DISCLAIMER: Rent is a rated-R musical that is intended for mature audiences.

Amarillo Little Theatre (ALT) performed the award-winning musical, “Rent”, by Johnathan Larson at the ALT Adventure Space Feb. 15-18 and Feb. 22-25.
The musical focuses on the struggles of young friends in New York, including homelessness and AIDS, in the early ‘90s. Throughout the story, friendships and couples fall apart because of infidelity and death which brings focus to the themes of love and community. Larson passed because of AIDS after writing the play which prompts people to use this production as a dedication to awareness and protection against the disease. ALT took donations for the Panhandle AIDS Support Organization and dedicated the play to the late student, Nex Benedict.
I found this musical captivating because of the all-around experience, the colorful lights and the dedicated actors.
Each of the actors embodied their character; they had their lines memorized and showed a well-rounded understanding of their characters’ motives and desires. The actors entranced their audience to the point where I and many others choked back tears.
At the beginning of the play, an announcement came that one of the ensemble members had become sick, so the choreographer stepped in. Even with this hiccup, I could not distinguish the choreographer from the ensemble, which proves the dedication that each one of the performers put toward the performance.
The musical took place in a black-box theatre, so the set wrapped around the side walls and hovered above the audience. Due to the setup, actors made their entrances and exits by the audience and remained in character. The set consisted of a table in the middle, a staircase leading up and an elevated walkway at the top. Each of the walls, lined with graffiti, looked worn down to represent the rough parts of New York. Although the creative set adds another sense of dimension, it can also take away parts of scenes for some of the audience.
The lights throughout the play deviate based on the emotion of the scenes. Most of the scenes containing upbeat music had scattered and colorful lights, while those that focused on darker topics, such as death and grief, had lights on one or few characters, usually an off-white color. This level of consideration put into the lights made the production more entertaining.
Most of the sound consisted of background music, providing a parallel atmosphere through sound effects, like a phone ringing. These sound effects matched the time period, which when roped the audience into another world. However, the music often became too loud to understand the actor’s diction, so some of the story went over my head.
Overall, Rent is by far the best musical I have seen. The setting was perfect for the story, the actors impeccably personified their characters, and the lights and sound amplified emotions. The message behind the production, written by Larson and performed by ALT, is beautiful.

“I saw Rent a few weeks ago at one of ALT’s theaters,” audience member Audrey Boissonneault said. “The performance by the actors fully encapsulated the message the play wanted to get across, while also staying fairly comedic. It was a little much with it standing at an R rating, but at the same time, I think it just made the play more realistic. Overall I think ALT nailed this production and I’m guaranteed to see more in the future.”

“ALT’s production of Rent was well cast and the personality of each character well developed,” audience member Laura Willis said. “The costuming, set and tech of the play add greatly to each character and the emotions of the story. Rent was performed with care and the adventure space setting created a delightful and more immersive setting that added to the believability of the show.”