GOOD MORNING BROADWAY FANS! We are only 1 more day till Broadway’s biggest night of the year. Can you believe tomorrow is the 71st Annual Tony Awards?! As promised, we are proud to present the # 1 show on our TOP 30 TONY AWARDS COUNTDOWN. So here we go…
At # 1, we take you to down to New York City’s bohemian lifestyle in the Bohemian Alphabet City part of the East Village filled with struggling artists, drag queens, drug dealers, and people dying from serious diseases including HIV/AIDS. This is of course Jonathan Larson’s groundbreaking rock musical Rent.
From the 1996 telecast, the original Broadway cast perform a medley of songs (which is a perfect way to celebrate Tony night tomorrow) including the show’s anthems SEASONS OF LOVE & LA VIE BOHEME.
RENT originally premiered downtown in a sold out run at the New York Theatre Workshop before transferring to Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre playing a total of 5, 123 performances. It was well known as the breakout musical for many of it’s original cast members including Tony winning superstar Idina Menzel, Taye Diggs, Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Jesse L. Martin, and much more. The show went on to win 4 Tonys (including Best Musical and Best Score for Jonathan Larson) and also one of the few musical that has won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show also brought more younger Theatergoers into the world of Theater. In addition, the show opened the door for many of Broadway’s current acclaimed Tony Award winning and nominated writers including Lin-Manuel Miranda (In The Heights, Hamilton: An American Musical, and Moana), Pasek and Paul (Dogfight, La La Land and Tony nominees this year for Dear Evan Hansen), and the dynamic duo of Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey (Next to Normal, If/Then Musical).
Rent was later revamped as an Off Broadway revival in 2011 playing New World Stages for only 482 performances.
Unfortunately, Jonathan Larson never lived to see RENT in it’s worldwide success. On the morning of the musical’s first public preview performance at the New York Theatre Workshop, he unexpectedly died of an aortic aneurysm. Due to the emotional loss of their friend, the cast and creative team came together and decided to cancel the first preview publically and instead invited all of Jonathan’s friends and family for a special memorial edition of the show. At the end of the show, there was a moment of silence and what broke it was a person in the audience cried out THANK YOU JONATHAN LARSON before erupting into a standing ovation.
If you want to learn more about RENT and it’s road to Broadway. Be sure to join us on our INSIRATION OF RENT WALKING TOUR where we’ll take you to some of the key locations win the East Village here Jonathan got RENT on it’s feet as well as places he was inspired by that he wrote about for the show.
Well, that’s it!! We hope you all enjoyed our selection of Broadway shows on our TOP 30 TONY AWARDS COUNTDOWN. Tomorrow is going to be a really exciting evening. Be sure to tune in to the 71st Annual Tony Awards tomorrow night at 8pm eastern standard time / 7pm central time. The ceremony will be coming to you live from Radio City Music Hall hosted by Kevin Spacey. In addition, we will be following along and tweeting throughout the ceremony here on social media.
We cannot wait to do this countdown next year as we countdown 365 days till Tonys 2018!!!
Look back at RENT’s 1996 Tony Awards performance, as the legendary, multi-award-winning and ground-breaking musical celebrates its incredible 20th anniversar…
GOOD MORNING BROADWAY FANS! Can’t believe we are only 22 days away from Broadway’s biggest night of the year, the 71st Annual Tony Awards. We have more exciting Broadway showstoppers coming for you on our TOP 30 TONY AWARDS COUNTDOWN.
At #22 today, we visit the home of a dysfunctional Jewish family where the husband divorces his wife to be with his gay boyfriend and friends, their son is about to have his Bar Mitzvah, and the family therapist that changes his wife’s life. This is James Lapine and Willian Finn’s cult musical classic Falsettos on Broadway.
From the 1992 telecast, the cast of the original production perform a medley of FALSETTOLAND, MY FATHER’S A HOMO, & THE BASEBALL GAME.
FALSETTOS was originally conceived as 2 separate one act musicals that both performed Off Broadway. It was is actually is a sequel to an original story was actually called IN TROUSERS by William Finn telling the story of “Marvin” in his early life. It was the beginning of a 3 part musical called THE MARVIN TRILOGY. It premiered Off Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in 1979 for a limited 2 week run. 2 years later, William Finn collaborated with James Lapine to write an additional 2 sequels to the story of IN TROUSERS. The first musical sequel entitled MARCH OF THE FALSETTOS premiered again at Playwright’s Horizon (later transferring to the Westside Theatre). 9 years later, the second musical sequel and final chapter of THE MARVIN TRILOGY entitled FALSETTOLAND premiered in 1990 once more at Playwright’s Horizon. The 2 sequels did so well, Lapine and Finn decided to take both shows and combined them into a full 2 act show entitled FALSETTOS. Today, MARCH OF THE FALSETTOS is the 1st act and FALSETTOLAND is the second act.
FALSETTOS officially premiered on Broadway in 1992 at the Golden Theatre where it ran for a total of 487 performances. The cast starred starring winner Michael Rupert (later Tony winner Mandy Patankin, Gregg Edelman and Adrian Zmed) as “Marvin”, Tony nominee Stephen Bogardus (later Sean McDermott and Sal Viviano) as “Whizzer”, Tony nominee Barbara Walsh (later Tony nominee Randy Graff) as “Trina”, Chip Zien (later Jason Graae) as “Mendel”, Tony nominee Jonathan Kaplan (later Sivan Cotel) as “Jason”, Heather Mac Rae as “Charlotte”, and Tony nominee Carolee Carmello (later Maureen Moore) as “Cordelia” It was nominated for 7 Tony Awards that year winning 2 for Best Original Score (for James Lapine and William Finn) and Best Book of a Musical (for William Finn).
The show most recently had it’s first Broadway revival earlier this season. The production was produced by Lincoln Center Theater at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre for a strictly limited engagement of 114 performances. The revival is nominated this year for 5 Tony Awards this year including Best Revival of a Musical. The cast of this production starred 2 time Tony winner (and Tony nominee again this year) Christian Borle as “Marvin”, Tony nominee again this year Andrew Rannells as “Whizzer”, Tony nominee again this year Stephanie J. Block as “Trina”, Tony nominee again this year Brandon Uranowitz as “Mendel”, Anthony Rosenthal as “Jason” Stage and screen favorite Tracie Thoms as “Charlotte”, and Betsy Wolfe as “Cordelia”. In addition, this revival of FALSETTOS was filmed this past January for PBS. It will air on the channel’s Live from Lincoln Center series later this year.
Doesn’t this performance make you want to take a trip to FALSETTOLAND?!
Get ready to wake up with showtunes in the morning as the NBC’s morning news / talk show The Today Show (7am-9am) will celebrate BROADWAY WEEK. The shows that will perform are all talked about new hits for the current 2016-2017 Broadway season.
TOMORROW: Tune in to see Tony nominee Phillipa Soo and the cast of Am?lie On Broadway perform live from Studio 1A at Rockefeller Plaza.
Who is excited?!!
TUNE IN tomorrow at 8:30 AM for a special #AmelieBroadway performance on the Today Show!
Had a blast on our INSPIRATION OF RENT tour this morning on February 4th (which is also RENT’s composser Jonathan Larson’s birthday today). If he were around today, he would have been 57. His music, his legacy, and his message lives on. THANK YOU JONATHAN LARSON. There is NO DAY BUT TODAY. #measureyourlifeinlove
