RENT’s Gwen Stewart on the show’s ageless message

Thanksgiving Week. It’s all about family, food and Broadway musicals. Wait, Broadway? Seems so this year. The Broadway tour of RENT is coming to Milwaukee’s Marcus Center for the Performing Arts from Nov. 24-29 for eight performances. It could be your last chance to feast on this musical in all of its original glory — including seeing three of the original cast members. Two vets from the original show, Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal, return for a stint on the tour but will retire shortly after the Milwaukee series of shows.

After more than 12 years on Broadway, Jonathan Larson’s Tony Award-winning tale closed in Sept. 2008. RENT was the seventh-longest running show in Broadway’s history. The story, which potrayed broke young artists living in New York City’s bohemian Alphabet City during the late 1990s, was famous for bringing AIDS to the forefront of social consciousness at a time when the disease was still relatively unknown. It also addresses other social themes like drugs, homosexuality and poverty.

In the initial run, Pascal played the HIV-positive musician Roger. Rapp played Mark, Roger’s filmmaker roommate. Gwen Stewart was in the ensemble cast, where she is best known as the original “Seasons of Love” soloist. We spoke with Stewart about her experience opening the show and coming back more than a decade later to reprise her role with two of her original cast mates.

“It’s really cool. I love them dearly. It brings back memories of when we first got together,” Stewart gushed.

All three actors went on to star in other stage and film productions, thanks in part to the Pulitzer and Tony Awards of 1996. Stewart, who now lives in L.A., says she never actually wanted to do a tour.

“I’m not crazy about the tour life. When I was 18 and touring it was all fun and games, all fresh and new. This week-to-week, getting on a plane and hotels and traveling on buses — it’s not as fun as it used to be,” she said.

However, she couldn’t pass up the chance to work with her old friends again.

“The fact that the three of us are continuing to put his legacy out there for people, that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m here … for  him.”

The ‘him’ she refers to is playwright Jonathan Larson, who died unexpectedly of an aortic aneurysm the night before the show’s first performance off-Broadway in January 1996.

In a sad twist, Larson based the play on several of his friends who contracted AIDS. Now that the disease has lost much of its mystery, Stewart says one of the main concerns she gets from audiences and critics is that the show has lost its relevance. Stewart argues the play is more significant today than ever.

“To me, this is more than just a show,” she explained. “It’s a worthwhile message, and I think with the things people are going through today with the homes and the jobs and the economy… this is like Rent. It speaks to more than just AIDS. It speaks with people on a level I think they can really, really understand.”

Stewart hopes the show can inspire audience members who are going through tough times.

“Everyone is suffering from something, or knows somebody who’s suffering from something and is trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel; they’re trying to find a way to get themselves out of the muck and the mire. I think, because that is the message Rent has, people from all over can identify, even today, 14 years later.”

With the show’s recent closure on Broadway, you can expect to see more local and community theater productions of it popping up in the coming year. Greendale Community Theatre already mounted an impressive production this past summer, and the Skylight Opera Theatre is scheduled to produce the show in May 2010.

However, Stewart says there’s nothing like seeing the show on the big stage with a Broadway-caliber cast. She urges Milwaukeeans: “This is the show to see, this is the cast to see. We have an amazing, amazing, amazing cast. I’m really happy and proud to be a part of this cast.”

While it’s not a classic holiday showcase, the classic themes of friendship and triumph over tragedy are gifts that are still giving after more than a decade.

RENT opens Tuesday, Nov. 24, at the Marcus Center and runs through Sunday, Nov. 29. There is no show on Thanksgiving. For more information on available tickets, check out The Marcus Center’s website or call the box office at 414-273-7206. Anthony Rapp will be at Borders Bookstore in Fox Point on Wednesday, Nov. 25, to sign copies of his book, “Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical RENT,” from 2-3 p.m. Radio station FM 102.1 will be broadcasting live from inside the bookstore at that time where patrons can register to win prizes.