HBO's Revolution Rent: Broadway in Cuba
Factual America
English - June 15, 2021 14:44 - 42 minutes - 97.8 MBFilm Interviews TV & Film americanhistory hbo society usa academyawards amazon america americanculture americanexperience americansociety Homepage Download Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
The Tony and Pulitzer-Prize winning musical Rent celebrates the 25th anniversary of its Broadway premiere on June 15th.
The musical's message still resonates today, as captured by the HBO documentary Revolution Rent about the first commercial American production staged in Havana, Cuba in over 50 years.
Stage director and filmmaker Andy Señor, Jr played Angel in the Broadway play, directed the Havana production, and co-directed Revolution Rent with Victor Patrick Alvarez.
Both join us to recall the experience of staging Rent in Cuba in 2014. They also discuss the intentions behind making Revolution Rent and the challenges they faced bringing the film to a worldwide audience.
Revolution Rent is debuting on HBO and HBO Max on June 15th.
"I've always told Andy that this is a sacred experience. As someone who's known a lot about the culture in Cuba, I could have went there and stirred the pot, but that's not why I was there. It was Broadway, it was Rent, it was Jonathan Larson's play, Andy was there, it was America and Cuba working together." - Victor Patrick Alvarez
Time Stamps:00:00 - Introducing the guests, and Revolution Rent trailer.
03:40 - What Revolution Rent is about.
05:26 - What it was like working in Cuba in 2014.
08:00 - Victor’s experience and difficulties making the documentary.
09:17 - What resonates with Matthew in Revolution Rent.
12:05 - Discussing the emotional scene with Andy’s mom.
15:00 - How Cuba has been changing since 2014 and normalising relations with the US.
17:50 - How Andy started filming the documentary at his home.
20:00 - How staging the production in Cuba changed the lives of the team.
25:03 - What life lessons we can learn from Cubans.
26:32 - Clip: Rehearsal scene from Revolution Rent.
27:44 - What restrictions there were for filming in Cuba.
30:50 - The intentions Andy and Victor had with filming the documentary.
36:59 - What documentary project Victor is working on next.
Revolution Rent (2019)
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures
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Connect with Victor Patrick Alvarez:
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