On Friday, May 2, the Courtyard Theatre at the Getz Theatre Center was transformed into an apartment on the lower east side of New York for the opening night of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical “Rent.” Among the band posters hung about the walls and twinkling string lights, an eager crowd enjoyed the classic tunes of 1990s bands such as The Cure and The Smashing Pumpkins as the lights dimmed.
“Rent” follows a year in the life of a group of friends, artists all in their own right, as they navigate increasingly complex relationships and the ever present AIDS epidemic of the time.
“It was my first college audition and my first college show,” said first-year musical theater BFA Kyler Anderson. “It’s a very different experience with rehearsals being every day.”
Rehearsal began shortly after casting in March and took place nearly everyday. The crowd included two of Anderson’s friends who came out to show support.
“‘Rent’ has kind of been with me since I was born when the movie came out,” said first-year comedy major Zoe Fasig. “My mom has been obsessed with it since I came out of the womb essentially.”
Apparently, the “Moon” song was playing during Fasig’s birth.
First-year comedy major Emmy Halliwill was completely unfamiliar with the musical before seeing it.
“I didn’t even know the plot line or anything, and it was fantastic,” Halliwill said. “Everything about it was very high quality, and I was very shocked by that.”
Quality truly manifested across every facet of the production, from the dynamic set design to falling snow. The audience was engaged throughout its entirety, at certain times bursting into cheers and even tears during the emotional scenes.
“The lighting design was really good,” Fasig said. “I’ve done lighting and sound design for about eight years now, so watching that and seeing all the lighting designs was fantastic.”
Helping in that design was senior scenic and costume construction major Al Villanueva, member of the scene shop. Villanueva and fellow designers drew a lot of their inspiration from a series of photos entitled “Kill City” by Ash Thayer, whose photos documented the squatters of the lower east side in the 1990s.
“A lot of the designers, including myself, started looking through all of those photos to grab inspiration off the people, the environment they lived in, the colors, and we tried enveloping all of that into that,” Villanueva said.
This was a similar process to that of senior stage management major and stage manager Dylan Hirt.
“Research is kind of different with stage managers,” Hirt said. “For this, it was diving deep into what the culture is like during this play, how did it change throughout the years [and] has the show impacted people throughout the years.”
An impact that can be felt throughout the cast and the audience.
“This show is just so emotional,” said junior acting major Thomas Toohill who played the lead role of Roger Davis. Toohill had been familiar with the AIDS epidemic but never the extent to how it affected marginalized communities in the 1990s.
“The problem is they tried to keep it on lock,” Toohill said. “The president at the time didn’t care.”
As “Rent” so closely follows the semi-aubiographical life of author Jonathan Larson, and the very real ways AIDS impacted the lives of his loved ones, the cast and crew felt it important to give the show and the characters their due research.
“I knew that this was going to be one of the hardest things that I was ever gonna do in my life, and I had to be ready for that and prepared for that,” said junior musical theater major Brennan Lockwood, who comprised the role Angel – the beloved drag queen and street percussionist who glues the main cast together.
“I feel on top of the world,” Lockwood said. “From the start of the show, even to after she dies and she becomes truly who she is, I am always just in awe and amazed by the feeling I get when I walk off stage. It’s just amazing.”
“Rent” runs through May 10 at The Getz Theatre Center at 72 E. 11th St. Tickets are $5 for students.
Copy edited by Matt Brady
