YMTC presents rock musical "RENT" Nov 7-10 in El Cerrito

Youth Musical Theater Company (YMTC) launches its 15th season of acclaimed regional theater with the rock musical "Rent". The show performs at the Performing Arts Theater, 540 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Its run consists of five more performances: two 2:00 p.m. matinees (11/9, 11/10), and three 7:30 p.m. performances (11/7, 11/8, 11/9). The Thursday, November 7, 7:30pm show is a Pay-What-You-Can performance, cash-only at box office, which opens one hour before.

"Rent" is a rock opera loosely based on Puccini’s La Boheme, with music, lyrics, and book by Jonathan Larson. Set in Lower Manhattan’s East Village during the turmoil of the AIDS crisis, this moving story chronicles the lives of a group of struggling artists over a year’s time. Its major themes are community, friendship, and survival. In 1996, Rent received four Tony Awards, including Best Musical; six Drama Desk Awards; and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 1997, it won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. Its Broadway run lasted 12 years.

Co-Director Jennifer Boesing comments, “Rent is a love story and a bold, brazen manifesto for young artists who are trying not just to stay alive, but to stay connected to each other, when the mainstream culture seems to be ignoring signs of destruction all around them. Although the show today is a period piece about a very specific historical moment—well before the earliest memories of our young performing artists—they relate to it deeply just the same. Perhaps the show’s demand to connect and stay awake is more relevant now than ever, in this increasingly digitized and disconnected world.”

"Rent" features a cast and crew of 30 performing arts students from cities throughout the Bay Area. The students, ages 15 to 19, work on stage and off, as actors, musicians, and technical theater apprentices. They are led by a team of professional directors and designers including Co-Directors Boesing and Simone Kertesz, Music Director Diana Lee, and Choreographer Janet Collard.

Tickets are available online at https://www.ymtcbayarea.org and at the door one hour before curtain. Ticket prices are $16–32, with discounts for students, seniors, military, teachers, and groups. YMTC offers one “pay-what-you-will” performance to provide affordable musical theater to everyone in the Bay Area community. This performance will be on Thursday, 11/7, at 7:30 p.m., when seats will be offered for cash-only at the box office. Reserved seats can still be purchased online. An “Audience Talk-Back” with directors, actors, and invited community panelists will be held after the 2:00 p.m. matinee on Saturday, 11/9.