RENT on Stage at UVA Wise
La Vie Bohème! This fall, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise (UVA Wise) Theater Division stages Jonathan Larson's RENT, the iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning musical that shaped a generation of audiences and taught us all to measure our life in love. Performances will run November 12th-14th at 7 p.m. and November 15th at 2 p.m. on the UVA Wise campus in the Gilliam Center for the Arts Black Box Theater. Tickets are $10 for the public, or free with presentation of UVA Wise ID. Through partnership with the Pro-Art Association, Pro-Art patrons are also free to attend—let the box office know you heard about the show through Pro-Art and you’ll be admitted free! The box office opens one hour prior to the start of each performance. Learn more at proartva.org.
CONTENT ADVISORY: RENT contains strong language and themes relating to drug use, addiction, illness, suicide, and language about sex and sexuality. The production is recommended for teen and adult audiences.
Set in the East Village of New York City, RENT is about falling in love, finding your voice and living for today. Winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Jonathan Larson's RENT is based loosely on Puccini's La Bohème and follows a year in the life of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York's Lower East Side, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. The physical and emotional complications of the disease pervade the lives of Roger, Mimi, Tom and Angel. Maureen deals with her chronic infidelity through performance art; her partner, Joanne, wonders if their relationship is worth the trouble. Benny has sold out his Bohemian ideals in exchange for a hefty income and is on the outs with his former friends. Mark, an aspiring filmmaker, feels like an outsider to life in general. How these young bohemians negotiate their dreams, loves and conflicts provides the narrative thread to this groundbreaking musical.
RENT is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). RENT was originally produced in New York by New York Theatre Workshop and on Broadway by Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum, and Allan S. Gordon and New York Theatre Workshop.
This production of RENT is directed by Michael McNulty and music directed by Nate Paul. The UVA Wise Theater Division is devoted to theater as a unified art form that blurs the lines between visual-art, story and music by fusing performance, design and engineering in a single, meaningful experience. Find more information about the program at uvawise.edu.
The mission of Pro-Art is to advance the civic and cultural understandings achieved uniquely through the arts, by presenting a diverse range of high-quality artists and arts education programming, making them broadly accessible to the communities Pro-Art serves. To mark its golden anniversary, Pro-Art is making an unprecedented commitment to accessibility—every performance in its 50th season is free to all! Explore the season and make reservations to attend by visiting proartva.org.