*jesse martin voice* i'll cover youuuuuuuuu

Lee | they/them | theater/shakespeare sideblog | and civil blood makes civil hands unclean

[nogooddeetz]

i think i block out just how cute collins and angel are every time i finish watching/listening to rent because it hurts so much

[this-had-better-come-to-a-stop]

I was watching a proshot of rent and someone in the comments said that mark looked like the teen version of the glasses kid from the polar express so I looked them up for comparison and I just

AKSDGJK

[nedlittle]

i was tasked with creating a shakespeare scene/monologue using only lines from other plays + ended up getting a perfect 100 for this lmao

@jeynegrey told me to post this so i had to comply

(annotations under the cut)

Keep reading

[to-more-than-one-dimension]

My personal sexuality/gender identity headcanons of Rent characters because it's Pride Month:

Mark: Trans ftm, Bisexual

Roger: Bisexual

Collins: Queer(knows he's not straight but doesn't really care to find a specific label)

Angel: Trans mtf, Queer

Joanne: Lesbian

Mimi: I'm not 100% sure. Some bi vibes. But mostly just really chill ally vibes

Maureen: Bisexual

Benny: Straight, homophobic

[makingflowerscreek]

Theatre kid; Yeah, I’ve been going to ballet and tap classes since I was a fetus and I got the lead in the last three shows I’ve been in and my aunt is Idina Menzel. Anyway, what shows have you been in?

Me, with my zero ounce of talent but obsession with musical theatre;

[musical-theatre-suggestions]

a new lease you are, my love

on life, be my life

[angualupin]

I feel like I need to tell everyone how brilliantly the Globe incorporated a deaf Gildenstern into the 2018 Hamlet and then force all of you to watch it

ok, so Gildenstern is played by a deaf actor, Nadia Nadarajah. he* signs all his lines, and either Rosencratz interprets for him, or the person he’s talking to says something that makes it obvious what he just said, depending. how each character reacts to Gildenstern is completely in-character and often hilarious

Claudius and Gertrude are intensely awkward around Gildenstern. they obviously don’t know BSL so they just gesture emphatically but aimlessly when they talk.

Hamlet, who of course is friends with R&G, *does* know BSL. he starts off by signing fluently whenever he’s talking to them but, as his distrust of them grows, he signs less and less until he’s only signing the equivalent of “fuck off” whenever he talks

Polonius just shouts really loud whenever he tries to talk to Gildenstern

it’s all brilliant and adds another layer of humor and pathos and you should all watch it

*casting at the Globe right now is gender neutral so I’m just going to use the character’s pronouns

[angualupin]

guys I know I’m wittering on about this but the thing I want to emphasize is that there is no tokenism here. they didn’t just shove a deaf actor into a speaking role so they could pat themselves on the back about how progressive they are. they went to the effort of fully integrating Nadarajah’s deafness into the story so that it not only fit organically within the narrative but actually enhanced it. watching Hamlet’s signing disintegrate as his trust in R&G disintegrates adds a depth to that storyline I’ve never seen before. Claudius has exactly the awkwardness of someone who thinks of himself as a good person and therefore thinks he’s being kind and generous with his accommodations for disability, but has never even once actually asked a disabled person what they need, which is so on-point for his character it hurts.

I know Michelle Terry gets a lot of hate mail for her policy of race-, gender-, and disability-blind casting, but fuck all those people. long may that policy continue.

[lostsometime]

the glenda jackson production of king lear on broadway did something similar with the Duke of Cornwall, and it was actually the best part of the play, imo.  because when Cornwall was speaking to Lear or to the Court, he had a sign language interpreter to speak the actual literal words aloud, but when he was talking to and conspiring with Regan, his wife, they were just signing back and forth with no translation for the audience, and it emphasized the intimacy between the two even as they turn against literally everyone else in the play, which was fantastic.

and the best part of it was, by the second half of the play, you were so used to it, that you didn’t even blink anymore when watching him and listening to the spoken words come from the interpreter - you just watched the actor playing Cornwall and let the words come from the other guy, but the guy kind of fades into the background.  it didn’t hurt that the actor for Cornwall was one of the tallest on stage, and had bright red hair - it was easy to watch him, instead of his interpreter.

which is why it was so shocking and so perfect when the interpreter is the one who kills him.

See, they folded the character of the servant who kills Cornwall into the person of this character who had been such a non-entity that you almost forgot he was on stage - until you realize, no, this is another person, and he’s been here, watching all this the whole time, and he finally gets to the breaking point where he can’t stand by and translate anymore, he has to do something to stop the cruelty he’s seeing, and it’s not just a random guy who comes in for the scene and sees them blinding Gloucester, it’s the man whose been by his side for the entire play, the man who was his voice who finally has a line of his own.  who finally speaks on his own behalf to say “no.”

and then, of course, he gets killed, but Cornwall dies in the same scene so it’s not like they need to get a new translator or anything.  but it was the most fucking brilliant choice i’ve ever seen re: casting in a Shakespearean production, and the rest of the play pales in my memory in comparison.

[and-a-comma-after-dearest]

Collins: *gets beaten up in some back alley and is in need of someone to help him*

Angel:

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

req’d by @nerdy-nonbinary​

[aahsokaatano]

@horaetio

[lacetulle]

Flying Solo | Fall/Winter 2020

[to-more-than-one-dimension]

Rent Characters as Text Posts: 17/?

[oscmints-library]

I'm watching RENT for the first time and I'm not entirely sure whats going on, but will someone please hug Roger??? He seems sad.

[h-haleyy]

in need of a hot gf to sing i'll cover you from rent with

[nevermind3214]

I am physically incapable of skipping One Song Glory

[englishproblems]

[nedlittle]

i was tasked with creating a shakespeare scene/monologue using only lines from other plays + ended up getting a perfect 100 for this lmao

@jeynegrey told me to post this so i had to comply

(annotations under the cut)

Keep reading

[elftwink]

[image text:

(Following Hamlet V.2)

Horatio:

Now I am alone, so, with a crack’d heart, I speak my griefs unspeakable. There are comets for the death of princes, but what for the people who loved them? Sorrow bids me speak, yet I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. I do now remember.  His voice, his visage, his sad brow, the ache in his shoulders, our history. My poor boy, Icarus, I loved you dearly. I would have followed your sad steps into th’ abysm of hell. O heart, cruel foe, ill-sheathed knife, mine enemy.  How darest thou let me love him so easy. How darest thou let me lose him so easy.  Love is holy! Countrymen and lovers,  hear me and my broken voice: nothing can we call our own but love and quiet life. For an eternal moment, I knew both, then in an instant, neither.   But here we must end the story. I beg cold comfort, remember me, the lover. ]

[to-more-than-one-dimension]

My favorite version of Mark and Joanne's dynamic.