by Fred Crafts
Register-Guard
April 2, 2000

SINGER HORACE Rogers wanted to be in the musical "Rent" so much that he stood in line for seven hours in order to audition for it.

"It was a great opportunity to do something in a positive manner," Rogers said by telephone during a tour stop in San Diego. "I thought it would be a great opportunity to see the country and do this show that honored Jonathan Larson's work. I think it's a great piece that he conceived."

"Rent" cast member Horace Rogers.

Widely hailed as a landmark American musical, Larson's "Rent" is considered one of the most exuberant and original musicals to come along in a decade or so.

Winner of the 1996 Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (only the fifth musical to win both), "Rent" captured the style and concerns - not to mention the hearts - of a generation.

"It touches people in a way that some shows do not do," Rogers explains. "It's not just a fluff show. It has a message."

Inspired by Giacomo Puccini's opera "La Bohème," Larson's everything-but-the-kitchen- sink musical (rock, gospel, calypso, tango, you name it) follows a group of young friends who battle homelessness, loneliness and a variety of potentially life-ending diseases.

Casting a pall over "Rent" is the memory that its creator died unexpectedly, of an aortic aneurysm, on Jan. 25, 1996, just hours after the final dress rehearsal off-Broadway. Larson was 10 days short of his 36th birthday.

"It just galvanized the entire piece, because it deals with seizing the moment and seizing the day," Rogers explains. "When the song says `No Day but Today' and `Seasons of Love,' and you see the people struggle through their problems, it makes you appreciative you don't have the same kind of life-threatening problems that they may have. It's an inspiring work."

And a popular one. "Rent" has been a sold-out hit in New York City since its opening and has played to capacity crowds on tours around the world. The current tour started March 7 in Sacramento, then went to San Diego, Tempe, Ariz., and Long Beach, Calif.

After Eugene, it goes to Colorado Springs, Colo., and Kansas City, Mo. Young people constitute a large segment of its audiences.

The National Touring Company

"I think they like the music first, but then they get the message," Rogers says. "It appeals to them because it's people they can identify with. It's not `Oklahoma' or any of those other musicals. They see people that look like them and they can identify with.

"It's sort of like `Hair' in regard to that - the breakthrough musical of the '90s."

Rogers has been with the touring company for about a year and a half. He began by playing the role of Mr. Jefferson but later shifted to the role of Tom Collins.

Collins is a disenchanted intellectual who - with his lover, the big-hearted drag queen Angel - shares some of the show's most involving moments. The performance takes a toll.

"It's a very emotional thing to go through every night," Rogers confides. "You have to be true to the work. Doing eight shows a week can be very, very draining."

To cope, Rogers takes life easy. "Changing climates and time zones and all that affects your voice and your body. The most you can do is try to get rest, eat well, don't party so much, work out, read or go see a movie, listen to CDs, watch a lot of television, talk on the phone with friends, or try to explore whatever city we're in to see what it has to offer."

EXPLORING WHAT LIFE has to offer seems to be Rogers' preferred way of operating. He was working for the Bristol-Myers Squibb pharmaceutical firm when he appeared in the lead show at the 1989 National Black Theatre Festival. Afterward, he quit the company and went back to school.

He graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree from North Carolina A&T in 1992, then went to the University of Connecticut, where he received his master of fine arts degree in 1995.

Saycon Sengbloh co-stars in the national touring production.

At UConn, Rogers appeared on "Star Search," performed at Carnegie Hall and toured with Stephanie Mills (in "Your Arm's Too Short to Box With God"), Teddy Pendergast and Bebe Wynans. He taught at UConn for two years and in the New York City schools for two years. He also had a wedding band called the Wedding Singers.

Rogers would like to do TV, films and recordings in the future, but for now he is happy with his experiences in "Rent."

"We had a chance to meet Jonathan Larson's parents in Albuquerque, N.M.," Rogers says. "His life is reflected in his mom and dad and sister, and by him being a struggling artist around the country.

"There are seats (to `Rent') for people that can't really afford the theater. There are $20 seats. That's what he wanted to happen at every theater that the show played in.

"They've honored that throughout the world. I think that speaks for him."

When Larson's life was cut so short, much speculation arose over what he might have accomplished in the future. Rogers says he thinks Larson would have been frustrated by the way "Rent" has become almost an industry in itself.

"When you're dealing with one of the top-grossing musicals, you have a lot of people whose hands are in everything. I think he was too much of an artist to deal with those things.

"I don't think he could tolerate them, or would want to."