Rent evaluation

Last week we performed our version of the musical "Rent" and I think it went well and we got a lot of positive feedback. If we were to do it again on a larger scale, there's a few things that I would change:

1. Location-I feel like that if we were to do it again, I would prefer to do this in a theatre where we could possibly have a similar size stage but where we could possibly be able to make more use of the stage with things like set and props. I feel like we could make it much more like a loft with more advanced decking. I feel like that this would help the audience almost understand more about the setting where the majority of the musical takes place. I think it would also be better if we were then able to make the scene changes much smoother with the set that was transported on and off stage.
2. Costumes-I feel like that we could possibly be able to invest some more money into costumes. The costumes we had weren't terrible but it was mainly using the actors own clothes and we could possibly made Joanne a bit more formal as she is a lawyer and Alexi Darling a bit more business like. I couldn't do this as I was in the next scene and I don't really have that much business wear that I could of used so with money invested in costumes we could of made the characters more realistic of what they would actually wear.
3. Cast-When Rent is done in mostly America, the ethnicity of certain parts are almost a necessity. Collins and Joanne are black and Mimi is Hispanic looking. I feel like that if we did it again we could first of all use a slightly older cast to make it more realistic and have a black Collins as I feel like that kind of soulful voice make the part easier to sing and a Hispanic Mimi as it's mentioned in the script in "Out tonight" (even though we cut it). I do think that Joanne could be any ethnicity though and I think if we were going to cast it, we could definitely open it to more than just black women as it isn't mentioned in the script and the vocals could be sung by any ethnicity. I would also make the cast bigger with 15 people doing it making the ensemble bigger which would boost volume and would prevent the principle characters from doubling up in some ensemble parts.
4. Band-I feel like that we could use a real band so that we wouldn't be constrained to certain timings with the backing tracks as the band generally go with the actors. I feel like this would also make the show have more of rocky feel to it that it was meant to have.
5. Length of show-If we did this again, I'd want to do the full show so that the story would be easier to follow. I felt like that Maureen's and Joanne's type of relationship was difficult to follow at times and would sometimes skip key moments out. I also feel like that Maureen could be in it more even though she's not in most of the first act in the musical anyway. I feel like that we could definitely put all the cut sings back in, especially "over the moon" as it shows the protest against Benny rather than Maureen just showing up to the Cafe. We would obviously then reinstate the interval in the original place and if we did this in a bigger venue, would make it about 20 minutes but in a school, more about 10 minutes as there is less to do for the audience and they would be just sitting there for a bit too long so it would be more suitable to do a shorter interval.
6. Sound-I feel like if we did this again, no matter what venue, the use of radio mics would be needed to help the audience understand the plot more clearer as they'd definitely know what each of the characters would be singing. Giving us mics would mean we would feel more confidence to experiment as we wouldn't be worried about projecting as much.
7. Projection-The cast had this idea to project all of us at the back of the stage at the end for Marks film but we never filmed anything for it so we couldn't do it but I felt like as this is the only opportunity for projection, it would be good use and the perfect time to use it.