everyone was giving him from the audience to get him through the performance.

LesWickedly said: "Do you mean 5 or 6 minutes for his final bow or for his opening appearance? Hard time believing it would’ve been allowed to last that long at the beginning."

Allowed is an interesting term -- for one, as mentioned, he's earned it and the production certainly isn't going to take that moment away, and for two, if the crowd is as loud as I imagine and Mr. Platt needed to ready himself, how exactly do you propose they would have forced the show to continue?

One of the most special moments in the theater I've witnessed was the first night Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal returned to "Rent," There was no way they were starting that show in the middle of the reception they received.

Will Roland broke Ben Platt. He made Ben laugh enough that Ben forgot his line. So there was a pause, a laugh, and Will threw in his line for him. But it was also more amped than usual today - the guys had a really, really good time doing it.

I wish I could have been there today. But I already so the show twice and I'm glad so many people who had never seen Ben got to see the show because of the BWW threads.

Anyway thanks to the BWW threads I was not only able to see the show twice with Ben but my friend was able to see the show with Ben too after his first ticket wound up being with Michael Lee Brown. And this is what he had to say about Ben's performance, which I'll quote because I couldn't have said it better myself:

"Ben gives you the bleeding truth, and not just a good performance."

Volveeta,

My God, through my tears, I saw what Rachel does best. Connect so beautifully to the person on stage, and to the audience AND to herself all at once. She was emotional, brilliant, STRONG, and so so so loving in that moment. I have loved her in everything she does. She is just astounding and it's amazing you get to be friends with someone as awesome as Rachel. Jealous!

Updated On: 11/19/17 at 10:03 PM

everythingtaboo said: "The curtain call was 4 minutes, as per the great videos posted earlier, so if the standing ovation at the top of the show was 5 or 6 minutes...wow."

I mean, it was definitely not 5 or 6 minutes, it was like a minute to a minute and a half tops. It was nowhere near as long as the curtain call. The applause was insane but after about a minute-ish Ben got himself together and hit the button on the keyboard to signal to everyone that he was starting and everyone sat down.

PalJoey said: "



Of all the emotional moments during this afternoon's performance--including Ben's superhuman solosand Laura Dreyfuss and Rachel Bay Jones and Michael Park getting visibly emotional during their solos with him--"Sincerely Me" is the memory I will take with me. Those three boys were having such a good time with each other that the number soared beyond what it was the last time I saw the show and what it is on the OCR. For that moment, it was just the three of them, brothers-on-stage, horsing around and having fun. I wept with tears of sheer exhilaration.



"

This is so beautiful. Reminds me of Comet and the final "Balaga"/"The Abduction" - they went so hard and were so happy to be with each other, going wild one final time. Ten minutes of unadulterated joyous energy. It's that segment of the cast recording that now makes me the most emotional. Makes me so happy that the three guys found a moment to break through the weight of the show to just have fun on such a bittersweet day. Thank you so much for sharing this.

poisonivy2 said: "There is an audio of the final performance that is on reddit and the opening applause is nowhere near 5 or 6 minutes. More like a minute. Very warm and loud ovation, but it didn't go on for 5 or 6 minutes."

At least we can finally tamp down the guesswork of enthusiastic theatergoers with forensic proof that their excitement clouded their analytic skills.

I just timed it. The ovation lasts for about 50 seconds.