RENT Review - Sunday, January 20th, 7 PM — Page 2

"Who was Collins and how was he?"

The normal Collins, Michael McElroy, was on last night. It is obviously hard to try to match Jesse L Martin's performance, but McElroy did an excellent job and I was actually quite impressed. I am not a big fan of the character, but he made me not hate it so much.

Another time, as the guy with the dreads was putting the shirts out on the railing above the band, one of them fell and hit the conductor on the head. The dreads guy laughed and waved when the conductor looked up.


"The guy with the dreads" is Marcus Paul James.

I am also surprised that you had a negative opinion on David Truskinoff. He is very good and I've seen other conductors there who have sped up the pace so rapidly that the show ended 5-10 minutes early. At the very least most people don't notice him which is a pretty standard reaction.


The normal Collins, Michael McElroy, was on last night. It is obviously hard to try to match Jesse L Martin's performance, but McElroy did an excellent job and I was actually quite impressed. I am not a big fan of the character, but he made me not hate it so much.

Michael McElroy is all kinds of talented. He is not my favorite Collins (Marcus and Mark Richard Ford are) but he is the best fulltime Collins in a while.

Of course no one could live up to an original cast member who did stellar work but while he was the one to replace Jesse 10 years ago, there have been many Collins since then and he has far exceeded many (including the 2 most recent Collins: Troy Horne and Destan Owens). Also, aw, I think Collins is written in a way that I am very surprised that you hate the character. To each his own.

I have a lot to say on this thread now =).
I was at this performance too, and yankee, I didn't realize it was your first time seeing the show!

Last night was actually one of the best performances I've seen of Rent in awhile... it's been losing its spark, but last night it was much more alive than it has been.

Karmine's been in the show for YEARS, I think close to 8 if I'm not mistaken. Some ridiculous stretch of time, though. She's played every female character there is to play in the show (except maybe Joanne. I'm not sure.), and she's fierce at every single one of them. I saw her as Mimi twice and I LOVE her. Last night was my first time seeing her as Maureen and she didn't disappoint. Her Over The Moon was AMAZING. I've also seen Caren as Maureen, and she's my favorite Maureen I've ever seen live. I've heard recordings of her Mimi, and she sounds awesome at that too. As for Nicolette, I enjoyed her performance, I really did. Just not as much as Caren =).

Justin Johnston, in my opinion, is the only Angel that lives up to the standard Wilson set way back in '96. He tears the role apart every night - I LOVE him. Michael McElroy was fantastic as well. He didn't really stand out in my mind though.

I actually loved Harley & Declan. There were moments of each of their performances where I didn't like something they were doing, but overall I was perfectly happy with them. Declan's accent slipping in was pretty funny. I adored his One Song Glory and Harley's La Vie Boheme.

I bet you'd remember me. Haha I was like the only guy who got tickets from VFR. I must have been sitting right by you?!

Haha yup, that's me. And yes, I remember who you are not from looking at your picture. I didn't quite recognize you before, but now that you say that, it makes complete sense. You were sitting a couple rows back right, and came to visit? This is really weird that we should meet up here... Hahaha

I was the girl with fetzles and I remember meeting you! I'm surprised we didn't figure out we were all from BWW!

Not that I can recall, nope. She sounded fine.