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With “Dancing with the Stars” set to come back for a 33rd season this fall, there’s a long list of celebrities who deserve to compete. Three of my past suggestions actually did end up cast on the show: Frankie Muniz (who placed third in season 25), Kel Mitchell (who placed second on season 28), and Jamie Lynn Spears (who was the second to be eliminated last season). Below is a list of male celebs I think the show should consider to vie for the next Mirror Ball Trophy. Do you agree with my picks? Check them out below, then vote in our poll at the bottom of this post to let us know which you’d most like to see on “DWTS.” And let us know in the comments what other stars you would like to see when the show comes back in September.

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The star-studded 20 th Annual Emmys Golf Classic raised over $300,000 for the Television Academy Foundation.

Cedric the Entertainer Hosts 20th Emmys Golf Classic

Proceeds from the fundraiser will benefit the nonprofit Foundation’s renowned educational programs.

Television stars, entertainment industry executives, Television Academy Foundation leadership and corporate partners competed in the golf tournament at the Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, California, on Monday, Oct. 28.

Hosted for the third consecutive year by Cedric the Entertainer ( The Neighborhood), the event included competitors from some of television’s top shows: Anthony Alabi ( Raven’s Home; Family Reunion), Philip Boyd ( The Haves and the Have Nots), Andy Buckley ( Shameless), Matt Corboy ( Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television), Matt Craven ( Unspeakable; Sharp Objects), Patrika Darbo ( Aunt Cissy; Indoor Boys), Arturo Del Puerto ( For All Mankind), Pat Finn ( The Middle), Terry Gannon (NBC Sports and the Golf Channel), Max Greenfield ( The Neighborhood), Brennin Hunt ( Rent: Live...

This past January, Broadway audiences found a new hero to root for, when they curled up on their couches and tuned in to Fox's Rent Live. Brennin Hunt made his theatrical debut in the television special as the struggling musician Roger, andthis summer he's moving on from the small screen to the big stage as the new star of Pretty Woman.

Pretty Woman: The Musical will end its Broadway run on August 18, when the show will have played 27 preview and 421 regular performances at the Nederlander Theatre since its debut last August.

Producers revealed the news Wednesday, saying the musical will begin performances in Hamburg, Germany in late September. A U.S. national tour will kick off in October 2020.

The musical, which was shut out of Tony nominations this year, was the highest-grossing and longest-running new musical of the 2018-2019 Broadway season. It has broken the Nederlander’s eight-performance weekly box office record four times during its run.

Based on the 1990 blockbuster movie starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, Pretty Woman: The Musical opened on August 13, 2018 with Samantha Barks and Andy Karl in the lead roles. It features original music and lyrics by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, a book by the late Garry Marshall and the film’s writer J.F. Lawton,...

When you're making live TV, there are no second chances. "There are always things that come up that are unexpected. You have to handle that and move on," says audio mixer Mark Young. "Every live musical that I have done brings its own challenges."

That was certainly the case in January when he worked on Fox's Rent: Live, based on the 1996 Tony-winning musical about a group of young artists in the East Village. After Brennin Hunt, who played Roger, broke his foot during a dress rehearsal the day before the broadcast, Fox chose to air ...

The Television Academy has ruled that Fox’s version of “Rent” can submit in the variety special (live) category at this year’s Emmy Awards, Variety has learned.

Originally the performance was set to be a truly live event on a Sunday night in January, but performer Brennin Hunt broke his foot during the previous evening’s performance and therefore was unable to perform the full choreography needed for the show to go on fully as planned. The performance at which he got injured was shot live-to-tape and was what ultimately made the broadcast — with the exception of the final act, for which production did switch over to a true live performance on Sunday. The final act had altered choreography from the original plan so that Hunt could sit on stage and sing, even though his foot was in a cast. The original Broadway cast of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer...

“I became obsessed,” admits Vanessa Hudgens of her love for “Rent.” After performing in the show at a Hollywood Bowl performance in 2010, she “fell in love with the community and family” that the show inspires. So when Fox wanted to present a live broadcast of the classic Broadway musical earlier this year, she jumped at the chance to dive back into Jonathan Larsen’s music. Watch the full exclusive interview above.

In the Hollywood Bowl production, Hudgens played Mimi, but for “Rent: Live,” producer Marc Platt had a different character in mind for her: Maureen. Nicole Scherzinger played the role at Hollywood Bowl, and as Hudgens watched her perform “Over the Moon,” she thought that “one day, when I feel confident enough, I need to do that part.” That day arrived with the Fox production, and though Hudgens says that her palms began to sweat just rehearsing the number, she...

Paramount Studios was blessed with “Seasons of Love” as Fox’s live broadcast of Jonathan Larson’s Rent took the stage at Deadline’s The Contenders Emmys. Executive producers Adam Siegel, Julie Larson and Alex Rudzinski as well as stars Vanessa Hudgens and Emmy nominated actor Brandon Victor Dixon (via Skype) talked about bringing the musical to live TV, how Brennin Hunt’s injury during production did not hinder the event and honoring Jonathan Larson’s legacy.

“Expect the unexpected is the mantra,” Rudzinski told Deadline’s Pete Hammond.

As a result of Hunt’s injury, Fox aired a full dress rehearsal with the finale of the musical being live. Even so, that didn’t take away from the live aspect of the show. Rudzinski said that this event blends movies, TV and theatrical to create a one-of-a-kind energy that is like opening night and closing night of a show.

