by Richard Chang
OC Register
December 26, 2000

As an unemployed rock musician sleeping on his mother's couch, Cary Shields was living a directionless, albeit bohemian, life. Little did he know back then that his mother was secretly applying for auditions on his behalf, and little did he know that he'd wind up playing a directionless and bohemian rock musician in the smash-hit musical "Rent."

"It was pretty lucky - I was kind of just unemployed completely," Shields, 26, said from a hotel room in St. Louis. In "Rent," he plays the male lead, Roger, an HIV-positive musician trying to get by in New York.

"I wasn't an actor, I wasn't in the industry, and I didn't really expect to get it in the first place. I was just a guy in a band who couldn't pay my rent. So I could really relate particularly to Roger, who sat around at home all the time."

The Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning "Rent" is back in Orange County. The raucous and rambunctious musical was here at the Orange County Performing Arts Center two years ago, playing to packed audiences and the ubiquitous bands of "Rentheads" who follow the musical around the country and line up at box offices hours, sometimes days before the show opens in various cities.

"There are people who have seen it 120 times," Shields mused. "They've all made friends on the road with other Rentheads, cast members and crew. They've become a part of the production. Sometimes I wonder how they can afford to see it so often."

The acclaimed rock 'n' roll musical was written by Jonathan Larson, who died at 35 of an aortic aneurysm just days before the show's official debut off-Broadway. Depicting the lives of a ragtag bunch of artists, musicians and dreamers, "Rent" subsequently made a splash on Broadway and became the darling of critics and audiences alike. In addition to capturing the 1996 Tony Awards for best musical, score, book and musical actor, "Rent" won the 1996 Pulitzer for drama, a rare accomplishment.

A musical with an edge

Loosely based on Puccini's "La Bohème," "Rent" shares the opera's embrace of metropolitan bohemians hungry to seize the day. Four years after its debut, "Rent" still has an edge to it, diving into many of today's touchy issues, including AIDS, poverty, social rejection and death.

"It's certainly not your standard theater fare," Shields said. "Some people are not ready to see the kind of relationships that occur on stage. It is bringing in young people who generally wouldn't be sitting in the theater."

But Dominique Roy, who plays Roger's HIV-positive love interest Mimi, said the musical has universal appeal, despite its racy themes and cast of transvestites, junkies, strippers and homosexuals.

"I think it speaks for everyone," said Roy, 31, a Canadian of Haitian descent. "Everyone can recognize someone that they know: the bum down the street, your lover, your best friend. If you live on this planet, they're hard to ignore."

Coming home

For production stage manager Beth Robertson, the eight Orange County performances tonight through New Year's Eve are a sort of homecoming.

Robertson grew up in Placentia, where she attended El Dorado High School. Her father taught at Edison Elementary School in Santa Ana, and her mother was a school nurse in Yorba Linda.

"I think it was a great place to grow up," said Robertson, 30. "I had a great high school experience and excellent teachers. I remember when the Performing Arts Center was built. I saw 'Cats' and 'Les Mis' there. Coming back to it for the first time is kind of cool."

As production stage manager, Robertson organizes the cast and crew, oversees technical flow and maintains the director's vision for the show.

She said it's a rare treat for her to be home for the holidays. She's been on the road with "Rent" for 3½ years and often spends special days in unfamiliar towns.

"It's always nice to go home, to know where certain things are. I usually don't even know where the post office is, especially during the holidays."

Appropriately, "Rent" takes place during the holidays. Act I opens on a cold Christmas Eve in a Lower East Side industrial loft. The cast reels through Christmas and New Year's, and the musical ends during Christmastime a year later.

Since its Broadway run, three separate companies - named after the "Rent" characters Angel, Benny and Collins - have taken the show on the road through the United States and Canada. Orange County audiences will witness the Benny company - the only one still active - at work.

Getting a life

With eight shows a week and constant traveling days, cast members sometimes have to struggle to find a life outside the musical.

"Of course you have to have a life outside 'Rent,'" Roy said. "We see each other every day. Sometimes I either want to be in my room with a book by myself, or do stuff by myself - go to museums, shopping. I need my sanity."

And some cast members admit that performing "Rent" night after night can get a little repetitive. "That's the nature of doing anything hundreds of times," said Shields, who has toured with "Rent" for 2½ years.

"There are tiny moments that happen - the minutiae - that you get tired of. But you have to vary it. There's always some kind of new challenge for you on the show."

Said Robertson, "Sure there are days, but to be honest, it changes over so much, with new cast members. And on top of that, I adore the show. It would be hard to get sick of it."

The indomitable Roy, whose favorite moment is singing the ecstatic tune "Out Tonight," said she wouldn't rather be doing anything else.

"No, I never get tired of it," she said. "There's something very magical about 'Rent.' Every performance is not the same. It's such a beautiful story, I find it easy. It's easy to be motivated to do something like this. There's no other play that I would like to do."