Rent Evaluation

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.