Student Actors Tackle Serious Subjects in RENT

Roger and Mark, dressed in shabby, mismatched clothes, huddle around the makeshift garbage can fireplace they use to heat their grungy apartment.

This scene, uncommon to Westport, is the first of many to take place on the Staples High School stage in the production of Rent, a Pulitzer Prize winning musical that chronicles the lives of young New Yorkers struggling through relationships, financial problems and HIV/AIDS during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The show opened Thursday night and continues through Sunday.

The show's subject matter is a departure from the more upbeat musicals many of the actors have been a part of in the past as high school students. David Roth, the director of the summer theatre program and Staples Players, said the show selection process is different during the summer because the cast includes not just Westporters but students from surrounding towns as well.

"We try to choose something that is a little more edgier and complicated during the summer," Roth said.

His co-director and wife Kerry Long said at first she was worried whether the students would be comfortable "doing something so mature, with boys dressing up in dresses and same sex relationships."

"We are really lucky living in Westport that we can do something like this, I don't think every school system would necessarily allow it," she said.

David Ressler, a sophomore at Amherst College, found the intense emotion of his role challenging. He plays Tom Collins, a gay, HIV-positive ex-professor who lost his job because of his "crazy anarchist theories."

"The show is really different than anything I've ever done in the past. It's really hard to know what its like to go through what the characters go through," he said. "Throughout the course of the play I have to fall in love, and then that love dies, but I feel like the intensity of the emotion is what makes it really rewarding."

Roth and Long have attempted to make the artistic transition for the actors more sincere by encouraging research. Each actor wrote a personal biography of his or her character and a blog was set up with links about HIV/AIDS, homophobia and other relevant information.

The research was necessary for many of the actors who were already familiar with Rent. Many came into the process with ideas about their characters based on past productions.

"I think a lot of the people here went through a big Rent phase, where they were completely obsessed," Ressler said. "So many people knew the show so well that at first they were just copying other actors' interpretations instead of finding the character on their own."

In addition, the research helped the students better comprehend the difficult time their show is based upon.

"We are trying to get them to understand the intensity of the time period, there were lists and lists of these incredibly talented people dying every year from AIDS," Roth said. "The kids here are so committed that if you enforce why you think something is extremely relevant they will take it seriously."

Kathryn Gau, a junior at Pace University who plays Joanne, a gay lawyer, echoed those sentiments.

"There is a very professional attitude," she said. "We all take our roles very seriously because we know this is real and these things have happened."

Besides the serious topics Rent tackles, the cast has enjoyed creating such a well-known and well-loved show.

"The music is very theatrical and it excites me that the kids are so excited about it," Roth said. "It's one of their favorite shows."

The Staples Players Summer Theatre Production of Rent will be performed at 7:30 p.m. July 29-31 and at 2 p.m. Aug. 1 at Staples High School. The Staples Players website is currently not working so tickets can now be purchased online at: http://playersrent.tumblr.com/