AHHHHH I got to work on RENT and I still can’t believe it happened!

RENT has been one of my all-time favorite shows for 20 years. I’ve seen it over a dozen times on stage. Listened to the cast album exhaustively. Wrote a high school paper on it.

When it was announced that Fox had selected RENT as their next live musical, I was over the moon (pun intended) to work on it. It felt like my whole life had been leading to this moment. If you told 16-year-old Erica that one day she’d get to be the script supervisor on a TV version of RENT, she would totally freak out (and then she’d ask, “But what about soap operas?” to which I’d say, “Chill out, everything will happen in its own time”).

An incredible part of this experience was that one of my best friends, Grace, was also working on RENT. She is a Director of Post at Fox and was assigned to our show. Here we are about to see the RENT national tour from the front row in Thousand Oaks, CA back in 2007…

…and here we are on the Fox lot in 2019 working on RENT!

Okay, here begins the official recap. It’s a long one.

I started working on RENT in mid-November 2018. I got the latest version of the script from Kristoffer Diaz, the writer (a Pulitzer finalist!) who adapted RENT for our broadcast. From there I built a script document that incorporated technical cues from the rundown (entrance / exit locations, music cues, lighting, special effects, etc.) which I would continue to manage all the way up to the live show, issuing revision pages nightly with the latest updates. I would show you a page from inside the script but there is legal language on the cover forbidding that.

We started rehearsals just after Thanksgiving. Here is a shot of all the script and score documents in my trunk as I picked it up from our printers:

Several hours later, I had assembled all the binders for the start of rehearsals.

The first four weeks of rehearsals were held off-site at a space in Burbank. We split into two studios: our choreographer Sonya Tayeh worked with the 14 dancers in one, while our director Michael Greif (the original Broadway director of RENT!) worked with our 8 principal actors in another. We would all merge together at various points throughout the day to block entire scenes.

Here is a shot of music rehearsal with our music director Stephen Oremus, who first conducted the national tour of RENT twenty years ago as his first major gig! He has since music directed the original casts of Wicked, Book of Mormon, Kinky Boots, and Frozen. He is both extremely talented and a delightful human.

Costume inspirations and renderings for RENT (we were lucky to have the original Broadway costume designer Angela Wendt leading our wardrobe department):

Pinch me! So happy to be here!

A look at the dancers’ space after rehearsal ended one day — you can see the bones of the set:

At the end of Week 1 we held a table read for Fox and other executives. The energy in that room was electric.

The next several weeks flew by as we rehearsed scene by scene, act by act. Here are Brandon Victor Dixon and Valentina rehearsing their first scene together:

Part way through the process, our television director Alex Rudzinski brought in his camera to record rehearsals so he could start planning how to shoot it. Here the company performs the number “Rent”:

Alex continues shooting outside as Brandon and Valentina rehearsed their song “I’ll Cover You” on the jungle gym equipment (that’s Sonya and Michael watching on either side of the frame):

Back in the rehearsal room, director Michael Greif blocks the finale with our principal cast. This was the week Vanessa Hudgens was on the east coast promoting a movie, so our stand-in Megan stepped in to play Maureen. Megan was crucial to this process because she was always on book and could jump in at any moment if someone had to step out of the room.

We spent one day exclusively rehearsing “La Vie Boheme” and it was one of my favorite days of the whole process. That scene is nearly 15 minutes long and is jam packed with such fun lyrics.

Here is a 3-D model of the set by our production designer Jason Sherwood. Isn’t it cool?! Since we hadn’t yet set foot on the actual set, the directors and stage managers used this model as well as 2-D renderings to show the cast exactly where they would be standing at various moments.

Blocking “Finale B”:

Then just before the holidays we went to Fox for the first time. We had a company meeting (pictured below) and then press followed as the cast saw our stage for the first time.

The cast outside Stage 16, about to see the set:

Home for the next five weeks — Stage 16 at Fox!

Other projects that have shot on this stage include The King and I, Hello Dolly, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Edward Scissorhands, and Fight Club.

