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Rent

Book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Larson
Directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene
April 19 – October 14, 2023 Angus Bowmer Theatre

Rent

Book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Larson
Directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene

Rent was originally produced in New York by New York Theatre Workshop and on Broadway by Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum, Allan S. Gordon and New York Theatre Workshop

Musical Arrangements by Steve Skinner
Original Concept/Additional Lyrics by Billy Aronson
Music Supervision and Additional Arrangements by Tim Weil
Dramaturg Lynn Thomson

April 19 - October 14, 2023
Angus Bowmer Theatre

In this Pulitzer Prize–winning musical, a group of young artists fights for justice and visibility during the AIDS crisis, drawing strength from the beautiful bonds of friendship and chosen family. With its profound message of joy and hope in the face of uncertainty, this iconic musical reminds us to measure our lives with what truly matters—love.

 

(Approximate running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes, including one intermission.)

Go Deeper and Read the House Program

Tickets!
Tickets are $35 – $75.

 
Suitability Suggestions
Set against the backdrop of the late 1980s/’90s in New York, Rent contains profanity, homophobia, drug addiction and substance abuse, homelessness, sexuality, and the struggles of the AIDS crisis. Given the mature content, the play is suited for well-prepared students who can handle the adult nature of the play.

For additional content warnings regarding violence or graphic depictions that may be upsetting to some audience members, please see our Content Warnings page (may contain spoilers).
Accessibility

The Angus Bowmer Theatre is outfitted with an elevator that takes patrons to either Row E or Row K.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is committed to accessibility. We recognize the needs of persons with disabilities and strive to make our facilities and productions accessible to all. Please visit our Accessibility page for details about 2023 programs and services as they develop.

Immerse

Tiffany Nichole Greene
Director’s Notes

Rent’s music is so incredibly thematic, poetic, beautiful, powerful that, perhaps over time, it’s become easy to be lulled into the imaginary utopian bubble and sing along from top to bottom. Many of its songs have become soundtrack to difficult moments of growth and transition in our own lives. In many ways, the themes and messages have outlived the characters themselves.
But what about the actual souls that sit at the center of this illusory bohemian bubble? This cage? The true isolation, stigma, and flat-out hate the AIDS and drug epidemics brought into communities like the one we see in Rent? These lived experiences that ripped away at people’s humanity served as the impetus for the songs we celebrate today.
A community of artists. A collection of dreams, desires, broken hearts, and regrets. They’re fighters. They’re lovers. They are overwhelmed with love and the fear of losing love. They’re brittle, strong, hurting, dying, living, thriving. They’re full of pain, fear, anxiety, resilience, ambition, humor. Unrelenting pressure breeds chaos.
They keep going.
They run on stolen joy and borrowed time.
I found it essential to create a world with an exposed engine. Raw messy truths and raw nerves, exposed. Our desperate need for one another, the joy that companionship and community bring, our eternal fear that this need may be used to hurt us, all exposed. We examine the choice to connect and find community in a time when we have more questions than answers. We ask the questions: How do we protect our most fragile parts? How do we offer access to our most fragile parts? How do we show up for each other even when we’re afraid? How can we prioritize each other? How can we prioritize the human? What does it cost us? I ask you these same questions, now.
For many of us, the Spring of 2020 was our first encounter with a virus that we knew so little about beyond its threat of intubation and death. For many, it’s our only experience with intense and ongoing isolation brought on by a fear of our own neighbor. Our only experience with loss in a time when we couldn’t even hug our loved ones and say goodbye. The information was compromised. We didn’t know what was true. Stigma ran rampant. Hate ran rampant.
What effect will this shared experience have on the way you engage with this play, now?
I invite you to sing the songs and remember the times. But I also invite you to experience Rent from the center of your own vulnerability. I invite you to take in how fragile the toughest of us are and, after this shared moment, I encourage you to re-enter old spaces with renewed desire to love—through both your brokenness and theirs.
We all run on stolen joy and borrowed time.
None of it is ours to keep.

—Tiffany Nichole Greene

Creative Team

Cast

* Member of Actors' Equity Association (AEA)
** AEA Professional Theatre Intern

Understudies

* Member of Actors' Equity Association (AEA)
** AEA Professional Theatre Intern

Musicians

Our 2023 Season