Lethbridge Musical Theatre and Theatre Outré present a special artistic collaboration of Rent from Oct 22-31 at the Yates Memorial Theatre.
Rent is one of Stephanie Savage’s favourite musicals. Savage is president of the LMT and is a producer of the show.
According to Savage, Rent is about a group of friends that act a little bit more like a chosen family living in New York in the early nineties.
“It touches on quite a few social issues, some of them related to the AIDS epidemic, some of them related to homelessness, and queer identities. It has a lot of social justice elements that come into the production. But more than that, it’s about building friends that become your family and navigating life with the people you choose to,” Savage explained. “And it has the most amazing soundtrack.”
The production has 24 cast members, Savage noted. “We do have all our principal characters double cast, so half of the ensemble are also understudies for the principal roles.”
Rehearsals for the production kicked off at the end of August, and during the process of getting ready for the show, Savage added it was great to see how much community love there was for Rent. “We had over 80 people come to auditions.”
“There were so many talented people that we probably could have cast this show three different ways and still put an amazing product on stage. I think throughout the rehearsal process, the passion that every crew member and every cast member had was just so cool to see. I’ve never been a part of a production where every single person that’s involved has a different origin story with the story and why it means so much to them, which is really cool to see,” Savage said.
It’s also the first time Rent has ever been staged in Lethbridge, and Theatre Outré was brought on as a special artistic partner.
“The whole reason behind that is when we’re telling such sensitive stories that have such a close tie to the queer community, we never want to be seen as speaking for an audience, we’re not representative of. Bringing Theatre Outré on was really important to us, so there was that authentic voice, as part of the production period,” noted Savage. “They’ve just been awesome partners.”
Opening night of Rent is this Thursday.
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit online at visitlethbridgearena.evenue.net/events/LMT.
