To celebrate the show’s fifth annual live after-Oscars special, Disney-ABC’s Live With Kelly and Michaelwill welcome girl group Fifth Harmony to the Dolby Theater at Hollywood & Highland Center on Monday.
Fifth Harmony was named “group of the year” by Billboard Women in Music, with their single “Worth It” certified two-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Also joining Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan on the Dolby stage will be 12 dancers from ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, performing live to Andy Grammer’s “Good to be Alive.”
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“We’re making use of that huge stage and the more than 3,000 people who come to see it,” said Michael Gelman, Live’s executive producer.
The show also features post-show reports with Ripa backstage and Strahan on the red carpet.
“We’re the first ones they talk to when they come off the Oscar stage,” said Gelman. “They come off the stage and there’s Kelly. We get people in their moment, just having won the Oscar and given that speech. We get fantastic, emotional interviews with them.”
What the show never knows is what stars it will get to show up, because it’s hard to get people to commit to coming to the show in the early morning on the night after winning the Oscar and hitting up lots of parties. Live shoots at 6 a.m. in Los Angeles to air live at 9 a.m. in New York. That said, in the past, such Oscar winners as Lupita Nyong'o, Octavia Spencer and Christophe Waltz and the entire cast of Best Picture winner The Artist have managed to wake up early to appear on the program.
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Live’s annual live post-Oscars show has been its highest-rated of the year for the past two years, even beating its popular Halloween episode, which features Ripa and Strahan dressing up in multiple costumes.
“After five years, we’ve become a part of the whole Oscar weekend,” said Gelman.
Producing the show is not for the faint of heart, with Live's producers essentially working around the clock before and through the Sunday night awards show and then through the night to the Monday morning broadcast. Once the show is over, the crew packs up and heads back to New York to do it again the next day.
Audiences have become dedicated to the production, though, with those 3,000 or so people showing up at 2 or 3 a.m. to park at the Hollywood Bowl and get in line at the Dolby.
While Live only has use of the Dolby on the day after the Oscars, it makes the most of the content it gathers from the production, posting across social platforms. The show starts the conversation on Friday before heading out to Hollywood and keeps it going even after everyone's back home on Tuesday.
The 88th Annual Academy Awards airs live from Hollywood Sunday, Feb. 28, at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on ABC. It will be hosted by Chris Rock and air in more than 225 territories worldwide.