Siegel...

Rent lapped up attention for its injured star, but broken-footed Brennin Hunt may heal faster than the live musical format.

A week after Rent became the genre's lowest-rated entry, NBC — the network that kick-started the trend in 2013 with The Sound of Music Live watched by nearly 20 million viewers — abandoned plans for a May staging of Hair.

The musical, which explores drugs, race and sexual identity, was supposed to take the place of NBC's twice-delayed Bye Bye Birdie, which now sits in live-event purgatory alongside a planned production of Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men. Over ...

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Fox Entertainment’s Charlie Collier brought a bit of theatrics to his first TCA presentation as CEO, initially faking out journalists with a surprise appearance by “Better Call Saul” star Jonathan Banks (who wore a “Masked Singer” hippo mask). But it was the first live musical produced under his brand new reign at the network, “Rent,” which was a focus of his time on stage.

Collier said that he gets asked a lot about “the live musical business,” and “we love live musicals and it’s a very tough business.” In the case of “Rent,” it wasn’t technically all that live, due to an injury sustained by star Brennin Hunt during the show’s final dress rehearsal the day before. Because there were no understudies cast for the lead roles, the final broadcast featured the bulk of the dress rehearsal staging, cutting back to a live “concert” staging for...

Fox Entertainment CEO Charlie Collier said that the new Fox Corporation will be “more nimble” and getting a “rare business opportunity” to rethink what it means to be a broadcast network once the sale of other 21st Century Fox assets to Disney is completed.

“We’re all eagerly awaiting our company’s new Day One,” said Collier at the Television Critics Association winter press tour Wednesday. The former AMC/SundanceTV programming chief took on the new role in November overseeing Fox Broadcasting and the company’s live, scripted and unscripted entertainment programming strategy.

He touted New Fox’s flexibility in deal-making, and indicated that it plans to work with independent studios not aligned with a Big Four network, such as Sony Pictures TV and Warner Bros. He called the ability to play the field “a real powerful tool in our arsenal” at a time when the rest of the industry...

Fox Entertainment chairman Charlie Collier said Wednesday at TCA that he does not regret airing Rent and also does not see a future of live musicals in which lead characters all have understudies. Asked what he learned from the experience, Collier admitted he’d sent handwritten notes to everyone involved in the production before its airdate and signed them, “Break a leg.”

Rent, based on Jonathan Larson’s beloved ’90s Broadway musical, reverted to mostly rehearsal footage in its “live” broadcast last month after star Brennin Hunt, who played struggling musician Roger, broke his foot during a dress rehearsal. The show went on, but ratings hit a record low for a live-musical television program.

“On Sunday morning I rewrote a lot of notes, so I learned that,” Collier joked during his session at the winter press tour in Pasadena.

It would have been impractical to have understudies for the lead characters,...

Charlie Collier feels a little bad about the part he played in the injury “Rent” actor Brennin Hunt suffered the Saturday ahead of the live TV musical’s Jan. 27 broadcast — because he kinda jinxed him.

During his first executive session as CEO of Fox Entertainment at the Television Critics Association press tour Wednesday, Collier told reporters he penned handwritten notes to the cast that Friday night in which he told them all to “break a leg,” because “that’s what you say.”

But then Hunt actually did break his foot the following night during rehearsal, preventing him from going on stage for the telecast the next day and keeping “Rent” from being live for the most part.

“So Sunday morning I came in early and rewrote a lot of notes,” he said to laughter from the audience.

Also Read: 'Rent': Here's the (Actually) Live Version of Fox's TV Musical...

Brennin Hunt stole the spotlight in more ways than one with his portrayal of Roger Davis in Fox's Rent Live. While the actor didn't actually perform live for the majority of the show due to an earlier foot injury, he still managed to blow audiences away with a few of his performances from the previously recorded footage during the show's dress rehearsal.

"Breaking my foot last night was not fun, but it's been great being back on set with everybody," Hunt said in a video on his Instagram ahead of the show. "I love these people so much. They've showered me with love and kindness, which is the essence of this musical, and I am just truly honored and blessed to be a part of this Rent family, and I hope you guys enjoy tonight."

Light the candle with Roger and Mimi. #Rent pic.twitter.com/08490pEObe

- Rent...

The show must go on! Ahead of Fox's live production of Rent on Sunday night, the cast hit a snag when one of its stars, Brennin Hunt (Roger Davis), suffered an injury during dress rehearsal on Saturday. While it was originally thought to be a twisted ankle, Hunt later confirmed that he actually broke his foot on Instagram.

Unlike actual Broadway shows, Fox doesn't have understudies for its live performances. As a result, the show aired previously recorded footage from its dress rehearsal alongside some live scenes. Yep, that meant Rent Live wasn't entirely live.

However, it seems like the live audience for Sunday night wasn't completely out of luck. While the rest of the world was watching previously recorded footage of Hunt on TV, the in-studio audience shared footage of him performing in a wheelchair. Thankfully, Hunt did perform live during the show's final act with his castmates...

In case you’re wondering what last night’s Rent studio audience was seeing when the rest of the country — or at least the 3.42 million viewers who made up the lowest viewership for one of these TV musical events — Fox and some of the folks who actually were there are providing a glimpse.

In fact, Fox already has a name for the performance that didn’t air: the “Cast Concert Rendition.”.

