Rent: School Edition is more than just a show… it’s an experience.
Photo by Rebecca Holt
I’m Anna Romero, and I’ll be playing Mrs. Cohen (Mark Cohen’s mother) in Thomas Jefferson High School’s upcoming performance of Rent: School Edition. I have been asked no less than ten times about what exactly we do during practices, and I decided there would be no better way to answer that query than within a feature article.
When most people think of a play or musical, they think of the performance. The lights, the characters, the music… but what they may not think of is what they don’t see: the preparation. A lot goes into putting on a production, from getting the band together, to building the sets, to rehearsing the blocking over and over and over again, and at no point during the process is putting on a production easy.
This is no different for TJ’s upcoming production of Rent: School Edition. Although all the posters and shirts say 3•17•10 (opening night for the show), the experience started long before that for members of the Rent cast and crew. In the summer of 2009, the juniors, seniors and sophomores of The Rent Project began their outreach to charity. It’s so amazing to look back and think of the dedication of those who participated. Think about it: these students gave up hours of their summer to help the less fortunate before even knowing what role they’d gotten in the play.
After several months of waiting with bated breath, the Rent members signed up for their auditions and practice began. The fun part didn’t start immediately, however. For several months practice was just dance conditioning, which means ballet stretches, jumping rope, and running. Now, I have a few words to say about running: it was the bane of our collective existence. The announcement that we were going to run was accompanied by groans more often than not, and without fail we were met with strange glances as we ran around in the hall outside of the auditorium. Still, there was merit to running those fifteen minutes every day: it helped us boost our cardiovascular fitness (something very important for people who are about to be doing several hours of dancing per day for several months) and it also established a sense of camaraderie among the cast members.
Then, we transitioned into rehearsing. Dance conditioning was now followed by a few hours of singing in the choir room as the techies built the set. Once the set was built and the actors were well-versed in their music, we transitioned to the stage and began blocking (deciding who will do which actions during a scene). We started at the very beginning (a very good place to start), and figured out where we would go and what we would do for Tune Up #1 through the number, You Okay Honey? One would think we would stop there and move on, but no. TJ Drama coach Michael Palmieri is a very strong believer in a little thing called “muscle memory,” which is the theory that repeating an action again and again will make your body remember it, as well as your mind. So, the cast ran through these five songs for the next three days, until we felt we were ready to perform that segment in front of real people. Then we repeated the process with the next few songs.
The cast’s current goal is to block its way through Act 2 by the end of February, which is a hefty goal that can only be achieved with the complete commitment of the entire cast. Luckily, every cast member shows his or her commitment through rehearsal attendance and vigor.
Looking at the schedule for the next two weeks, I realize with a shock that we open in three weeks. The panic is rising, but nothing will fully set in until we have to sell tickets… that’s when it begins. The thing is, I’m not worried that we won’t have the musical memorized (we’ll be quoting it for weeks), or about the full house we’ll be performing to (right, guys?), or even that I’ll have to be eight feet in the air for most of the show (you should see the set!). In fact, I’m not worried at all. I suspect the looming imminence is to blame, but I can’t help thinking that it’s something else. Three weeks. The experience will begin and end in three weeks. But it won’t, not really. As cheesy as this is going to sound: I know that this is an experience that will stay with us forever, even if it’s only as a poster in a dusty cardboard box I’d forgotten about.
Rent: School Edition will open on March 17th and run through the 20th. Tickets will be on sale from any member of the cast and on the TJ Journal, where you can purchase your tickets online.
