Kentwood Players Presents RENT This Month

Kentwood Players presents Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning rock opera RENT, directed and choreographed by Marcus S. Daniel, musically directed by Gabrielle Maldonado, and produced by Alison Boole and Elizabeth Bouton Summerer for Kentwood Players through special arrangement with Musical Theatre International (MTI).

Performances take place Friday, May 12 through Saturday, June 17 on Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 2pm. Beginning May 20, Saturday matinees at 2pm will be added and continue through the rest of the run at the Westchester Playhouse, 8301 Hindry Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90045. There are no performances over Memorial Day weekend, May 26-27-28. This production is made possible in part by the generous sponsorship of an anonymous donor.

The cast features (in alphabetical order) Avery Bebon, Micah K. Blanks, Kyler Bray, Jayla Bryant, Kit DeZolt, Elijah Green, Sara Blanche Hayes, Delaney Holliday, Charles Keppler, Garrett LaSource, Emilie B. Mirvis, Kat Montanez, Jalana Phillips, Logan Rice, Donald Riddle, Julia Sison, Jillian Stern, and Ethan Trejo.

Loosely based on Puccini's La Boheme, Jonathan Larson's RENT is a rock opera set in New York's Lower East Side under the shadow of HIV/AIDS in the late 1980's and early 90's. The story follows; Roger Davis, a songwriter-musician who is newly HIV positive, Mimi Márquez, an exotic dancer with HIV and Roger's girlfriend, Mark Cohen, a Jewish filmmaker who is Roger's roommate, Maureen Johnson, a bisexual performance artist, Joanne Jefferson, a lawyer who is Maureen's girlfriend, Tom Collins, a professor of technology at NYU who is living with AIDS; Angel Dumott Schunard, a transgender street musician who falls for Tom and who is also living with AIDS; and Benjamin Coffin III, Mark and Roger's landlord and former roommate. A multi-talented 10-member ensemble takes on many supporting roles.

On Broadway, RENT received critical acclaim and won several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Musical. The Broadway production ran for 12 years, with a run of 5,123 performances, making it the 9th longest running show in Broadway history at the time. In 2005, it was adapted into a motion picture featuring most of the original cast members, and in 2019, it was presented as a live television special for NBC. And now Kentwood Players is pleased to bring this global phenomenon to the Westchester Playhouse!

Reserved seat tickets are $30 with a $4 discount for seniors and students, available online at www.kentwoodplayers.org, by emailing the box office at boxoffice@kentwoodplayers.org or calling (310) 645-5156. All box office emails and messages will be answered in the order received to confirm your ticket order. Group rates for 10 or more at $23 per ticket can be arranged with the box office. Any available tickets will be sold at the box office beginning a half hour prior to each performance. There will be a pay-what-you-can performance on Saturday, May 20 at 2pm with reservations recommended but not required. Masks are recommended indoors but not required.

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