Hunt told Deadline’s sister site TV Line that the injury occurred late in the performance, with the second and final act heading to its close just after the song “What You Own.”

“So basically after ‘What You Own,’ when Jordan [Fisher] and I climb the ladder and...

Some actors take "break a leg" as a bit of good luck, and some apparently take it literally.  Last night's production of Rent Supposed-to-be-Live was sent into a little bit of chaos due to the fact that Brennin Hunt, who plays main character Roger, broke his foot during dress rehearsal on Saturday. Roger spends a whole lot of the show jumping around (a seriously large portion of the show), so the solution was to use footage from the dress rehearsal up until the foot got broken, and then rework the last act to work live, with Roger seated.  Many viewers were a little disappointed that Rent Live wasn't actually live, but it was a tough decision Fox had to make without...

After one of the lead actors in Fox's live production of Rent suffered a serious injury during the show's final dress rehearsal Saturday night, Sunday's broadcast wasn't exactly as live as originally planned.

Brennin Hunt, who played the pivotal role of Roger, broke his foot just before the final act of the show — forcing the network to air Saturday's dress rehearsal instead, and only going live after the last commercial break.

The soundstage on Fox's Los Angeles lot was filled with 1,200 audience members who instead were treated to the cast performing a ...

For better or worse, Fox’s live-ish production of Rent aired in some form on Sunday night — but how did it stack up against TV’s other live musicals?

To be fair, Rent is an anomaly when it comes to television’s live theater productions. After cast member Brennin Hunt (who played Roger Davis) broke his foot hours before the show, Fox opted to air Rent‘s pre-recorded dress rehearsal from the previous day. Only the last 15 minutes of the musical were live, though audience members at the Los Angeles soundstage where Rent was filmed were treated to a slightly tweaked,...

The raging, shifting winds of change ripped through Fox’s planned live broadcast of Rent late Saturday. When they were done, cast member Brennin Hunt was left with a busted foot and a broken heart.

In an interview Monday with TVLine, Hunt says he took a tumble on his way to a quick costume change before the Saturday rehearsal’s final segment. A long night at the emergency room and conversations with executive producer Marc Platt and the rest of Rent‘s production team followed, with the ultimate decision to air the recording of Saturday’s unedited dress rehearsal on Sunday — save the finale,...

Brennin Hunt has had a whirlwind weekend.

Hunt was set to play musician Roger Davis on Sunday in Fox’s live version of “Rent” — a role that he says “feels like home to me” because he, too, is a singer-songwriter and he knows what it feels like to try to write a powerful song. But the night before he was set to go live on that nationally televised stage, he broke his foot, which drastically changed plans for the telecast.

“What happened last night would not have happened if my foot had not been broken, and what happened last night was beautiful,” Hunt tells Variety. “It was the essence of ‘Rent,’ and I’m trying to stay as positive as possible and know maybe my foot broke for a reason.”

Since such television specials are cast so specifically, and in great part rely on the name talent to draw the audience,...

Fox’s broadcast of a not-really-live Rent on Sunday finished with a 1.4 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and 3.42 million viewers in early numbers, marking the lowest-rated of the broadcast networks’ musical event shows.

Still, the three-hour adaptation won in the demo in every half-hour (and was No. 1 in adults 18-34 and teen metrics) on a night of both original and repeat programming, tying ABC for the demo win. CBS won in viewers.

Rent, based on Jonathan Larson’s beloved ’90s Broadway musical, reverted to mostly rehearsal footage after star Brennin Hunt, who played struggling musician Roger, broke his foot during a dress rehearsal yesterday. The show went on, however, but still fell short of the previous low for a musical broadcast: Fox’s own A Christmas Story Live!, notched a 1.5 rating and and 4.48 million viewers in December 2017.

The most recent musical, NBC’s 2 1/2-hour Jesus Christ Superstar Live in...

Fox’s live staging of “Rent” on Sunday night delivered the lowest ratings ever for a live broadcast musical.

In the overnight ratings, “Rent” averaged a 1.4 rating in adults 18-49 and 3.4 million viewers. That is below previous last place holder, “A Christmas Story Live,” which drew a 1.5 rating and 4.5 million viewers for Fox in December 2017. It is also a far cry from the highest-rated live broadcast musical to date, NBC’s 2013 version of “Sound of Music.” That show drew a 4.6 rating and 18.6 million viewers.

Nevertheless, “Rent” was one of the highest-rated programs of the night in the key demo, with the show beating out its broadcast competition in each individual hour of its three hour run time.

The ratings also come after “Rent” cast member Brennin Hunt broke his foot just hours before showtime, forcing Fox to rely on pre-taped segments of the show recorded at a dress rehearsal on Saturday night.

Vanessa Hudgens and Kiersey Clemons stole the show during Fox’s Rent Live telecast when they performed the simmering “Take Me or Leave Me.” The pair portrayed girlfriends Maureen and Joanne respectively in the televised adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s seminal musical about a close-knit struggling artists living in New York City during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

“Take Me or Leave Me” arrives during the show’s second act. It’s the height of tension between the performance artist and the lawyer who realize their different approaches to life and love.

Page Alexi Darling, because here’s something hotter than a Buzzline exclusive: a glimpse of what really took place on the Rent: Live stage Sunday.

After the musical’s telecast, which consisted mostly of a taped dress rehearsal thanks to cast member Brennin Hunt’s injury the day before, Fox released clips of the improvised, souped-up table read held for a live audience in Los Angeles.