Before we see the RENT set, here’s a quick tour around the Fox lot…

This is New York street — these are all facades, and that traffic light is fake:

“The hills are alive…” (whoops wrong live musical) — this billboard at the parking structure pumped me up every day. Let’s do this, Julie Andrews!

As did this mural:

There’s even one of those mini lending libraries:

Flashback to 2004 with this Napoleon Dynamite statue:

This faux chateau is home to the offices of Homeland (one of my favorite dramas):

The backside of the chateau as viewed from a balcony on Building 310, which is where the RENT production office was located:

The RENT production office walls showcase design renderings from our Art Department:

This is my sparse desk since I mostly stayed on stage:

American Horror Story was previously in these offices and some of their signage remains:

We ate meals on Stage 11, home to The Orville:

Okay… time to dig into set photos!

Here is a shot of the Loft where Mark & Roger live. I took this photo from the steps of the Hall (where the Life Support group meets). You can see all of our tables on the left — that is where each department had desk space during rehearsals:

Our Lighting Designer Al Gurdon (a genius) stands on the Loft stairs to set lighting for Angel’s entrance:

Vanessa Hudgen’s first time rehearsing Maureen’s performance on the set in full costume:

Every time they ran through “La Vie Boheme” I would reposition to that side of the stage. It never got old.

Sonya and Michael make slight adjustments to the blocking:

The actors run Life Support scenes in the Hall as lighting makes adjustments:

The beds are set for “Without You.” And you can see part of Angel’s Christmas tree hanging in the rafters (it was made to stack in sections):

Several friends commented that our version of “Contact” is the best they’ve ever seen. I totally agree. Here it is coming together:

These sets of windows fly in from above at various points — the band sits behind them on both levels:

Dry blocking “Finale B”:

The Life Cafe set. They originally planned to use those sliding doors for the voicemail scenes but later decided to re-stage them on the turntable.

The Script Department table:

Two weeks before the live show, our producers invited about 100 people to be a test audience. We did not have cameras yet. Our television director Alex captured reference shots of the audience so we’d have more information about how to better stage / light them going forward. After weeks of rehearsals, our cast was thrilled to perform the whole show in front of an audience for the first time.

(Four days later we did another run-thru, this time without an audience — for the sake of brevity I’m combining my photos of these two events, so if you see the audience disappear and then reappear between images, that is why.)

One other benefit of running through the whole show in costumes at this stage (two weeks before the show) was to figure out if they could make all the hair / make-up / wardrobe changes from scene to scene. It all made sense on paper but this was the first time testing it during commercial breaks.

Alex gets footage of “Take Me or Leave Me”:

“Contact” is coming further along… this is before we added ground fog:

When it gets to “I’ll Cover You (Reprise)” everyone moves towards the Loft for a better view:

“What You Own” has always been one of my favorite songs of the show. I love how it crystallizes some of the themes Jonathan Larson wrote about earlier in “tick tick BOOM.”

Going into “Finale” — I like this angle because you cans see Collins in place for his entrance on the fire escape, as well as Benny (he comes in mid-way through “Finale B”).

About ten days before the live show, we incorporated cameras. At that point I moved into our video truck to follow along as the director, AD, and TD sorted out shots changes with the camera operators. For theater people, this is essentially tech — we went through the show very slowly scene by scene to get every angle right. The producers and directors worked together to make adjustments and figure out how to best tell the story with every shot.

We were working the night of the “Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse” — this resulted in a hilarious moment where the cast and crew came outside and people started “moo-ing” a la Maureen’s performance art. Again: pinch me, I can’t believe I get to be here for things like that.

Here is some footage of this moment from Instagram (shout out to our awesome stand-in Megan for capturing this):

Some backstage photos…

Here is one of the quick change areas:

This flow chart shows exactly how much time each cast member has (down to the second) to make each hair change. A similar chart exists for wardrobe.

More quick change rooms for our featured ensemble actors:

This is a props table — I wish I’d gotten a better angle on it because those cups are hilarious. Can you read what they say? Pills, weed, drugs, etc.

A few more set photos — this was our final run-thru on camera without an audience.

