by Christine Dolen
Herald Theater Critic
April 17, 1998

Andy Seņor is just 23 years old, and only two years ago was playing Motel the tailor in Fiddler on the Roof at Florida International University, from which he graduated last spring.

What a difference a year makes.

Seņor, who had planned to go to graduate school after FIU, scrapped that idea when he met director Michael Greif. Greif was on a Chicago panel auditioning students who wanted to get graduate theater training, and Seņor did monologues from Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey and Shakespeare's Henry V. He got called back and performed two more monologues, but after that lay in wait for Greif the entire day. Greif is the director of Rent, Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning rock opera update of Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme, and Seņor was determined to audition for Rent -- which he did.

And when Rent opens Tuesday at Miami Beach's Jackie Gleason Theater, it is Coral Gables-born Andy Seņor audiences will see -- both in and out of drag -- as Angel, the street performer who is the endearing, heart-breaking spirit at the center of the show.

"Ever since I watched the cast on the [1996] Tony Awards, I wanted to be in Rent,'' said Seņor during a recent promotional visit to South Beach.  "I bought the CD and memorized every lyric. I finally saw the show in New York two days before I auditioned.  Seeing it was weird.  I thought Angel could be this showy drag queen. But he was so sweet.  I was blown away by the intimacy of the show.''

Audiences have had a similar reaction ever since Rent premiered at Off-Broadway's New York Theatre Workshop Feb. 13, 1996.

The musical was already the stuff of tragic legend: Larson, its 35-year-old creator, died of an aortic aneurysm Jan. 25, the night before the show's first preview.  Critics, even traditionalist types who usually turn up their noses at anything smacking of rock on a legitimate theater stage, celebrated Rent as a landmark work.  And it is.

Rent is to the 1990s what La Boheme was to the 1890s, what Hair was to the '60s, A Chorus Line to the '70s. It celebrates those outside the mainstream, straight and gay artists who persist in creation, in spite of everything -- prejudice, illness, poverty, rejection.  Romantic, rousing and white-hot, Rent has brought both die-hard theater lovers and those sought-after hipper first-timers flocking to see it on Broadway and on tour.

Seņor didn't get the key role of Angel, a role that won originator Wilson Jermaine Heredia a Tony Award, right away. He first played a number of chorus roles while understudying Wilson Cruz as Angel, then won the part during the show's Los Angeles run.

"I had to do all of Wilson's choices as Angel, which was very awkward for me,'' said Seņor, a handsome, lanky actor.   "When I got the part, Marlies [Yearby, the choreographer] and Michael [Greif] helped me bring out my Angel.

"A lot of people forget I'm a guy.   Jonathan [Larson] makes Angel the sign of love in the show, and you have no choice but to fall in love with him. You don't judge. You feel for him. I don't consider it drag anymore.  It's Angel.''

Seņor has been around theater for a long time, since an eighth-grade production of Romeo and Juliet at Rockway Junior High and roles in Pippin, Godspell and Li'l Abner at Coral Park High School. He has been around music even longer, around very significant musicians, which may account for his clear comfort level performing in theater's hottest touring musical.

His Cuban-born father, Andres Seņor, is an orchestra leader who operates the Tropigala nightclub in the Fontainebleau Hilton in Miami Beach.  Jon Secada and Gloria and Emilio Estefan have known Andy since he was born, and he's hoping they'll be in the audience sometime during the Gleason run of Rent.

"I saw right in front of my eyes that [major success] is possible,'' Seņor said.  "The Estefans did it.   Jon Secada did it. There's no reason that I shouldn't do it.''

If You Go:

Rent opens at 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Jackie Gleason Theater, 1700 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, where it runs through May 3. Shows: 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, 7 p.m. April 26, 2 p.m. April 30; $26-$49 ($20 front-row day-of-show tickets available two hours before each show; requires payment in cash, limited to two tickets per person). Call Ticketmaster at (305) 358-5885 in Miami-Dade County, (954) 523-3309 in Broward, (561) 966-3309 in Palm Beach.