This “concert version,” as the network has dubbed it, made far less use of Jason Sherwood’s sprawling sets… probably because a wheelchair-bound Hunt had no chance of scaling them. Instead, according to Twitter dispatches from audience members,...

Fox’s “Rent” aired Sunday, decidedly not live. After male lead Brennin Hunt broke his foot during Saturday’s rehearsal, the network decided to air “previously recorded” footage from the day before during its planned 8-11 p.m. telecast, rather than have the cast perform the show as planned.

However, viewers in the studio audience were treated to an actually live version, with the stars performing numbers from the musical with a few changes to the set to accommodate Hunt’s wheelchair. Fox dubbed this the “cast concert version,” sharing several videos from the numbers that were performed live on Twitter later Sunday evening.

For those of you at home, the live TV musical began with “previously recorded” footage of Hunt, who plays the male lead Roger, taking the stage for a few numbers with his co-stars.

Also Read: Fox's 'Rent' Goes on With Mostly Taped Footage After...

The big question of the night for Rent: Live viewers: Why didn't the show have an understudy for star Brennin Hunt? Hunt, a singer-songwriter who previously competed on The X Factor, broke his foot during the taped dress rehearsal the day before the scheduled live telecast on Fox on Sunday, Jan. 27. "Last night during a live performance of Fox's production of Rent, one of the actors, Brennin Hunt, was injured. But in the spirit of Rent, everyone—producers and cast, original and current—is dedicated to ensuring that tonight's broadcast must, and will, go on," Fox Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television said in a statement. Without an understudy and with limited mobility for one of...

Rent on Fox, the live musical event, began its broadcast with the words 'previously recorded' on the screen. Brennin Hunt, who plays Roger Davis in the show, broke his foot during dress rehearsal, which led to the decision that instead of airing live, Fox would broadcast the taped dress rehearsal performance. Unfortunately, this resulted in a show that was not at 100, however, despite all of the trouble, there were many moments that shined through.

Fox's staging of Rent underperformed Sunday night, drawing ratings at the bottom of the list of TV musicals aired in recent years.

Sunday's performance — which consisted largely of pre-filmed footage from Saturday's dress rehearsal after star Brennin Hunt broke his foot near the end of the run-through — posted a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49 and 3.42 million viewers over its three-hour running time. Those are the smallest numbers for any of the four musicals Fox has aired since 2016.

They're also lower than any live (or live-ish) musical since The Sound of Music Live kicked ...

Tech glitches, broken bones, ghosts of stage productions past and, worst of all, live television’s unfortunate and intrusive vogue for giving studio audiences far, far too much screen time couldn’t do overmuch damage to Rent, Jonathan Larson’s beloved-by-many ’90s musical that added another chapter to both TV’s refound love of Broadway and the show’s own against-the-odds trouper legend.

In what turned out to be a fortuitous move, Fox had not been calling the new Rent anything other than that one-word title (early reports had it as Rent: Live!). Good thing: the show became more Rent: Somewhat Live! after star Brennin Hunt, who played struggling musician Roger, broke his foot during a dress rehearsal yesterday.

What aired on Fox tonight, as explained by the cast in an address to the television audience early in the proceedings, was mostly last night’s dress rehearsal, taped before a live audience,...

The writing was on the wall when Fox’s live production of “Rent” opened with a hefty asterisk: This musical event, despite every effort otherwise, was “previously recorded.”

As the cast explained after the first commercial break, the actor in the lead role of Roger (Brennin Hunt) broke his foot during dress rehearsal the night before, and when everyone realized the extent of the injury, a call was made. Instead of performing live as planned, Fox decided to mostly just air the footage they’d already taped, with the exception of a hastily re-choreographed final act that could include Hunt, plaster cast and all.

The situation was, to say the least, not ideal. But the decision to air what was supposed to be a run-through made an undeniable difference in a production full of distractions.

Many actors were noticeably (and understandably!) saving their voices and energy for the real thing...

525,600 tears just fell out of our eyes at the end of tonight's production of Rent (A Little Bit) Live.  The Fox show reunited the entire original Broadway cast for the finale (which was also the only live portion of the show due to star Brennin Hunt's broken foot), and we openly wept. That's not an exaggeration or hyperbole or anything but the full truth. Give us Idina Menzel singing "Seasons of Love" in any way and we are gonna tear up, so give us Idina Menzel surrounded by the entire new and old cast singing "Seasons of Love" together and we're done for.  The live portion of the show included Mimi's (Tinashe) near-death, during which Roger (Brennin Hunt) had to...

It’s been well over 525,600 minutes since Fox first announced it would stage a live production of Rent. (Almost twice that number, in fact!)

Needless to say, our expectations for the musical, which debuted at last on Sunday night, were high — and not just because Rent is a poignant, beloved classic. It also boasted an impressive cast (including Brandon Victor Dixon, Jordan Fisher and Vanessa Hudgens, all of whom have previously worked on live TV-musicals), and it was directed by Michael Greif, who helmed the original Broadway production.

Fortunately, there was a lot to love about Fox’s broadcast (which was only partially live,...

Rent Live ended its broadcast Sunday true to its name, switching to a live telecast after a broadcast that consisted mostly of a taped dress rehearsal held Sunday.

