Editor's note: This story was updated Friday at 12:18 p.m. to correct the title of Cara Oates.
Preparing for its production of “Rent,” the Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre creates safe spaces to tell a delicate story of self discovery, love and social justice.
Loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s 1896 opera “La Bohème,” the 1996 Tony Award-winning rock musical by Jonathan Larson is set in early '90s New York City. "Rent" follows a group of young, struggling artists facing poverty, drug abuse and health issues while trying to pay their rent.
The '90s saw a rise in political unrest in New York City as protests around police brutality, which started in the late '80s, caused animosity toward communities in the East Village. At the same time, the HIV/AIDS crisis had escalated and became a leading cause of death for Americans, which created a growing stigma targeted at the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
Musical theater sophomore Myles Sturns-Thomas plays Tom Collins, a teacher and anarchist recently expelled from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tom falls in love with Angel, a young street musician and drag queen. Both having AIDS, the couple spends their limited time together bringing hope to the group through the love they share.
Many characters in “Rent” experiment with love and relationships, finding moments of affection amidst the show’s chaos. For this production, actors must portray intense moments that call for an intimacy director.
“It’s hard for actors. It's really vulnerable. Being intimate on stage with the person is a very unique experience,” Sturns-Thomas said. “Like, imagine being with your partner and there's a camera right there or there are tons of people in the room watching you. It's not the easiest thing for the people on stage.”
An intimacy director ensures that scenes involving intimate or sexual physical contact, emotional intimacy, nudity or sexual violence are staged safely and that actors have an advocate. In recent years, hiring an intimacy director has become normalized in theater. The university has been implementing intimacy directors since 2021 and offered its first intimacy staging course through the School of Drama in 2022.
Modern dance professor Karen Bethel serves as the intimacy director for OU’s production of “Rent.” Wanting to level the power dynamic to give actors agency over their own bodies, Bethel was certified by Theatrical Intimacy Education, an organization dedicated to the training of directors in intimacy practice. While setting up scenes of intimacy, Bethel said they “remove the sex and focus on the series of moves.”
“This is how we tell the story of this intimacy (in ‘Rent’) in a desexualized way, where everyone's personal boundaries are maintained and upheld, and there's consent through the entire process," Bethel said.
According to Bethel, actors are encouraged to state their boundaries on day one of rehearsal to be upheld through the entire process. Actions like kissing are often mimicked and movements can be adapted to fit the actors' comfort. Bethel emphasized that actors aren’t just “pieces of clay,” and they deserve open communication.
“The goal is a realistic performance that tells the story,” Bethel said. “And for the actors, (the goal is) a supportive environment where we are not adding trauma to their job or to their life in any way.”
For OU’s production of “Rent,” choreographer Leslie Kraus uses dance to create intimacy between characters, and her modern choreography style allows the dancer more creative expression.
Musical theater senior Halle Lipton plays Maureen Johnson, a bisexual performing artist. Lipton said the dances are less focused on choreography and more on the dancers themselves.
“Modern dance is really interesting because in ‘Rent’ you might think it's very like punching the air and head banging. You'd think it's very angry,” Lipton said. “But I think there's something very delicate and personal about modern (dance) which I really like for this show.”
To provide another layer to "Rent," projection and media designer Cara Oates combines visual imagery with live theater. In one scene, Maureen leads a protest on stage while historical images, such as the '90s police brutality protests in New York City, are projected behind her. The cameras will also be used to capture moments on stage in real-time.
“The audience will receive the story through the three-dimensional human traditional actors on stage but also backed up by the projection image that is a different angle of them, or a voyeuristic eye on a part of the story, or still images from the time period,” director Ashton Byrum said.
While there is a censored version of “Rent” that is staged for younger audiences, OU’s production does not shy away from handling the story’s more sensitive topics.
“The show isn't supposed to be easy to digest, and I think seeing the rawness of substance abuse is powerful," Sturns-Thomas said. “And I'll say that this show doesn't stray away from that.”
Byrum said when deciding to stage “Rent,” he wanted to do a contemporary musical that would contrast with the rest of the season’s shows. He also said the message of “Rent” felt best to be told during an election year.
“The country is really divided right now and there's a lot of making folks ‘othered,’ in the verb sense of the word,” Byrum said. “It is hard to do that when you have understood someone and put yourself in their shoes.”
Byrum said “Rent” offers audiences a chance to meet characters with different backgrounds they can relate to or empathize with. He said the production’s goal is to reflect the hardships of life and show how vital it is to show love.
“Rent” will run Nov. 22 and 24 and Dec. 6-8 in the Elsie C. Brackett Theatre. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased through the OU Musical Theatre website or at the OU Fine Arts Box Office.
This story was edited by Shelby Emery. Ryan Little and Grace Rhodes copy edited this story
