RENT Will Be Performed at Variety Playhouse This December

This holiday season, celebrate a "Season of Love" with a tribute rock concert to Jonathan Larson's iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent.

Directed by Grant McGowen, this concert performance will feature some of Atlanta's brightest talents including local favorite Kevin Harry as Tom Collins. Harry was recently seen in Head Over Heels at Actor's Express. He also won the Suzi Bass Award for Best Male Actor in the leading role of Sweeney Todd at Express. Hannah Zale will play the iconic role of Maureen Johnson, originated by Broadway star Idina Menzel. Zale is the frontwoman of the feminist alt-rock band the Pussywillows, promising the release of a new album this spring. NBC's The Voice runner-up Luna Searles will play Joanne Jefferson. Searles most recently opened for Ludacris at Atlanta's Buckhead Theatre. Other notable performers include Mikaela Holmes as Mimi Marquez, Branden Hembree as Mark Cohen, and Grant McGowen as Roger Davis.

Atlanta's all-transgender band, Exquisite Gender, will be the opening act, and will cover songs from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the landmark musical by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask.

The groundbreaking story 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. This production will be presented in concert and encourage audiences to dance, sing along, and engage with the music of Rent. Proceeds will go to supporting the homeless in Atlanta.

Jonathan Larson's musical Tick, Tick...Boom, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda in his feature directorial debut, is currently in movie theaters across America. Some say Tick, Tick...Boom was almost an autobiography. During the performances of this musical, he met Stephen Sondheim, who later would help him produce Rent and whose name even is mentioned in the song 'La Vie Bohème' from Rent. Rent, a worldwide known musical, which gained Larson the Pulitzer and the Tony award, is the rock adaptation of Puccini's La Bohème. On the night of the final rehearsal, one night before Rent's premiere, Jonathan Larson suddenly died of an aneurysm from Marfan Syndrome. It was ten days before his 36th birthday. Jonathan Larson never got to see his masterpiece on Broadway.

For tickets: www.variety-playhouse.com and information about Pinch 'N' Ouch Theatre: www.pnotheatre.org