Injured cast member Brennin Hunt, who broke his foot during the Saturday rehearsal, appeared during the musical’s final scene with his foot — in a cast — propped up on a chair as he sang “Your Eyes” to Tinashe’s Mimi.

Then, after the show wrapped, members of the original Broadway cast including Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Idina Menzel, Daphne Ruben Vega and Jesse L. Martin joined their Rent: Live counterparts onstage for...

The stars of Fox’s live — but actually mostly pre-taped — production of “Rent” were joined by the original Broadway cast for the three-hour Sunday broadcast’s “Seasons of Love” finale, which was actually performed “live,” according to the notice in the upper right corner of the screen.

Idina Menzel (Maureen), Anthony Rapp (Mark), Adam Pascal (Roger), Daphne Rubin-Vega (Mimi), Jesse L. Martin (Tom Collins), Wilson Jermaine Heredia (Angel), Fredi Walker (Joanne) and Taye Diggs (Benny), along with ensemble members Gilles Chiasson, Rodney Hicks, and Timothy Britten Parker were among the original stars who appeared in the number, singing alongside their counterparts in Sunday’s televised event.

The scene was “reworked” to include the Fox production’s star Brennin Hunt, who had to sit out the show after breaking his foot during dress rehearsal Saturday. (The network used footage from that Saturday performance for much of the broadcast since Hunt injured...

There's only us, and there's only this...memes. Fox's production of Rent Live, based on the hit 1996 Broadway show about a group of New York City friends, including romantic couples and exes, living with and dying from HIV/AIDS, premiered on Sunday with some shocking news; most of the show would feature pre-recorded footage from the previous day's dress rehearsal, as actor Brennin Hunt, who plays Roger Davis, had suffered a broken ankle during that taping. Despite the lack of live performances, viewers tuned in to watch Hunt and the rest of the cast, which includes Vanessa Hudgens, bring on the nostalgia...and the tears. And like with many airings of TV musicals, posted...

Keala Settle, the face behind the beard behind The Greatest Showman, joined the cast of Fox’s Rent on Sunday to teach us all an important lesson about our lives and how we should measure them.

The actress lent her Tony Award-nominated voice to “Seasons of Love,” one of Rent‘s most iconic songs, sung at the top of the second act during a support group meeting for people diagnosed with HIV. Hit Play on the video above to watch Seattle’s big number.

Fox’s Rent stars Jordan Fisher (Grease: Live) as documentary filmmaker Mark Cohen, Brennin Hunt (The X Factor...

The show is still going on, in more ways than one. After star Brennin Hunt broke his foot during a rehearsal performance of Rent Live, Fox decided to air that rehearsal instead of going live aside from the final act. Despite the fact that the show was no longer technically live, a studio audience was still in attendance, and one audience member recorded the version of the show being shown in studio. It's very different, as Hunt can only sit in a wheelchair and sing, but we'd almost rather be watching it. That's part of the fun of a live show—you just gotta do it the best you can, no matter the circumstances, because it's live. What we got instead definitely does not have that same...

So that was more like Rent Half-Live.  After leading cast member Brennin Hunt, who plays Roger, broke his foot during yesterday's rehearsal of what was supposed to be a live production, a whole lot of changes had to be made, including making most of the production not live. About 20 minutes into the show, after a few scenes labeled as "previously recorded," the entire cast gathered on stage to explain what had happened. "Last night during our performance in front of a live audience, one of our cast members sustained an injury," Vanessa Hudgens, who plays Maureen, said. "A visit to the hospital confirmed that Brennin Hunt, our Roger, had broken his foot and will be unable to...

Fox’s live TV musical “Rent” began with pre-taped footage Sunday — after male lead Brennin Hunt broke his foot Saturday during rehearsal — and that’s how the majority of the show will air tonight.

Hunt, who plays Roger, took the stage with some of his co-stars at the top of the show for a few numbers, with a “previously recorded notice” appearing on screen to signal the scenes were from the taped rehearsal the day before.

The rest of the cast — which includes Brandon Victor Dixon as Tom Collins, Jordan Fisher as Mark Cohen, Mario as Benjamin Coffin III, Kiersey Clemons as Joanne Jefferson, Vanessa Hudgens as Maureen Johnson, Tinashe as Mimi Marquez and Valentina as Angel — then appeared on stage live ahead of the show’s first commercial break to let viewers know Hunt would be “unable to perform tonight” and that “most of what you see tonight is from last night.

If you know one song from Rent, it’s “Seasons of Love.” And if you know two songs from Rent, the second is probably “One Song Glory.”

Roger’s bittersweet, evocative song — that doesn’t remind us of La Boheme‘s “Musetta’s Waltz” — comes relatively early in the musical, the first big number after the title song. But where “Rent” is rebelliously raucous, “One Song Glory” starts off quiet and contemplative as Roger tries to come to terms with the fact that he might not create anything artistically noteworthy before he dies.

Brennin Hunt, the Nashville-based singer-songwriter who plays...

Michael Greif knew Rent would stay in his life – his entire life – by the late 1990s. Jonathan Larson’s rock musical inspired by Puccini’s La bohème – making its TV debut as a special live event on Fox this Sunday – had already stunned New York’s theater world with a 1993 Off Broadway workshop, then 1996’s full Off Broadway production and, later that year, Broadway itself. Just as Hamilton would do two decades later, Rent had accomplished something few stage musicals have managed in the post-rock world: It captured the attention and love of a young generation, a generation that soon claimed Rent as its own.

