Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC Tina Fey in a live episode of “30 Rock” in 2010.
The first time, it’s a stunt; the second time it’s a tradition. On Thursday, “30 Rock” will once again journey from its home at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens, to NBC headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan for an episode that will be shown live. As it did in a similar outing in October 2010, “30 Rock” will ditch its filmed format and adapt its fast-paced repartee and cutaway sight gags to a no-second-chances style more familiar to “Saturday Night Live” (whose base of operations at Studio 8H will again be the site of the “30 Rock” show).
Sitting in the balcony of Studio 8H on Tuesday morning, overlooking the sets of the hallways of “T.G.S.” (the show within a show), Jack Donaghy’s office and, for some reason, a telethon bank decorated with a sign reading “G.E. Cares (Not Legally Binding),” Tina Fey, the “30 Rock” creator and star, spoke about preparations for this year’s live show, what she learned from her first try at it and what the future might hold for her series. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation:
Last time, you did your live show twice, for East Coast and West Coast audiences —
And a dress rehearsal.
So after all that, why do it again?
They asked us to do it again. And of course, I’m always paranoid. I’m like, “We’ve got to say yes so they don’t let someone else do it.” So we started talking about in the fall. And the first thing I said was, before we can say yes, we have to see if Beth McCarthy-Miller is available to direct. She’s literally the only person that can do it, because she’s done both shows and Super Bowl halftime shows and stuff. She just doesn’t fear pressure.
Did NBC give you a sense of why they wanted another live episode?
I think they wanted to have some events going into what is close to sweeps. Because of the “S.N.L.” schedule, we couldn’t do our finale that way, which is actually better for us, because then we can get back on track with our stories and end that way.
I know you’ve got surprises you want to save for the night of the show, but can you talk about the premise of this episode?
We’ve kind of given away the general premise, which may have been a mistake. But the premise of the episode is that word comes down from Kabletown that they don’t want to do “T.G.S.” live anymore, as a cost-cutting measure. They want to do the Tyler Perry syndication model, shoot a bunch of these with no audience, and everyone’s on board. Liz is like, “Yeah, I’ll work two weeks a year.” Tracy, Jenna, they’re like, “Great, let’s do that.” Of course the only person who objects on moral grounds is Kenneth [the NBC page turned censor turned janitor], who then spends the rest of the episode trying convince everyone that live television is a magical, special connection among people and the studio itself has an illustrious history that has to be learned about and respected.
So in that sense it becomes a tribute to the tradition of live TV broadcasts?
Yes, hopefully. Or it’s a bunch of a mustaches falling off. Either way, it’s going to be on Thursday.
Were there any lessons you learned from the previous live show that went into planning this one?
For sure. We found evidence that, of hardcore fans of the show, some people were really jarred by the live audience, which we can’t particularly help. But the warmup that people did not see at home included Jane Krakowski singing “Proud Mary” and Cheyenne Jackson tearing up the place. I think the audience was so jazzed up that people at home were like, “Stop it – it’s too intense.” I don’t know that we’ve learned our lesson, because we are letting them sing again.
The other thing we learned is that there’s no way the show’s ever going to have the same feel as a filmed episode, so this time we’ve just let it have a different style and structure. Some people – I would say at least half the people I could find – could get on board perfectly fine with it. It’s going to be different, it’s going to look different. And then some people were like, “No, it’s different!” So this, hopefully, has permission to be different because it’s a different structure.
Last time you used some special guests to stand in for your principal characters in their flashback and cutaway scenes. Is that a custom you plan to uphold?
We’re going to try to do that again this year. We have a lot of people coming – people I would call friends of the show and friends of comedy in general.
There’s been a lot of speculation lately about the longevity of “30 Rock.” Does that cast an event like this in a different light, or give it a sense of urgency?
This particular episode? Probably for no one but us, it gives it a sweetness for us. But I don’t know if at home they would feel any of that difference. I definitely feel like we’re lucky to do it again, to be back in here again.
It’s been said that next season will be the last for “30 Rock.” Is that your understanding as well?
We work for NBC, so we’ll see what they say. The one thing I’ve always wanted from the beginning, that hopefully will come true, is that whenever we do end, I would like to know in advance. So we can write the end. Because it’s such a writers’ show. And whenever it does happen, that NBC does understand that.
