Photo: Bernadine Carey
Rent
GVSU Theatre Department and Heritage Theatre Group
Nov. 13-15, 19-21
$6-$15
gvsu.edu/theatre

When the amateur theatre rights to Rent were released this year, Heritage Theatre Group had a dilemma on its hands.

Although the company had always desired to do the show, this was the first time it had the opportunity to-and it couldn't take it, because the schedule was set, and there was simply no room for the dramatic musical phenomenon.

That's when Keith Oberfeld, the co-founder of Heritage, called Karen Lipman, a professor of drama at Grand Valley State University and common collaborator of Oberfeld's. Oberfeld - whose son-in-law, Manley Pope, was a member of the show's Broadway and touring cast - and Lipman settled on a new idea: what if the drama department at Grand Valley and the Heritage Theatre Group collaborated on the first production of Rent in West Michigan?

"We'd never thought of it before," Lipman said, who will produce the play with Oberfeld. "It's a truly co-produced venture" of what she describes as "a basic exploration of what happened to the American dream."

That co-production extends to the cast, which is an even split between Grand Valley students and local performers. The actors in Rent, the story of a group of friends dealing with AIDS and the roughness of every day urban life in New York City, are a racially mixed bunch. And at GVSU, they've decided to mix that up.

"We didn't cast within the ethnicities of the original roles," Lipman said, explaining that the focus is the actors and singers, not what they look like or what background they're from.
Another quirk with this particular production is the guest director. Although guest directors are common at the school, less common is the opportunity to collaborate with someone like Pope, who previously filled the role of Roger, the AIDS-ridden, unlucky in love musician.

"We're totally over the moon, to quote the musical," said Lipman, who hopes the community feels similarly as a popular musical gets face time on the smaller stage for the first time.

Throughout the year, GVSU performs four plays. Rent is meant to fill what Lipman dubbed the "November diversity slot," the performance that puts the spotlight on a subject often ignored. In the case of Rent, there's more than one rich subject from which to draw.