Expanding his already impressive musical theater credentials, Neil Patrick Harris has signed on to direct this summer’s production of “Rent” at the Hollywood Bowl that will run Aug. 6-8.

Harris, who currently stars in the CBS series “How I Met Your Mother,” performed in “Rent” in the role of Mark Cohen in 1997 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and a national tour of the Tony-winning musical.

Joining Harris for the Hollywood Bowl production will be Tim Weil, who served as musical supervisor and conductor for “Rent” on Broadway. Weil will take on the job of musical director for the Bowl’s fully staged production, according to the L.A. Philharmonic.

This marks the first time that Harris has directed a musical theater production, said the L.A. Philharmonic. His stage acting credentials include “Assassins” on Broadway as well as a number of Southern California productions such as Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” at the Geffen Playhouse; “The Paris Letter” at the Kirk Douglas Theatre; and the “Luck, Pluck and Virtue” at the La Jolla Playhouse.

Recent musical productions at the Bowl include “Guys and Dolls” in 2009 and “Les Miserables” in 2008.

On screens both large and small, Harris has brought his musical talent to a recent episode of “How I Met Your Mother” and the online hit “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”.

Last nights episode follows the HIMYM gang as they struggle to break the bad habit of smoking. This episode showed viewers the consequences of smoking; Ted not being able to walk up a couple flights of stairs and Lily’s voice sounding like Harvey Fierstein (which was really Harvey, guest voice appearance). The episode also showed Ted talking to his kid’s about the group’s task of quitting.

We got yet another glimpse into the future in which Robin will eventually date Don, and although we were told that on last week’s episode, we learned a little more about Don this time around. His carless atitude toward “Get Up, New York” really started to get on Robin’s nerves, yet his jokes about colonoscopies and tighty whities were humorous.

By the end of the episode Ted announced the dates all the charactes really stopped smoking, mentioning he stopped “two weeks into dating your mother.” This is the last new episode of the year and when HIMYM returns in January 2010 we will see a huge musical episode, starring the cast and some guest appearances (read below).

What did you guys think of the episode? Leave some comments!

The cast were doing a two-and-a-half minute piece called 'Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit' which was filmed over two days in the FOX's studio lot of New York Street

By: aceshowbiz.com

The first look into the 100th and the first musical episode of “How I Met Your Mother” has been shared. Beside teasing on the main cast such as Neil Patrick Harris, Cobie Smulders and Josh Radnor in suits, the promotional photos also unveil Stacy Keibler’s role as a hot bartender named Karina who is annoyed by Barney’s fashion.

“Barney needs to nail the hot bartender that works at MacLaren’s,” Harris told IGN previously. “Oddly, he’s never banged a hot bartender before. He has a lot of conquests, but never a hot bartender.” Unfortunately, Karina is not a fan of guys in suits leading to a choice for Barney to ditch the suits and bang her or to keep his suits and sing about it.

The monumental episode is called “Girls Versus Suits”, a homage to Barney’s custom of wearing one. It will air on January 11 at 8/7c and present other guest stars such as Rachel Bilson and Tim Gunn. The former is playing the role of Cindy whom Ted wants to get to know of while the mentor of “Project Runway” will play Barney’s personal fashion consultant slash tailor.

There will be a grand musical number featuring 65 dancers and 50-person orchestra, USA Today reported. Composition was arranged by John Swihart but the words and music were exec producers Carter Bays and Craig Thomas’ job. For the choreography, they hired Zach Woodlee who also worked on “Glee”.

Beside presenting musical numbers and Barney pursuing Karina, the episode will reveal more about the burning question. “It’s the closest we’ve seen Ted get to answering the question: ‘Who is the mother?’ ,” Thomas revealed.