30 Rock. Richmond and Vulcano were complimentary towards the musicians—Clay Aiken, Sara Bareilles, the Beastie Boys (Mike D and Ad-Rock), Mary J. Blige, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle, Wyclef Jean, Norah Jones, Talib Kweli, Cyndi Lauper, Adam Levine, Michael McDonald, Rhett Miller, Moby, Robert Randolph, and Rachael Yamagata—who performed "He Needs a Kidney". In the DVD commentary for this episode, Richmond believed that the entire song would not make it into the airing. Elvis Costello was once approached to do an appearance on 30 Rock, but the appearance fell-through. At an Oscar's after party, Fey ran into Costello and asked him if he could appear, which he agreed to. According to Fey, none of the music artists got paid to appear on the show as "they all did [it] for free." The reason for this was due to a joke in the song in which Sheryl Crow was the only individual to get paid, as the rest said they did it for free. Following the broadcast of this episode of 30 Rock, the musical performance video was made available for digital download on iTunes with all the proceeds from the sales going to the National Kidney Foundation. According to Fey, there were discussions on whether or not to use a real talk show host from New York, for the "Dealbreakers" segment, but ultimately decided to make one up and went with actress Napiera Groves who plays talk show host Vontella in "Kidney Now!". The Tracy character plot was based on Tracy Morgan who in real-life was given a diploma by his former high school, DeWitt Clinton High School. Like the Tracy character, who dropped out of high school after being asked to dissect a frog, Morgan dropped out of DeWitt Clinton when his father became ill. Jack and Liz's scene, along with Tracy and Kenneth's, at the end where they watch the charity concert, was filmed the day before the musical number took place. "They were pretending to look at the singing", revealed Fey. They forced that shot in so that the episode not just end with the performance. Professor Milton Greene was played by guest actor Alan Alda, best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce from the television series M*A*S*H. This was Alda's second appearance, having appeared in the previous episode "Mamma Mia". In a scene of "Kidney Now!", Tracy breaks down crying and says "There is