Rent prepares to sublet Page Auditorium

This season Broadway at Duke will strive to do more than provide high quality stage performances. Their goal is to change the nature of the audiences that attend their musical offerings.

“Since I have been at Duke, the committee has brought mainly mainstream musicals. This year, we hope to bring more diverse types of shows.” Broadway at Duke chair Julie MacCartee said. Rent, an innovative show created by the late Jonathon Larson at the end of the 1990s will be the first of this season’s offerings toward this goal.

Rent was written and developed in order to portray “...living in America / At the end of the millennium” to quote one of the show’s more famous songs “What You Own.” This intended widespread appeal makes the show much easier to relate to than traditional theater productions. A favorite among young theater buffs, Rent has developed a cult following and is now traveling to universities across the country. The musical deals with modern issues like AIDS, sexual identity and corporate takeovers while still addressing timeless love stories and the search for one’s identity.

Nonetheless, the edgier themes and style of Rent have presented challenges for the traveling company of the production. For shows in the Midwest, the company has changed the lyrics of many songs. “The audience in New York has a different sense of humor and values than the audience in the Midwest,” company manager Aaron Hicks said.

The production of the show also has to remain adaptable. Everything from ticket sales to set design must be easily managed for a show that “has performed at four or five universities in the last week,” Hicks said. One way Rent is doing this is by mandating front row “rush” tickets available only on the night of the show to accommodate the schedules of college students, who may not be able to plan far ahead.

In addition, the intimate nature of the show has been challenged by the varying sizes of theaters around the country. When the show is staged in theaters twice the size of a Broadway theater, it loses some of the seamless atmosphere between the audience and cast that Rent is famous for. Luckily for Wednesday’s audience, Page Auditorium is a small theater and “works well with [the] original direction,” as Hicks said.

Despite the necessary differences accompanying the production of a traveling show, the version performed at Duke will remain virtually the same as the one on Broadway as both are under the original direction of Michael Greif. In addition, Hicks promises that although Rent was here two years ago, “the performance will be different and better than it was the first time.”