Musical ‘Rent' opens tonight in Brownsville

BROWNSVILLE – They rushed on stage, dancing, singing their hearts out, emotion firing in all directions.

"How we gonna pay last year’s rent? How we gonna pay last year’s rent?" sang Jordan Davis, 19, and Gary Tashima, 25, two of the performers in the Camille Lightner Playhouse’s production of Rent, a contemporary musical adaptation by Jonathan Larson based on La Boheme, a four-act Italian opera by Giacomo Puccini.

Ben Agresti, artistic director, said the musical is "just fascinating."

"It deals with so many serious things. It deals with the AIDS crisis, and it deals with drug addiction and living on the streets, and yet it’s this entertaining show," he said.

First curtain is 8 p.m. Friday, with another show at the same time Saturday and a 2:30 p.m. Sunday matinee.

"It was just released for amateur production and it’s probably the most exciting release that’s come along in the last few years, because you don’t get new shows that people want to book, perform and see all the time," Agresti said. "There hasn’t been anything new released in quite awhile. And when Rent became available, I knew it was going to be sort of a landmark thing, everybody was going to be doing it. I wanted us to be able to do it down here before other theaters grabbed it."

The 15-member cast entertains audiences for more than two hours with a sequence of songs addressing numerous issues facing young people.

"It represents our time," said Elizabeth Chaney, 15, "… instead of reenacting other eras. "It’s about problems we face today as youth in the world."

Agresti said the musical opened quietly Off-Broadway in the 1990s and then moved to Broadway.

"It’s about the underground Bohemian New York crowd, performance artists and starving musicians," he said. "… It became a mainstream Broadway show because people realized that these people weren’t so odd. It was just love stories and people wanting something. It’s the same no matter where it’s set."

Davis said he was enjoying the show a great deal.

"Just basically interacting with other people in the show, the different stories," he said.

Tashima agreed. "I think that it’s coming out right. It’s a great group," he said.