Stage: Double rent
When asked to recommend an opera as an introduction to the world of opera I would always recommend starting with Puccini’s beautiful and moving La Boheme. It has the brilliant combination of a great story and lots of memorable tunes. It’s probably the key to most successful musical theatre, whether it be an opera or a West End or Broadway hit.
When Jonathan Larson decided to create a modern version of this classic he updated it to an age when consumption was no longer the dread disease it had once been and it had been replaced by AIDS. His characters were rock musicians and modern artists and the whole was set in poor bohemian New York setting. All this good, but would the score live up to the inspiration of La Boheme? The answer is yes.
Two new productions can be seen in Sussex, the first at Brighton’s Old Market. This brand new production, marking the 20th Anniversary of the show’s debut, is produced by Bird Studios. Featuring a hugely talented young cast, the production is directed, staged and supervised by many of the creative faces that led the original West End production of the musical including Mia Bird (Maureen – Original London Workshop Cast), Mykal Rand (Collins – Original London Production and Resident Director on the West End/UK Tour) and Damien Flood (Roger – Original West End Production/UK Tour). This production celebrates the launch of the Brighton Institute for Contemporary Theatre Training (BRICTT).
Rent, 29 Nov – 3 Dec, The Old Market, Upper Market St, Hove theoldmarket.com, 01273 201 801
In the new year another 20th Anniversary production of Jonathan Larson’s ground-breaking Pulitzer Prize and multi Tony Award-winning musical comes to the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne.
A great story & memorable tunes
Larson’s musical won four Tony Awards, six Drama Desk Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1996. The show ran on Broadway for 12 years, from 1996 and premiered in London’s West End in 1998 at the Shaftesbury Theatre and was adapted into a film in 2005.
Larson’s world is inhabited by a group of bohemian artists who struggle to maintain their friendships and their non-conformist ideals in New York’s East Village. Facing their problems head on, they make personal self-discoveries and find what matters most.
The poignancy of the story was heightened when Jonathan Larson died on 25 January 1996, the night before the show’s first off-Broadway performance at New York Theatre Workshop. He never had the chance to see how his opus would become one of the all-time great musicals, loved by millions all over the world.
The much-loved score features songs such as Seasons of Love, Take Me or Leave Me, What You Own, One Song Glory, La Vie Bohème, Without You, I’ll Cover You, Out Tonight and I Should Tell You.
The cast includes the brilliant Layton Williams (Bad Education, Billy Eilliot the Musical, Hairspray) and Lucie Jones (XFactor, Legally Blonde the Musical, Les Miserable) and Javar La’trial Parker (Showboat).
Rent premiered exactly 100 years after La Bohème was first staged to the world, the parallels betweens the two are strong but Rent stands alone as a stunning work of modern musical theatre.
Rent, Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne
31 Jan – 4 Feb 2017
01323 412000 or online www.eastbournetheatres.co.uk
