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debut this week, when Jonathan Larson’s Rent opens at Harare’s Reps Theatre.
The show first opened in the late 1990s, when it became a hit on Broadway and in the West End, and a film version was released in 2005.
The Harare production is being directed by Zane E. Lucas for The Repertory Players, and will run from today until April 16.
He won the Reps Afdis Award for best director of 2010 for his production of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever – which was also named best Reps production last year – and has said Rent is a New Age musical that would have special appeal to younger audiences.
“It has been described by critics as
an exhilarating landmark rock opera,
speaking to Generation X as Hair did for the baby boomer generation, and it brings
musical theatre to the MTV generation,” he said.
Written by Jonathan Larson, it is a Pulitzer and Tony Award winner based loosely on Puccini’s opera La Boheme, following a year in the lives of seven friends living a disappearing Bohemian lifestyle in New York’s East Village, at a time when Aids and its complications pervade the lives of all the characters.
Cast members include Josh Ansley, Erin Housam, Patrick Barrett, Desiree Mostert, Tina Masawi, Zoran Zec, Richard Sticklen, David Bvumbe, Ben Chadenga, Musa Saruro and Erin Cooper.
The show has its own full band, with musical direction from Renee Mostert.
“Rent is a show that is of our time, and, indeed of all time,” said Zane Lucas.
“It speaks in words and music to the specific issues of today and to the timeless problems that humankind has faced through all eternity.
“It gives us another way to look at things and it teaches us to love – not fear.”
Among the songs featured in the show is the hit Seasons of Love, which became a chart success in the mid-2000s.
Rent will run on the Reps main stage from today to Saturday April 16, with performances most nights and matinees on both Saturdays of the run, each starting at 2.30pm.
Advance booking is open at The
Spotlight.