Further tech-ing “Contact” to get the right amount of fog and make sure the actors are safe (they all run out of this scene for a quick change going into Angel’s memorial service):

And all of a sudden it’s Friday, two days before the live show!

On Friday we do a Friends & Family dress rehearsal where cast and crew members get to invite a few people. My cousin and her husband and daughter flew out all the way from upstate New York for this! Their daughter Haley LOVES musical theater and especially RENT (two Christmases ago she asked for the RENT book — a child after my own heart). It was so special to have them here.

Haley had a blast. This was quite a month because they went to Broadway Con in NYC two weeks earlier and ended up in the New York Times! (Haley is dressed as a Book of Mormon character about halfway down that article.) She loves theater, especially singing and acting, and has starred in many local productions in her school and community these past few years.

I can’t believe they came all the way out to LA for this! I am so happy they did!

Later that night when they were waiting for their ride back to the hotel, they ran into Brennin (our Roger) leaving the lot with his family — and he kindly stopped to take a photo with Haley. (Also — Brennin is the kindest person. What a treat to be around him these past few months.)

Grace and her husband Rian also came to dress rehearsal — so special to share this with them!

During each dress rehearsal, I stood behind our lead stage manager Garry Hood as he called the show. We were on a platform just off the stage in front of a giant monitor.

You can see the Loft in the background from this vantage point. On Friday night we rehearsed the final number with stand-ins filling in for the original cast of RENT:

And then on Saturday morning, THE ORIGINAL CAST OF RENT JOINED US!

I messaged my co-workers Adam & Joe about how excited I was (please enjoy the series of emojis on our RENT script team group chat):

“Seasons of Love” rehearsal with these pros:

Our current cast comes out to join their original counterparts:

CANNOT BELIEVE I WAS HERE FOR THIS.

There was some downtime on Saturday afternoon when everyone went to lunch. It felt like it might be the last time I’d be here alone (or with very few people), so I walked around soaking up details of the set.

The Hall where Life Support meetings take place:

Some of Jonathan Larson’s original notes / rundown for the show:

On the left is a copy of Jonathan Larson’s notes for “Seasons of Love” and the math as he broke down a year into seasons, months, weeks, days, meals, hours, and ***ding ding ding*** minutes:

Reverse angle in the Hall looking back towards the Loft:

Details in Mark & Roger’s Loft:

Practical stove for the opening number (the special effects department operates it):

These shots of the Hall were taken later, when it was dressed for Angel’s memorial service:

Mimi’s apartment set (seen at the top of “Out Tonight”):

And the ONLY set that was not on Stage 16 is Benny’s Office, which we see very briefly during “Tune Up” when he’s on a call with Mark & Roger in the Loft — this stage is next door and is home to The Orville, but we were able to squeeze a small office set in one corner:

A few more details for the true RENTheads out there — people who were close to Jonathan Larson in the ‘90s shared these photos (and more) which were posted backstage near the actors’ quick change areas. There are photos of Jonathan with his friends and the real-life people who inspired characters in his shows, like Gordon and Pam and Ali in the Life Support group. I think Michael Greif hand-wrote the captions.

I geeked out about these photos. There were also pics of Jonathan’s best friend Matt and long time dancer girlfriend Janet, who would become characters in his other musical “tick tick BOOM” (which I have seen about 10 times over the years). HOW INCREDIBLE to have access to this history.

Our producers Marc, Adam, and Julie gave us RENT sweatshirts to commemorate opening night. I’m literally wearing it as I type this.

On Saturday afternoon our script team went outside the main gate at Fox to pose in front of the RENT billboard.

And now it’s Saturday night, time to tape our final dress rehearsal. Here’s a photo of the cast and some crew circling up before the show (I got this from our producer Kenneth [a true gem of a human] but I’m not sure who to credit for taking it, it as I’ve seen it all over social media):

Everyone is so excited. The cast is giving it their all. Here is the opening number from my vantage point backstage:

One of the voicemails is shot right next to our monitor:

We get through Act 10 (out of 11 acts total) and realize something is wrong when the lead stage manager doesn’t return at the end of the commercial break. We finally get word that Brennin, who plays Roger, twisted his ankle coming down the scaffolding after “What You Own.” Paramedics look at his foot while we stop for a good 25 minutes. Eventually he’s able to come back out to sing the last act with his foot elevated. Afterwards he goes to the hospital for X-rays while the executives meet to figure out what to do.

