By JUDD WEIL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Community College Theatre will present Jonathan Larson’s Rent at the Stringer Fine Arts Center beginning March 31.
Debuting in 1996, Rent is a rock musical that highlights the struggles of a young group of friends in New York City during the late 1980s and 1990s. The challenges they face include not just emotional but physical as well.
Rent, considered Jonathan Larson’s magnum opus, is a very intense show and famous among school productions. It features the trials and tribulations of being a member of the LGBTQ community, drug addiction, as well as people living with AIDS.
Often, the show is censored or cut short, including in the major 2005 film adaptation, for some audiences. This is especially true when it comes to performing the musical as a school production.
We're doing the full show,” Deidre Mattox, show director, said. “There is a school version of the script, I've never heard of a high school doing it, but I know some colleges choose the school version, which doesn't have all of the content in it. We're doing the full version and we're doing it exactly as Jonathan Larson wrote it, so we're not adjusting or adapting anything, we're doing the show.”
Jonathan Larson died the day before the first Off-Broadway preview performance of Rent.
Many of the themes in Rent were causes that Jonathan Larson was passionate about, including the plights of LGBTQ people and those living with AIDS, which he paired in the musical with ‘racy’ or ‘edgy’ writing.
Mattox does not see tackling those themes in Hutchinson Community College’s production of the show as difficult.
“As theatre artists, we don't consider it difficult to do work like this and we have tackled tough issues before,” Mattox said. “I think that as far as this play goes, so many people who might be bothered by some of the LGBTQ content love the show though. They saw the movie, or maybe they've seen a stage production of it.”
Rent holds a special place in the world of performance both on and off the stage with its address of human and social issues.
“It kind of has a following that transcends prejudice to some extent,” Mattox said.
Mattox still issued a disclaimer for the show, and is advertising that it is not for children.
“We're aware that if a person's only familiarity with Rent is the movie, then there's quite a bit that they actually don't know about the show,” Mattox explained. “The stage play is a lot edgier than the movie was, so we are advising no children in the audience, and even younger teenagers, it is probably not appropriate for them unless their parents approve.”
Production work began for Rent at HutchCC in the beginning of February.
“With musicals, I usually like to have maybe one extra week beyond what we had, but we always attend the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in January and so that kept us from being able to start rehearsals right away,” Mattox said. “Then we also had another production the second weekend of February. We did a one-day play festival so that took us away from rehearsal a little bit.”
A total 32 people were involved in this production of Rent including the cast, design team, and technical team.
“We've designed the costumes in my costuming class that I'm teaching this semester,” Mattox said.
The pricipal cast includes:
Ethan Pearson as Mark Cohen
Joshua Hall as Roger Davis
Lamonterious Jones as Tom Collins
Ryan Best as Angel Dumott Schunard
Nick Amezola as Benny Collin III
Madi Spears as Mimi Marquez
Rachel Thomson as Maureen Johnson
Bridgett Gibbs as Joanne Jefferson
Tickets are general admission only at the door, there is no advance purchase option. Tickets can be purchased at the box office inside the lobby of Stringer Fine Arts Center.
Show times are 7 p.m. on March 31 and April 1, then 2 p.m. on April 2.
CLICK HERE to download the Hutch Post mobile app.
CLICK HERE to sign up for the daily Hutch Post email news update.