“Rent” Will Be Fox’s Next Live TV Musical Event

But will it light your candle?
From: NewNowNext

 Rent-heads rejoice! Fox has chosen Rent as its next live musical, EW reports. No air date has been set, but hopefully it’s less than 525,600 minutes away.

Grease Live! producer Marc Platt will produce the special event alongside the estate of Jonathan Larson, Rent’s late writer and composer.

 “The title is so iconic, the music is so beloved, and the themes are as meaningful today as they were when the show first premiered on Broadway,” said Fox executives Dana Walden and Gary Newman in a statement. “With Marc overseeing this project, we are sure it will have a profound impact on the legions of fans who know and love this musical.”

A rock opera inspired by Puccini’s La Bohème and set in New York City’s East Village, the groundbreaking LGBT-inclusive musical tells the story of a group of artists struggling to follow their dreams in the shadow of AIDS.

Rent opened on Broadway in 1996 and closed in 2008 after 5,123 performances. The Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, which has been produced around the world, was adapted into a 2005 film starring most of the original Broadway cast, including Anthony Rapp, Idina Menzel, and Wilson Jermaine Heredia.

Neil Patrick Harris, who appeared in the Broadway production, notably directed a star-studded Hollywood Bowl staging in 2010. An off-Broadway revival followed the next year.

Fox also announced that it will produce a live TV version of A Christmas Story. Also produced by Platt, the telecast will be adapted from both the 1983 holiday film and the Broadway musical of the same name by Oscar-winning La La Land composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who will compose new songs for the event.