Rent is Terrible — Page 6

You guys couldn't be more wrong.

Are there shows that have stunk even after workshop? Sure. A few are on Broadway now. But, having gone through the process multiple times (with Ostrow, Jerry Bock, Jerry Sterner, and Edward Albee, etc.), I am quite a fan of the process of crafting a play or musical in a non-commercially stressing environment.

And, if the show doesn't work, you should keep reworking it. A play or musical isn't "finished" just because it opened on Broadway.

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JP, well-stated! creation is intially destructive... if the safe walls of today's Broadway can be torn down and used in a different way, we may be in store for something truly amazing!

that sounds weird, but i know what i mean... LOL!!!

There's nothing wrong with WICKED being on Broadway. It's definately not the best show playing but it is a nice, fun musical that everyone can see and enjoy.

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There is a huge difference between creative teams playing it safe and creative teams being given a place to collaborate WITHOUT budget and time constraints. If a creative team is going to make ****ty and safe choices, they will do that whether the play or musical is developed in a workshop setting or a full on production setting. What you are saying has nothing to do with whether a show is workshopped, but whether the people creating are worth a damn. THAT is the problem today--we do not have a great number of good writers for the theatre anymore.

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rent strikes me as the kind of piece which almost has to be workshoped. it is too different, there is nothing to base it on- which is great- so they have to experiment with the material until it works, and given the original response, that was the way to go.

just because a piece is re-worked in the workshop doesnt mean it is being constantly watered-down or that the producers are conforming to any sort of pre-set standards, if that had been the case, how could rent have existed at all considering how unfamiliar mainstreme audiences where (before rent) with the likes of cross-dressers and bohemians with hiv-?

i agree that in some cases a workshop can probably do more harm than good, if the intention is to make the show more presentable to a mainstreme audience, and not improve it by its own standards, but im not so sure that this is the case with rent.

i kid not. my grandmother has seen rent, and believe me, no matter how much you think tv brings middle america into some sort of enlightenment about the worlds problems (im not talking about cross dressers here so much as hiv)- it doesnt really help out here in rural maryland, and yet i know some people who have seen the show (many of them extremely ignorant- and not to mention closed minded about its subject matter) and most of them enjoyed it, and that is a hell of an achievement on behalf of the creaters.

Middle america is full of closeted HUSSYS!

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not many of those films and shows were as widely seen as rent though.

my point isnt that rent was the first to deal with such issues, i was just dissagreeing with whomever said that the workshop process hurt rent in its final form on broadway or whatever. i think that in rents case, it helped. if they'd have conformed to a mainstreme audience, they couldnt have been so blatent about the issues they were focusing on.

im one of the unfortunate inhabitants of a rural area with no conception of what urban life is like, and i found rent difficult to stomach when i first saw it (i was rather young) but i couldnt get it out of my head, i listened to the cast album some more and now i think i understand it, and this is the case with a lot of people like me. they see the show, they're pretty freak out by it, but because of the genius of johnathon larson, it sticks with them and the start to grasp these concepts and ideas and develope a caring and understanding for characters that they'd never get to have a relationship in real life, for that, if for nothing else, the show should be commended (and it has, *cough* best musical, *cough*, the pulitzer)

Eh, Rent didn't disturb me much. But maybe that's because one of my favorite musicals involves blackmail, sexual harrassment, cruelty to animals, fraud, false imprisonment, murder, rape, cannibalism, masochism, and incest. :)

"Eh, Rent didn't disturb me much. But maybe that's because one of my favorite musicals involves blackmail, sexual harrassment, cruelty to animals, fraud, false imprisonment, murder, rape, cannibalism, masochism, and incest."

What did I miss?

SWEENEY TODD? I thought he was talking about ANNIE!

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Updated On: 5/13/04 at 04:00 PM

Stateofjade,
Is that the lesbian from Queer As Folk in your icon?

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Just a quick addendum -- Squeezebox (where John Mitchell and Steve Trask tried out parts of "Hedwig" before it moved to Jane Street), wasn't exactly a "drag rock bar" (not really sure what that would look like, LOL, but I'd love to see it), but a Friday night rock and roll themed gay/straight/bi/whatever party that used to be at Don Hill's (still a rock club over on Greenwich & Spring). It was a very mixed crowd of black-wearing, punked out 20- and thirty-somethings of both genders, gay boys from the East Village, NYU kids, and various celebrity regulars (I have waaay too many stories about hanging out with Boy George, Debbie Harry, John Waters, David Lee Roth etc...... that, ahem, I most certainly won't be going into here.....). The nights that I remember, most of the folks there in drag were on the stage or about to go up to the stage -- it was hosted variously by Mistress Formika, Jackie Beat, Sherry Vine et al, though of course it wasn't unusual to see a couple of extra drag queens in the "anything goes" crowd.

Part of where the idea of HEDWIG came from was the fact that one of the regualr features of Squeezebox from the beginning was that it regularly featured prominent local drag queens -- those who could actually sing, eg Mona Foot, Lily of the Valley -- doing sets of real hardcore music live with the kickass in-house rock band (no showtunes allowed). The night also featured up-and-coming area bands (some who went onto be famous), video monitors playing vintage 50's porn, cartoons and film oddities, tarot card readers, rail-thin go-go boys and girls (who were hired for their dancing ability and most certainly not for their physiques), and an infamous basment where, um, ....... nevermind....

The party was inspired by androgynous 70's & 80's rock acts like Bowie, Jagger, Lou Reed, the New York Dolls, and Morrissey along with a certain punk sensibility all its own (my friend who was the creator/ promoter of the night told me he started it mainly because he hated the music they played in most of the gay bars -- he detested house music and loathed Madonna -- and so he figured there had to be enough others like him to support a weekly club night...... boy was he right, the party was always packed to the gills and ran for years). Anyway, it was a wild, ambisexual, hedonistic revel of a party that's a fond memory for many and lives on through the musical HEDWIG, which it helped to inspire and nurture.

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Updated On: 5/14/04 at 03:10 AM