For all but one year, Tyler Cristiano and Ben Kwok watched their high school shows from behind a piece of theatre equipment.
Cristiano was the head sound technician at Port Coquitlam’s Riverside secondary while Kwok, also 17, took on the job of lighting productions and assemblies from his brother, Richard, when he graduated.
For their final year, though, the teens wanted to try something different: Last fall, rather than returning to the sound board and hot lights, they auditioned for roles in the next musical, RENT: The School Edition.
And though they had no experience singing, dancing or acting on stage, director Nicole Roberge double-cast the pair in a lead part.
This and next month, Cristiano and Kwok will share the role of Mark, the narrator who, as an aspiring filmmaker, tries to capture the crazy — and often lonely — bohemian world around him in the East Village.
Based on Puccini’s opera La Boheme, the rock musical follows the lives of Mark’s creative yet impoverished friends in New York City for a year as they struggle to cope with such heavy topics as mental and physical illness (especially HIV/AIDS), relationships and gender identity.
Roberge saw the show on Broadway in 1998 “and it kind of blew my mind,” she said during a rehearsal at the school last Friday. “I’ve been waiting for the right group at Riverside to do it, and this is an incredibly unique and diverse group of 51 personalities who care about each other.”
Riverside is the first Tri-City school to tackle RENT: School Edition, a toned-down version of the original that came out a decade ago.
Roberge, who is also responsible for the choreography and costumes, said her cast and crew have honoured the show’s creator, Jonathan Larson, who died suddenly the night before the Off-Broadway premiere in 1996.
Last Thursday, they broke bread at a Peasants’ Feast to pay tribute to the legacy of the playwright because “we wanted his spirit to be here as we go forward with this wonderful musical at Riverside,” she said.
• Tickets for RENT: School Edition, with musical direction by Glenda Ottens and Krista Wallace, are $12/$10 at the door on show nights: Feb. 22 to 24, Feb. 28 and March 1 and 2. The curtain rises at 7:30 p.m. Call the school (2215 Reeve St.) at 604-941-6053 or visit brownpapertickets.com.
jcleugh@tricitynews.com
