Director: Jasen Jeffrey
Music Director/Vocal Director: Eryn Allen
Vocal Director/Choreographer: Diane Kamrin
Producer: Ellen Smith

Overview

RENT is a rock opera with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Bohème. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York’s Lower East Side in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS.

The musical was first seen in a limited three-week workshop production at New York Theatre Workshop in 1994. This same New York City off-Broadway theatre was also the musical’s initial home following its official January 25, 1996 opening. The show’s creator, Jonathan Larson, died suddenly the night before the off-Broadway premiere. The show won a Pulitzer Prize, and the production was a hit.

On Broadway, RENT gained critical acclaim and won a Tony Award for Best Musical among other awards. The success of the show led to several national tours and numerous foreign productions, and in 2005, it was also adapted into a motion picture that features most of the original cast members.

This adaptation has been carefully done, working with the Larson estate to retain the dramatic intent of the groundbreaking rock musical, and consists of minimal changes to language and the removal of one song (“Contact”) to make it possible for many schools to perform this piece.