Too many productions to count would follow, as Larson’s tale of young artists struggling to survive – in some cases, literally survive – in Manhattan’s pre-gentrified Lower East Side gained a worldwide following. Careers were made. At least one song, “Seasons of Love,” became a bona fide standard. Awards were won (Tony and Pulitzer), fans were named (“Rent-heads”), cultural references were made and a movie came and went (the 2005 film directed by Chris Columbus and starring many of the original cast members was a rare disappointment in la vie Rent).

Larson himself lived to see little of it. In one of the theater’s most heart-rending true-life stories, the playwright-composer died after suffering an aortic dissection on the morning of Rent‘s first Off Broadway preview, a horror that has draped the Rent legend in both tragedy and, in a very real way, triumph ever since. Left to fulfill Larson’s dream, and help build his legacy, his collaborators never failed him.

Chief among them was, and is, Greif, the director of the original workshop, the Off Broadway production and the lines-down-the-block Broadway staging.

This Sunday, Greif’s involvement with Rent continues: He’s the stage director of Fox’s live TV event (Alex Rudzinski serves as the TV director). With the production, Rent becomes the latest, and, with its poignant depiction of a community decimated by the then-untreatable AIDS, perhaps most unexpected stage musical to air as a special TV event, following a recent raft of such musicals that have tended more toward late Golden Age Broadway or light family fare.

The Rent cast includes Kiersey Clemons, Brandon Victor Dixon, Jordan Fisher, Vanessa Hudgens, Brennin Hunt, Mario, Tinashe and Valentina, with Keala Settle performing the solo from “Seasons of Love.”

Deadline spoke to Greif, whose remarkable stage directing career includes Broadway’s critically acclaimed hits Next to Normal and Dear Evan Hanson, about his long involvement with the Larson musical, his thoughts on the new cast (and the old) and what Rent has to say to audiences today.

Rent airs Sunday, Jan. 27, 8-11 Pm Et live/Pt tape-delayed) on Fox.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and lengthy.

Deadline: The Rent live event has been described as a reimagining. What does that mean? What will you be reimagining?

Michael Greif: What I got really thrilled about when I began having conversations about the possibility of doing this job was being able to include the camera – to include intimacy – and to really be able to get close up with the psychological complications of all of those characters. So that was the first very exciting new element. I was also very excited about the kind of environment we could reimagine the show in. From the very beginning, [exec producer] Marc Platt and I talked about how concert-like Rent was, how vital the interaction between performers and audience has always been, how there was always a hybrid nature to the show. So one of the first things we talked about was how to build on that performer-audience interaction, and also how to create an environment in which I thought we could clarify some of the narrative and give us the opportunity to visit certain locations with a little more specificity than we’ve ever been able to before. To really land certain scenes in ways we couldn’t land them before, or just give some of the characters some wonderful physical objects and environments to interact with.

That’s the plan that I brought to [set designer] Jason Sherwood. He and I had a fantastic time imagining what some of these locations would be like.

That’s what I’m curious about. What scene from the play first came to your mind in terms of wanting to land it a different way?

Well, for instance, I’ll Cover You, which is a beautiful duet between Collins and Angel, is always a little static in terms of what’s happening in the song, and so I’ve always tried to pursue different activities for them to engage in. It always seemed like, ‘Oh, what could they actually be doing as they pledged this love for one another, and how do we match the delight of that song with a delightful environment?’ And now I think we’ve managed to do that.

Another example are the scenes [with] the support group. That environment was so inspirational. Visiting an organization called Friends in Deed was so important to Jonathan in the inspiration for writing Rent, and this [telecast] felt like a wonderful opportunity to be able to get a little more specific about what that room might be like.

As soon as you mention Friends in Deed and Jonathan, I’m immediately taken back to the ’90s, and Friends in Deed and the Buddy Program of Gmhc, or what was then more commonly called Gay Men’s Health Crisis. I’m wondering, for you and for Rent and a world that has changed so much since the ’90s, What is Rent now? What are we going to learn from Jonathan Larson’s work this time around?

Well, that really has a many-sided answer. It’s important, I feel, to give a new audience the context of the very early ’90s and what those HIV diagnoses meant at the time. I think that’s terrifically vital to understand the psychology of the characters. I think Mimi and Roger and Angel and Collins are all responding to a very, very, very specific set of expectations that were true in the early ’90s that are no longer true, as you say, about an HIV diagnosis.

On the other hand, there are so many scenes in Rent that are completely and totally relevant today, and I think probably the most important theme is one of worthiness, of feeling worthy and being loved, of being able to share love, of never taking for granted the time we may or may not have because we can never be certain of what’s really right around the corner.

So those themes – of identity, of how you choose to define yourself as you’re becoming as an adult, and that incredibly vulnerable and volatile moment in your early 20s – I think that those notions of identity are as every bit as relevant as they ever were, especially in this environment and not only in the Lgbtqi community, but in every community of young people. I mean, suicide is an issue we’re constantly looking at and struggling with, and I feel this show is so much about finding ways in which everyone can feel that their identity is valid, that their relationships are valid and honored. That diversity is welcome. There’s an inclusivity and an empathy [in Rent] and the ways in which the characters form a family and a community and treat each other with kindness and respect. Those issues are every bit as relevant now as they ever were, if not more so.

