wire FEATURE: RENT comes to miami
People were watching something that was kind of a little different from what was playing on MTV and kind of a little different from the people we see on the street and kind of a little different from the people we know. All of the sudden, we were watching something from our lives and dealing with things like AIDS and homelessness, which hadn’t been discussed before. What can people expect from this production?
comes to miami By Thomas Barker
As someone who loves musical theater, I couldn’t wait for the movie RENT to hit theaters. Unfortunately every single time I had visited New York, the Broadway production was usually sold out, so I never got the chance to see one of the most famous Broadway shows live and in person. And even though seeing a show on Film is great, there really is nothing like seeing a production live and in the theater.
After watching RENT in the movie theater, I was blown away by what I had witnessed. The bohemian storyline, combined with the challenges each of the characters faced, including homelessness, being broke, and most importantly, AIDS, really resonated with me. Needless to say, I have seen the movie about 10 times since then and have balled my eyes out every single time.
Next week, I will finally get the chance to see the show live and in person at the The Fillmore Miami Beach, as one of the most seasoned casts of RENT will perform the production for the last time in Miami Beach.
To prepare myself for a night of incredible acting, I took a few minutes to sit down with Andy Señor, who initially joined the cast of RENT in 1997, playing the role of Angel. Since then, Andy has been in about four to five different productions of the Broadway phenomenon and regularly switches between the roles of Angel and Steve. To top it off, Andy is of Cuban dissent, was born and raised in Miami, and is openly gay.
I was very happy to snag an interview with him. Check out what he had to say:
How did you go from a local Miami resident to performing in one of the most famous shows on Broadway?
I went to FIU after graduating from Coral Park High School, and during my last semester of college I was auditioning for graduate schools. I wanted to get my master’s degree in acting. There was one school called USD that I was really interested in going to, because they have a great regional playhouse called the La Jolla Playhouse. I was auditioning for their master’s program, and I didn’t know at the time that the resident director for the playhouse was Michael Grief, who was also the director for RENT. After my audition for the program, I asked him if I could audition for the show, and he agreed to let me audition. I flew to New York, and got the part the next day. How has being openly gay affected your role as Angel? It hasn’t… maybe in the sense of just being free to be myself. I think that the more you can really just be who you are and 18 | wire magazine | wireweekly.com
accept who you are; the easier it is for you to understand a different role. What are the similarities and differences between you and Angel? If you had asked me this a long time ago, I probably would have given a different answer. I was originally cast in this role when I was 22 and now I am 35, so there has been a lot of growing since I first took on this role. When I was younger, I used to say we’re both very positive and sweet. Since I have grown into a man now, I feel that our biggest similarity is the ability to take what the world gives us and really owning it, dealing with it, and moving forward.
People can expect to see it for the last time. That’s a definite. Obviously they will get to see RENT, but it will be from a very seasoned cast. I have been with about four or five companies already and this one is definitely the most experienced. There’s Adam and Anthony, who are the original guys, that set the precedent with the show and they create this excitement, energy, and frenzy amongst the fans that is unlike any other production I’ve ever been a part of. There is not one single weak link in this production. This is what RENT is supposed to be. This is the production that Jonathan would have wanted to leave people with. Once your tour ends, what will you be doing next?
I’ve been working with Nilo Cruz, a playwrite who won a Pulitzer Prize for his show Anna in the Tropics. He, along with Frank Wildhorn, who is a musical theater composer, is writing a new show called Havana. I have been working with them, doing workshops and readings for the production. I hope to continue to be involved in that production.
Born of Cuban descent in Miami, what was your family’s reaction to your role in the show? My mom kind of had an issue with it at first. Back in 1997, I think maybe Will & Grace had just come out. There really were no openly gay characters on TV. It just wasn’t a mainstream thing. It was even a difficult thing for myself. The day before I went to audition, I went to see the show, and was taken aback by seeing two guys kiss on stage and watching these gay characters. For me, it was something that was private and not something you would normally see in public. When my mother saw the same thing, she was definitely taken aback. She asked me if I was really going to do this, and, of course, I said yes. At that time, perhaps she, along with a lot of other people, thought that to be gay meant that I would have to be this flamboyant character with feathers and stuff like that. Today, it is completely different. Being gay is now just a regular part of humanity. Now my mother talks to me about the gay characters in her novellas. It’s really nice to see. You can even see the difference in the audience. Back when I first started working with the production and Angel and Collin would kiss, you would hear the audience make oohs and awes. Now, people applaud and cheer. They don’t see it as an issue anymore. RENT is one of the most successful Broadway productions of our time. Why do you think it has been so successful? I think that what made it so successful originally was how different it was. At that time, the theater was very fantastical with stories from another world. Theater was meant to be an escape from reality. I think RENT came in and started to address and discuss issues that people hadn’t ever really thought about before. The characters were not all dressed up like peacocks. They were very accessible and real, and the music was similar to what people were hearing on the radio.
Andy Señor
RENT
The Fillmore Miami Beach December 8th to December 13th www.siteforrent.com