Groundbreaking Musical RENT Comes to MVE

Everyone has heard of Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda’s popular rap musical. It changed musical theatre forever. But Hamilton was not the first musical to use the language of pop, rock or rap. Miranda has said, “There would be no Hamilton without Rent.”

 Rent is coming to MVE. The Pulitzer-prize winning musical opens February 28 for an eight-show run.

Rent is very loosely based on Puccini’s opera La Boheme, but don’t let the word opera scare you. There are no sopranos screaming in Italian in Rent. Puccini’s opera was about a group of young artists trying to eke out a living, pay their rent and manage their love lives. Rent places the artists in 1990s New York, where they struggle to make a living, pay their rent, and manage their love lives.

Where Puccini used the sound of classical music, Rent uses rock. It’s authentic, too. It sounds like the kind of music you’d hear on the radio.

Rent is joyous and filled with hope, but it isn’t afraid to tackle the important issues of the day, like economic inequality and homelessness. Maybe the heaviest theme is the HIV/Aids epidemic that was upending the gay community. The message of Rent is fairly all-encompassing of what it means to be human, which is a mixture of tragedies and triumphs. 

The show is rated PG-13 for language, drug use and sexual content. Parents are encouraged to research the show before bringing children to the production.