Laura Campbell, 18; Bryce Hood, 17; and Emily Curtis, 16, perform the title song from "Rent" during a workshop at the University of Kentucky's Schmidt Vocal Arts Center, Jan. 3, 2009. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.
The workshop participants are singing “Will I lose my dignity?” the chorus from “Rent” in which members of an HIV support group wonder what lies ahead for them.
“What does making contact mean?” director Tracey Bonner asks the participants in the workshop, who have given up a holiday weekend to be in this pre-audition tune-up for SummerFest‘s production of “Rent.”
To some, contact means eyes meet. Others say it is just a matter of feeling someone’s presence. Others feel left out.
Tracey Bonner talks to workshop particpants.
Bonner guides the participants into another rendition of the chorus, trying to push them to move beyond singing and acting and find connection.
To Bonner, that’s what “Rent” is about: “being those open, vulnerable human beings, willing to show all these scars.”
In directing “Rent,” her first Lexington production since Paragon Music Theatre’s inaugural production of “State Fair” in 2004, Bonner knows she is taking on a show fraught with emotion. Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning musical tells the story of a group of artists living in New York’s Lower East Side at the dawn of the AIDS epidemic. Her production will be the first one presented by a Central Kentucky theater group.
“I want to create our ‘Rent’ for our community and how it speaks to our community,” Bonner says over a latte at Common Grounds Coffee Shop, the morning after the workshops.
Not that she instantly took the job.
Brandon Smith leads a movement class during the musical theater workshop. Tracey Bonner says more choreography may be a signature of her "Rent."
Bonner, a Paul Laurence Dunbar High School graduate, actually witnessed “Rent” mania first hand living in New York, close the to Nederlander Theatre in the early days of the show’s almost 13-year run. She didn’t become a “Renthead,” but directed many friends to the theater when they came to town and sometimes accompanied them.
When SummerFest artistic director Joe Ferrell called Bonner in California, where she teaches at three colleges including the University of California at Irvine, she asked to think about it and went to a Long Beach production to refresh her memory.
Two other things gave her pause: The prospect of coming home to direct, “because people view you as you were as a kid,” and the question of whether the talent was here to pull off a production.
The workshop, she said, really helped answer her questions about whether the talent was here to credibly present the show, which is not a typical musical.
“‘Rent’ is a rock ‘n’ roll show,” Bonner says. “It’s a totally different genre.”
Among the roles it will be most difficult to cast, Bonner says, is Roger, the HIV-positive rocker who falls in love with exotic dancer Mimi.
“His vocals are so important, and he has to be strong, yet fearful of commitment,” Bonner says. “If we don’t have chemistry between Roger and Mimi, we don’t have a show.”
Angel, the cross-dressing peacemaker of the group is another challenge because, “it’s easy to see him as this drag queen girly guy. But he’s an incredibly deep human being pulling everyone together, and the person who plays him has to convey that but be comfortable with the cross dressing.”
University of Kentucky voice department senior Taylor Eldred sings "My White Knight" from "The Music Man" to Mead Ryder during the Jan. 3 workshop. She was in last summer's SummerFest production of "Once on This Island."
For the sake of all the actors, she says a major mission is getting the right music director who will be able to care for all the voices and guide them through the challenge of singing five consecutive nights of the almost operatic show in an outdoor venue in the middle of summer.
Early in her preparation, Bonner has also been exploring Giacomo Puccini’s “La Boheme,” the opera Larson based the musical on. And she is thinking through some of the spots in the show that seem a little awkward.
“I was involved in ‘In the Heights,’” Bonner says, referring to the Broadway show that was nominated for 13 Tony Awards in 2008 and has been compared to “Rent.” “One thing that struck me was how many problems that showed up in the Off-Broadway production were smoothed out by the time it got to Broadway.”
But Larson never made any changes because he died of an aortic aneurysm the night before the Off-Broadway opening, so he was not there to guide it to the Great White Way. That leaves Bonner to wonder about some things that have struck her as awkward, like the transition from a group therapy session to a street scene.
More choreography may be a signature of Bonner’s “Rent.”
“Not that I am going to turn it into ’42nd Street’ or anything,” she says. “But I think I may focus on finding a physical vocabulary for these characters, because that is who I am and what I am about.”
Nick Vannoy sings "Lonley Room," Jud's solo from "Oklahoma" during the musical theater workshop.
Bonner has also been talking about concepts with set designer Dathan Powell and exploring how film may be incorporated into the show, particularly to represent some of the images filmmaker Mark, Roger’s best friend, is shooting.
As this is written, Bonner is back in California focusing on immediate concerns such as productions of “Crazy for You” and “Anything Goes” she’ll be working on.
But she will be playing the “Rent” cast recording over and over in her car, imprinting the music on her brain, and will be coming back to Lexington for Rent auditions April 9 to 11.
While 40 people came to the workshop, Bonner says she will be aiming for a cast of 15. (SummerFest organizers note being at the workshop was not a prerequisite for being cast, and it was part of the overall educational aim of the festivals parent organization, Kentucky Classical Theatre Conservatory.)
“I want to keep it focused, because this cast will really need to be a family,” she says. “The workshops showed me there are a lot of possibilities. I’m really excited.”
