‘Rent’ is finally due in Wichita: Crown Arts Collaborative staging the legendary musical

More than 25 years after it opened on Broadway, “Rent” has a home on a Wichita stage.

It’s the first production of the season for the Crown Arts Collaborative, a nonprofit that stages shows at the Crown Uptown Theatre.

Although traveling productions of the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical made stops at Century II in 2004 and 2018, it has not been staged by a local theater company — with the exception of an edited version called “Rent Jr.” that played at Music Theatre for Young People.

“It’s the first time people will see the actual production,” said Max Wilson, Crown Arts executive director. “It’s such an honor. It’s a show that has touched so many lives. It’s a show that has meat, that has interesting and provocative sometimes relationships. It touches on things people actually experience and not the fluff you often get with musical theater.”

Longtime Wichita actor Steve Hitchcock is getting his first experience directing — aside from work on sketches at Mosley Street Melodrama and with high school groups — with “Rent.”

“I’ve known ‘Rent’ since I was a teenager, so I was really thrilled,” Hitchcock said. “It’s been a really joyful experience, and I’m happy to be asked and to be a part of it.”

Before getting the call last fall to direct “Rent,” Hitchcock was in a conversation about the show, set in the 1990s, and made the initial contention that the musical had outlived its shelf life.

“To me it had felt dated, just in terms of the style and kind of music,” Hitchcock recalled. “But the more I researched and the further I dived into the material, I realized how current it actually is. It’s about how we’re dealing with the same issues, just in different ways. They’re still pervasive in our culture, in our communities.

“I have a greater appreciation of it. I don’t have that opinion anymore,” he added. “The music’s kind of timeless and it’s had real staying power.”

Wilson agreed that the present-day concern about COVID mirrors the musical’s concern about AIDS.

“I see a lot of parallels there,” he said. “The last pandemic had just as many scapegoats as this one does.”

Matt Hale, who plays HIV-positive musician Roger, said he’s been hooked on “Rent” since he saw a performance of “One Song Glory” from the show.

“That was so crazy and so non-theater,” he said.

Jaslyn Alexander, who plays lawyer Joanne, said she’s been a fan of the show since her family played the cast album when she was in high school. She said she wondered if she’d ever get the chance to be in it.

“‘Rent’ was one I didn’t think I’d get the privilege to do,” she said. “Yet here I am.”

All 19 of the performers in “Rent” sound amazing, Wilson said. A rule in the Crown Arts Collective is that performers can’t be in more than two shows a season, and he said the other titles in 2022 – “The Addams Family,” “The Wedding Singer,” “Calendar Girls,” “The Rocky Horror Show” and a holiday production – will all be sell-stocked with talent.

“This cast is dynamite,” Wilson said. “These performances and these voices are next level.”

“To hear how they all sound together is really a treat every night,” Hitchcock said.

To fulfill its mission of working with community organizations, Crown Arts is partnering with Positive Directions and Hunter Health Clinic to provide STD and STI tests. Hunter also will provide COVID tests and vaccinations.

Crown Arts also is working with Harvester Arts to curate a graffiti art gallery inside the theater, with all of the pieces for sale.

‘RENT’

When: Friday through May 22; performances at 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: Crown Uptown Theatre, 3207 E. Douglas

Tickets: For dinner (barbecue from Wichita Subs & More) and show, $40-$45 adults, $5 discount for seniors and military, $25 students (doors open 90 minutes before curtain); for show only, $25-$30 adults, $38-$23 for seniors military, $10 for students, at crownuptown.com or 316-612-7696