The next morning there is a company meeting on-stage. Our executive producer Marc Platt delivers the news that Brennin’s ankle is indeed broken and he cannot perform the show tonight as planned, so we will air last night’s final dress rehearsal instead and go live for Act 11 with modified blocking so that Brennin can stay seated. This will retain part of the “live” element of our show, and since Act 11 is when we feature the original cast of RENT, it will be extra special to see that part live.

Then we get down to business. Our directors Michael and Alex figure out how to stage a concert version of the first 10 acts so that the in-studio audience will still get to see them perform live. The actors briefly run some songs in each set with the camera guys so they get a sense of what we’ll do this evening.

The cast tapes a special message that will air at the end of Act 1 informing the audience that Brennin injured his ankle and most of what they’ll see tonight is from our final dress rehearsal.

Then they re-block act 11 with Roger seated the whole time. And then it’s time for our last meal break before everyone gets into hair / make-up / wardrobe!

We go “live” on Fox at 5pm Los Angeles time. At that same time, we begin the concert version of the show for the studio audience. On the monitor below you can see a few things:

– The large image on the right side is the video from Saturday night which is playing back on monitors in the house, so that the audience can see what the scene is supposed to look like visually as the actors sing in front of them concert-style. There is a monitor operator shuttling ahead or behind so that the visuals match the actors singing live on stage.

– The image in the middle of the left side above “Fox Return” shows what is airing that exact moment on Fox for the rest of the country. It is slightly out of sync with our live concert but not by much.

– The image on the bottom of the left side is the “Director’s Router” which shows the cameras our TV director Alex is calling live in the moment. This is not scripted the way that the broadcast is (which took weeks of planning specific shots); rather, this is a more spontaneous cutting as the camera operators cover the action.

– All the other images on the left side are various camera angles to get close-ups, wide shots, etc. We had around 10 camera operators on this show and maybe 15 different cameras total (some were locked off for specific angles).

Here you see the footage from the real scene airing on TV (Roger on the right) while the actor sings from his wheelchair (Brennin on the left):

Here is some video from my vantage point:

(Check out this link for more footage of the concert.)

Partway through “La Vie Boheme” Brennin was getting tired (understandable given the pains meds) so Jordan (who plays Mark) sang part of the song with him. Hilarious. It was fun to see the actors do spontaneous blocking / choreography throughout this whole concert. My personal favorite was Tinashe (Mimi) doing “Out Tonight” as she flirted with members of the audience.

And then we got to the very last scene and transitioned to LIVE for fifteen minutes! And then it was all over.

We had a wrap party on stage 11 with food, music, and very green lighting. A major thank you to our producers for providing a wrap party — we all got to hang out for 2-3 hours chatting, saying goodbye, and patting each other on the back after 2.5 months of hard work.

My boss Adam and our associate producer Jeremy (who is very good at reading rooms):

I love these people! This is Joe (script coordinator), Adam (production supervisor), and Gema (director’s assistant) — we ate our meals together (often with the awesome props team) and I am glad to call them all friends:

Photos with two of our actors — Valentina (Angel), and Brandon (Collins):

I want to share more photos of the crew but I didn’t take a ton — fortunately our producer Kenneth did! Here are some of his photos, captioned by me:

Our core creative team on press day (Kenneth, Angela, Michael, Julie, Stephen, Sonya, Jason, and Adam):

One last shot of the RENT script team:

And here’s my on-screen credit:

A few miscellaneous shots from social media that I want to squeeze in:

One last parting shot (I think this is a screen grab from the rail cam, captured by Kenneth):

What a journey. What a thrill. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

If you’re not tired of reading yet, I put together all my favorite tweets from the night are in this post here.

And here is a link to all the other recaps I’ve written about working on live TV musicals — Peter Pan, The Wiz, Grease, A Christmas Story, and Jesus Christ Superstar.