Theater-makers at Diversionary Theatre have taken a bold approach to restaging a seminal work by turning the venue itself into a narrative device. This new revival of Rent repurposes the theater as a multiroom stage, combines live cinematography with onstage music, and intentionally centers transgender performers to address historic blind spots in the musical. The production balances spectacle with community engagement, creating an experience that is both a performance and a social statement.
Rather than treating the theater as a single proscenium, the creative team uses every corridor, bar and office to tell the story. The result is an immersive evening in which the audience moves through scenes, screens magnify intimate moments, and local partners contribute material artifacts and lived experience to the presentation.
Reframing a classic through space and casting
At the heart of Diversionary’s project is a deliberate effort to reinterpret a piece written in the 1990s for a modern, diverse audience. The company faced the musical’s original limitations — a heterosexual central romance and dated representations of bisexuality and gender nonconformity — by casting transgender actors in principal roles. This choice is not a gimmick; it is a form of narrative repair that changes how relationships and identities read onstage.
To find a performer for the pivotal role of Roger, the theater looked beyond its immediate locality and brought in a New York City-based actor. Local donors provided housing for several out-of-town cast members, reflecting how the production tapped community resources to make an expansive vision feasible. The decision to cast a trans man in a role historically played by a cisgender man intentionally queers the musical’s central romance and reframes its emotional stakes.
Tech, staging and community integration
The technical design intentionally blurs cinematic and live-theater conventions. Eight large screens placed throughout the building livestream one character’s camera, turning his footage into a structural storytelling device. This live projection approach allows close-ups of faces and moments that would normally be lost to distance, creating an intimacy usually associated with film while preserving the immediacy of live music and performance.
Musically, the production is ambitious: a band performs in one room while actors sing from different locations and stay harmonically synchronized. This layered sound design required careful coordination from the music director and sound designer to maintain clarity across spaces, demonstrating how the production uses technical craft to support emotional transparency.
Audience movement and participatory elements
The audience is an active participant rather than a passive observer. At one point, a staged protest performance engages a volunteer in a satirical act and invites the entire crowd onto an outdoor patio to take part in a choreographed moment. The company then relocates to the downstairs cabaret for a communal scene, turning a beloved bar into a theatrical dining room. These choices transform conventional audience etiquette into a shared social ritual.
Local partnerships and social purpose
Diversionary reached beyond its artistic team, collaborating with community organizations to deepen the show’s relevance. Local choirs appear in performance, an archival display connects the production to historical activism, and preview performances were filled with clients of area AIDS service providers. These alliances emphasize that the revival is not only an artistic experiment but also an act of civic memory and support.
The staging intentionally mirrors long-standing urban challenges: housing scarcity, cuts to arts funding, and punitive measures against unhoused people are thread through the narrative just as they were when the musical first appeared. By aligning the show’s themes with contemporary local concerns, the production underscores the continuity of struggle faced by artists and marginalized residents in cities across eras.
Creative team and production craft
Pulling off a show that spans a whole building required a large, coordinated crew. Co-directors and a dramaturg reimagined the text to accommodate mobile staging and streaming elements. Designers handled projection, lighting, scenic and costume needs across multiple performance zones, while a choreographer shaped movement that reads on both film and stage. Every technical role — from props to sound — contributed to keeping scenes coherent when action happens in separate rooms.
The cast brings a mix of established and local performers who inhabit roles with urgency and humor: a magnetic Maureen, a charismatic Angel, a poignant Mimi, and a Roger whose internal life is captured both live and on-screen. Ensemble members shift between comic beats and serious confrontation, reflecting the musical’s tonal range.
Why this production matters
By combining immersive staging, community collaboration and trans casting, this revival offers a renewed conversation about representation, memory and urban precarity. It is both a celebration of Jonathan Larson’s influence on contemporary musical theater and a corrective gesture that updates whose stories are centered. For audiences, the production feels like a civic event as much as a show: a reminder that theater can be a place for both radical form and social reckoning.
Tickets are limited and most performances are selling quickly; interested patrons should check the theater’s official website or waitlist options to attend.
