We have recently performed a
workshop production of Rent the Musical. If I did this production again there
are many things I would develop to make it more professional and a better
performance.
Firstly
if we had a bigger budget, which we could have raised by organising some
fundraising, it would have been nice to perform it on a bigger stage and have
more floor space to use. A theatre like the Brooke Theatre in Chatham would
have been ideal as it has a good sized stage along with a good sized floor
space in front of its raked seating. For the school hall the cabaret seating
worked really well but in a bigger theatre I think raked seating would be more
suited as it would make it more professional. With the increased floor space we
could have had more set and more steel decking set out creating more spaces for
performing. I think it would have been nice to have each place pre-set so it
was clear where each place was and when we travelled between them which would
have made the story easier to understand.
As a cast we lacked any kind
of ethnic diversity which takes away from the reality of the show. It is set in
New York and so you would expect there to be a range of people within the
friendship group, which is emulated in the Broadway version of Rent. Collins,
in my opinion, should have been played by a black man. Not only to add
diversity but because of the songs he has to sing, which are written for a
rich, smooth type of voice most common in black people. Making the cast more
diverse would therefore make it more representative of actual New York and make
the story more relatable.
If we had performed Rent in a
proper theatre I think it would have been nice to have live music. It would
also mean that the band could follow what we were singing and adapt what they’re
playing if something goes wrong, which would have been very useful considering
a lot of the songs include dialogue that has to be said in time with the music.
Although this would have meant we needed a band call which we did not have time
for. On the other hand backing tracks allowed you to practise with what you
would use on the night so there was nothing unexpected when it came to the
performance. The problem with backing tracks is that they are unchangeable, so
if you get out of time it can be very hard and it can go very wrong, very
quickly.
If we developed the show
further it would have been good to include the whole show instead of cutting
out parts of it. With a longer show we
would have had an interval which would allow for more costume changes and give
the audience a break to talk about the show and get refreshments. It would also
give us more scope for set changes if we needed them, and would reduce the need
for the cast to move things off of the stage during the show. All of these
things would help to make the performance more professional and allow us to
charge for tickets and make some money out of the show.
We cut the show down quite a
lot, taking out the insignificant parts or things we did not want to include. I
think this may have made it more difficult for the audience to follow the story
especially if they didn’t previously know what happened in it. It may be better
in the future to advertise it to a more specific audience, for example people
that are interested in musical theatre, so that they would understand the show.
Another way to make the show more understandable would be to make the song and
dialogue more balanced. As most of the show is singing it may be useful to
adapt some of the vocals into normal dialogue to make the story clearer as
sometimes I think people struggle to follow what is happening in songs as you
are more focused on the singing than the lyrics.
Performing this show in a
bigger theatre would allow for more set and more detail with it. A backstage
team would therefore be helpful to move set and help with tech allowing the
cast to focus more on the rehearsals and get the performance more polished as
it would no longer be a workshop. A specific set crew would also mean the set
would be better planned out and more interesting for each place, again helping
to differentiate the different places.
As a play Rent is quite a
loud and mostly song based production. We would have benefited from individual
radio mics to bump up the volume and add to the atmosphere of the play, as some
of it was not heard. We could afford this with the fundraising we would do. If
we moved the production to a bigger theatre mics would definitely be necessary
as it would be an even bigger space.
Originally we had had the
idea to use a live video stream for some of the scenes where Ashley was using
his camera. We did not do this but with more time I think it would have been a
good thing to make some of the scenes more interesting. It would also add more
media to the performance and give the audience different things to watch. Using
projections could mean we use some pre-recorded footage, again adding another
dimension of things for the audience to watch.
If we were performing in a
bigger theatre we would need a technical rehearsal for the lighting and sound.
We had an simple but effective lighting plan for our performance which could be
developed and added to if it was performed at a bigger venue.
Costumes were quite difficult
to plan as there were not many occasions within the show when we had enough
time to get changed. If we did the whole show it would be easier to plan the
costumes around what the characters were doing, not having the whole show made
it hard to decide what they would be wearing for each scene as the different
days became unclear. With more time to change the costumes could have been more
detailed and accurate to the play.
