LOS ANGELES 鈥� Even if you鈥檙e trying to put the squeeze on a ballooning TV watchlist, consider the pedigree of NBC鈥檚 Rise: It鈥檚 from the Friday Night Lights producer who created Parenthood and a producer of Broadway鈥檚 Hamilton.
With stars Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) and Rosie Perez (Fearless) and a strong cast of young performers, including Auli鈥檌 Cravalho of Moana, the drama revolving around a small-town high school and its theatre program clearly deserves attention.
For Jason Katims, the chance to take a different approach to themes he explored as executive producer of Friday Night Lights drew him to Rise, debuting at 10 p.m. Tuesday. He was captivated by the 鈥渋dea of being able to observe the people of this community and do it through this beautiful storytelling device of musical theatre,鈥� said Katims, who鈥檚 collaborating with Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller.
Don鈥檛 be misled by 鈥渕usical鈥� and 鈥渉igh school.鈥� The series, based loosely on the life鈥檚 work of teacher Lou Volpe that was detailed in Michael Sokolove鈥檚 2013 book Drama High, doesn鈥檛 pick up where Glee left off.
鈥淚f I felt like that was the show it was going to be I wouldn鈥檛 have done it, because Glee did that so beautifully,鈥� Katims said. 鈥淲e spend as much time, more time in fact, in their [the students] homes and with their families and relationships. ... and the theatre becomes their home base in a way that鈥檚 driving the story.鈥�
The youngsters face challenges that are both timeless and contemporary, including teen pregnancy and gender identity. Shades of Friday Night Lights, there鈥檚 even a football thread, with one student (Damon J. Gillespie) caught between his talents as an athlete and a performer. The adults face their own problems.
Radnor plays Lou Mazzuchelli, a fictional version of Volpe who finds himself in a rut teaching English and trying to cope with family tensions. Lou grabs a chance to take over his school鈥檚 theatre program despite scant experience in the field and the fact he鈥檚 leap-fogged a more experienced colleague, Perez鈥檚 Tracey Wolfe.
But Lou鈥檚 passion is real 鈥� for theatre, for the students he wants to inspire and for his Pennsylvania town, which is struggling with hardship after a steel mill鈥檚 closure. He challenges the status quo and students by choosing to stage a provocative musical, Spring Awakening, instead of a more predictable, safe high school choice such as Grease.
(There鈥檚 irony here: The ongoing network fascination with live musicals has itself skewed heavily toward comfortable fare including The Sound of Music and, yes, Grease, with Spring Awakening staged only within fiction.)
鈥淭he core of the story is this beautiful idea that Lou鈥檚 vision enables these students to see their lives in a different way and imagine ... a different future for themselves than they might have had,鈥� Katims said.
Rise, he said, is a project that 鈥渞epresents everything I believe in, which is family, which is community, and which is art, and that鈥檚 why I鈥檓 here today.鈥�
鈥淭he beauty of the story is that it is aspirational, it is hopeful,鈥� he said.