I’m curious – when Rent first came into your life all those years ago, could you have ever imagined that it would be there after all this time. That sounds flip, and of course with any hit show there are the possibilities of revivals and road shows, but at what point did you think to yourself, Rent is really going to be a big part of my life for the rest of my life?

I’ve got to say that once Rent became a sensation in the late ’90s, I knew it would always be a part of my life, mostly because of the fantastic opportunities and choices it offered me. I also must say that so many of the incredibly valued collaborations that I’ve had since Rent have been touched by Rent because so many extraordinary writers and composers in the process of working on other shows, will at some point, modestly confess how much Rent meant to them and set them on their path.

Lin-Manuel Miranda just tweeted about that the other day.

Yes, Lin said “I could imagine actually doing [theater] because I was interested in telling stories like Jonathan was telling, and I could imagine seeing myself up there because of the company that I was seeing on that Rent stage.” When I worked with Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey [Next to Normal], they said the same thing. When I worked with Justin Paul and Benj Pasek [Dear Evan Hansen], they said the same thing. So I’m really happy that it’s part of my theatrical DNA…and I’m really, really, really thrilled about the opportunities that Rent has made possible.

I mean I’d hate to think that I was ever only doing Rent, but I feel like things have worked out pretty well and I continue to get to work on new, vital, and even groundbreaking musicals since Rent.

Sure. You don’t want to be James Tyrone doing whatever that play he was doing over and over.

[Laughing] Well, as long as we’re talking about not being James Tyrone, I’m really glad Rent is a part of my life.

Rent was such a phenomenon on Broadway, with lines down the block, especially of young people. Do you see TV as a way of introducing it to a new audience? Do you sense that kids today still know Rent?

I think it’s so fantastic that it’s going to be introduced to a new audience. It’s always been a show that has touched young people very deeply. They see themselves in those characters at that very vulnerable and very volatile moment, and they see the formation of chosen family, and now [with the TV production] there’s an opportunity for people who couldn’t afford tickets or couldn’t afford the time to wait online for those limited amounts of very affordable tickets. And they get to meet the show with an incredible cast with all the heart and soul of the original beating loudly with some spectacular new effects, spectacular new stagings. The work of our choreographer, Sonya Tayeh, is so, so remarkable.

It just reminds me of when I had my mind blown seeing things on television for the first time, watching plays on TV and really meeting up with dramatic literature for the first time. I saw The Seagull on television long before I ever saw Chekhov in the theater. I remember watching the Tony Awards and just somehow feeling there was something going on that I was terrifically interested in. I’m hoping that has been happening with people watching these musicals on TV, and I’m really hoping that they become as absorbed in these Rent characters and scenes and are swept away by Jonathan’s incredible music as much as they’ve ever been in the theater.

When we talk about Rent reaching young people, it strikes me that it did so in the way Hamilton does now – with music of its generation. Has the music been updated at all for the TV staging? Does it still speak to its audience?

I’m hoping, I’m assuming, I’m feeling that it’s still speaking to those people. We have a larger band and a larger orchestra than we’ve ever had. We’re trying to follow Jonathan’s initial hopes of actually having a rock band and an orchestra. We have a large string section for the first time ever. Certainly some of the tracks, like “Today 4 U,” have been maybe updated, but [the music] continues to feel to me like contemporary music, like the music we’re listening to now. Music itself is so cyclical, and the reemergence of the ’90s has been almost like wonderfully karmic for us – ’90s culture is so much back in this moment. So it feels like the music continues to be relevant, and the ways in which we’ve changed the music has expanded its sound. There’s a greater versatility in the orchestra.

I’d never heard that Jonathan wanting a rock band and an orchestra.

Oh, Jonathan wanted a lot of things. It was really great to go back to the original stage directions and to see in those first drafts what he wanted to see. I think the television audience will actually see some of those things that he spoke about wanting to see.

Can you give a specific example?

The loft that Mark and Roger live in is now depicted, in some ways, more realistically than it’s ever been. It’s got the kind of skylight that Jonathan initially imagined. It’s got a tub in the kitchen, which Jonathan’s apartment actually had. So it’s a wonderful combination of stage directions and my memories of Jonathan’s actual apartment.

What is the new cast bringing to the show? You know, I have the original cast so clearly in my head that I wondering how the new cast will squeeze its way into my brain.

This company has been given every opportunity to make the characters very much their own. Musically, you’ll hear slight variations to really feature this company’s strength. In our rehearsal process I think the company was really excited and maybe even surprised at how open I would be to allowing their own interpretations and the parts of themselves that they wanted to imbue into these characters. This rehearsal process really gave us the opportunity to allow this particular group to inhabit these roles as fully as that original group did.

Have you heard from the original cast?

Yes, I’ve been in a lot of touch with the original. It’s really, really, really sweet and delightful. They’ve been on my mind a lot as I work with this group. This group, I have to say, reminds me in so many ways of the dynamics of the original group, the way in which they sing together at breaks. The way in which they support one another. When, Tinashe showed up to do “Out Tonight” for the first time in the space, the whole company showed up to celebrate it. There’s just a great spirit of generosity and a great feeling of concern and love for one another that I really think you’re going to see on the television, and that I’ve been really excited about since very, very early rehearsals in November. This score and and living the events of the show have always brought out the best in these young companies, but I think this group – and the ways in which they bring their individual talents and appreciate each other’s individual talents – is really what the heart and the soul of this show is.

Do you think we’ll see Next to Normal on television at some point? Can you give me a scoop here?

