‘Rent,’ still stressing joy amid fear, is coming to the Segerstrom Center
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
That’s the number of minutes in a typical calendar year, and it’s a lyric in the Broadway smash hit “Rent” that’s used to quantify the value of a human life.
“Rent,” a rock musical that debuted in the mid-1990s and had critics calling it a groundbreaking masterpiece that forever changed the landscape of American theater, is coming to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa for five performances starting Jan. 6, marking the 20th anniversary of the touring production.
The plot in playwright and lyricist Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning musical centers on a reimagining of Puccini’s “La Boheme,” following a year in the lives of seven artists struggling in New York City’s East Village under the shadow of the AIDS virus, circa 1995, instead of young bohemians living in Paris’ Latin Quarter in the 1840s.
Actress Skyler Volpe, 25, plays Mimi Marquez, the female lead.
Mimi is an exotic dancer and a junkie, and she’s HIV positive.
“I’ve always been drawn to Mimi as a character because she’s flawed and she’s aware of it,” Volpe said. “She’s so full of life and so full of love and can be blinded by it. It’s been fun to figure out how to make Mimi a likeable character, because she is often selfish and naive in her own decision-making.”
Volpe said she collaborated with the show’s director and choreographer to capture Mimi’s physicality. Because her character is vivacious, yet sick, Volpe said it was a challenge to balance strength and vulnerability.
Her appreciation for the musical began when she listened to the show’s soundtrack long before she first saw “Rent” at age 11. Though she didn’t understand the lyrics at the time, she enjoyed singing along to the songs in the family’s car.
“Rent” received its world premiere off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop in 1996, and it garnered acclaim from reviewers. The play transferred to Broadway two months later and won that year’s Tony Award for Best Musical as well as the Pulitzer Prize for drama. It is one of only five musicals to win both awards.
The then-35-year-old Larson wanted to write about his own experiences as he and his roommates lived in a run-down apartment in SoHo, though the play’s setting is based in Alphabet City, in the East Village.
He had been working for seven years on the musical, which includes portraits of his friends and the artists and addicts in his neighborhood. He died unexpectedly of an aortic dissection the morning of “Rent’s” first preview off-Broadway performance.
“Rent” features characters and plot elements drawn from Puccini’s opera as it identifies the lives of poor young artists.
The characters endure tough living conditions and personal heartache, like lead role Roger Davis, a once-successful lead singer and rock guitarist who by this point is a struggling musician and HIV positive. The former junkie, played by Kaleb Wells, hopes to write one last meaningful song before he dies.
The musical by a little-known composer is one of the longest-running Broadway shows. It was performed more than 5,000 times for nearly 12 years and made household names out of original cast members Taye Diggs, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal and Daphne Rubin-Vega.
The show closed on Broadway in 2008 but continued to tour throughout the country. It was restaged for the 20th anniversary tour by Work Light Productions.
The production has grossed over $280 million, and its message of finding joy in fear, celebrating life and honoring friendship still rings true two decades later.
In the song “Season of Love,” a chorus line of young and poverty-ridden artists sing, “How do you a measure a year?”
After suggesting the number of minutes and hours in which a year can be calculated, the cast suggests that you “measure your life in love.”
It’s a sentiment that Volpe hopes theatergoers take away from the musical.
“I would like for the audience to leave this show with a full heart, ready to live generously and measure their lives in love,” Volpe said.
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IF YOU GO
What: “Rent” 20th Anniversary Tour
When: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 6, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Jan. 7, and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Jan. 8
Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Cost: Tickets start at $29.
Information: (714) 556-2787 or visit scfta.org.
Twitter: @KathleenLuppi