I’m not giving you a scoop here, but I’d certainly say that I would love to be able to reinvestigate Next to Normal the way I’ve been given the opportunity to reinvestigate Rent. That would be so sensational.

“Rent”-heads, it’s been more than 525,600 minutes since Fox announced the Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical would come to television, and finally “no day but today” has arrived. The special joins the ranks of other Broadway musicals that have been given the live-tv treatment, such as NBC’s “Jesus Christ Superstar: Live” and Fox’s own live “Grease,” both of which earned critical acclaim.

Based on the music, book, and lyrics by Jonathan Larson — who sadly passed just before the musical debuted off-Broadway — “Rent” has earned a rabid following and numerous awards. The gritty update of Puccini’s “La Bohème” follows seven struggling artists who live in New York’s East Village of the late 1980s/early 1990s.

Sunday’s broadcast comes with a note of sadness. Country artist Brennin Hunt, who competed in the first season of “The X-Factor,” plays struggling musician Roger Davis in the show, but during...

As a “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star, Valentina is no stranger to intricate costume changes. Of course, Valentina has never had to go from street clothes to full-on drag in four minutes — until now.

Valentina is playing Angel, a street performer and drag queen in the ’90s, on Fox’s telecast of “Rent” tonight. And with that fan-favorite role from the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical comes the great responsibility of going back and forth between two versions of the character, while accounting for the fact its a live broadcast. Because there are definitely not 525,600 minutes between commercial breaks.

“As Angel, I have many, many costume changes, gender changes, makeup changes, health changes. (laughs),” Valentina said during a Q&A with the cast and producers last week in Los Angeles. “And so I go on this journey of just transforming throughout the show.”

Also Read: Fox's 'Rent' Live...

Brennin Hunt, one of the stars of Fox's live production of Rent, was injured Saturday night during a dress rehearsal of the musical.

In a statement, Fox confirmed to TV Guide: "Last night during a live performance of Fox's production of Rent, one of the actors, Brennin Hunt, was injured. But in the

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Other Links From TVGuide.com Rent: Live...

In one of the more serious obstacles to recent broadcast network live musical productions, a serious ankle injury to actor Brennin Hunt has altered Fox’s plans for its version of Rent, but the show will go on.

Producers of the three-hour broadcast had prepared for any inevitability, but the leads in the show do not have understudies, as is the case with Broadway shows. The severity of Hunt’s injury, which he suffered toward the end of rehearsal when he rolled his ankle, was not clear as the hours counted down to showtime. Deadline’s sister publication, TVLine, reported that the ankle was broken.

Fox is expected to weave portions of Hunt’s taped performance from Saturday’s rehearsal into the main live show to lessen the stress on the actor. He was having trouble putting weight on the ankle at the end of the rehearsal, according to numerous eyewitness reports.

Brennin Hunt, one of the actors starring in the live broadcast of “Rent” airing tonight on Fox, suffered an injury during dress rehearsals on Saturday. Fox says the broadcast will go on, but one source says adjustments may be required.

“Last night during a live performance of Fox’s production of ‘Rent,’ one of the actors, Brennin Hunt, was injured,” read a statement from Fox. “But in the spirit of ‘Rent,’ everyone — producers and cast, original and current — is dedicated to ensuring that tonight’s broadcast must, and will, go on.”

Hunt, who suffered an ankle injury according to The Hollywood Reporter, plays Roger in the physically demanding musical, starring alongside Vanessa Hudgens, Tinashe, Kiersey Clemons and Valentina. There are no understudies for any of the actors, but there is a taped version of the show filmed during dress rehearsals. A person with knowledge of the production told TheWrap that...

Producers behind Fox's Rent musical had to scramble ahead of Sunday's live broadcast to accommodate their injured star.

Actor-musician Brennin Hunt, who plays one of the male leads, Roger, suffered what he called a broken right foot near the end of the three-hour dress rehearsal on Saturday. The network and producers — including the family of late Rent creator Jonathan Larson — insisted in a statement Sunday afternoon that the show would go on. In a video posted to his Instagram account minutes before Rent live was poised to begin, Hunt revealed that the production was altering his costume as ...

Fox's Rent show must go on—even with an injured actor. Brennin Hunt, Roger in Fox's live musical production of the acclaimed musical Rent, said he broke his foot during dress rehearsal ahead of the Sunday, Jan. 27 telecast. "Last night during a live performance of Fox's production of Rent, one of the actors, Brennin Hunt, was injured. But in the spirit of Rent, everyone – producers and cast, original and current -- is dedicated to ensuring that tonight's broadcast must, and will, go on," Fox Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television said in a statement. According to THR, portions of the live telecast will be from taped segments to accommodate Hunt's injury. There...

Brennin Hunt, who was set to perform as Roger Davis in Fox’s live version of “Rent,” injured what was originally thought to be his ankle during the live dress rehearsal on Sat. 26. But, as they say, the show must go on.

Hunt posted a video in his Instagram story showing off his cast and confirming he broke his foot. The video showed one of the show’s costumers sewing him into a pair of pants that had to be customized to accommodate the cast. Hunt will be at the live event, although a source says they may have to use some pieces recorded from the Jan. 26 rehearsal for the broadcast given the nature of the physicality of his character’s choreography. Fox also confirmed that the original Broadway cast of the play will appear during the live broadcast of the show.

“The experience of putting together this beautiful new...