Rent opens the door for fresh faces
Vit Wagner
The Toronto Star
October 22 1997
Rent is due. And for 21 young performers, ages 19 to 28, the terms couldnt be better
They were chosen from among more than 6000 aspirants to appear in the Toronto production of the hit Broadway musical Rent, opening Dec. 7 at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. Tryouts took place in Tronoto, Montreal, and vancouver over an eight-month period.
The company, introduced to the media before rehearsal yesterday, includes 15 cast members and six understudied. Seventeen are Canadain, including four of the 8 leads.
Following a pattern established when the musical opened last year in New Yourk, most of the actors have almost no proffesional theatre experiance.
Heading the list is Chad Richardson, a native of Conception Bay, Nfld., who has lived in Toronto for the past four years. Richardson, a singer/songwriter who just released The Legend of Brud on EMI, will play the narrator in Rent. The musical, an updated version of Puccini's LaBoheme by the late Jonathan Larson, is about the lives of young artists living in contemporary New York.
Richardson had never even heard of Rent prior to seeing an item about auditions in The Star last February.
"The big thing for me," he recalls, :was that it said 'No experience necessary.' Which seemed pretty good for me since I had absolutely no experience whatsoever in acting."
Richardson had an audition, followed by seven call-backs, before learning in May taht the part was his. The news came two weeks after he signed with EMI.
"Im 27 and I had kinda given myself until i was 30 to be chasing these performing dreams," he said. "I never wanted to have a child when i was 35 and have the child suffer because daddy's still trying to chase his dream."
The show's producer, Mirvish productions, has agredd to see copies of Richardson's CD in the lobby of the Rpyal Alex.
The other three Canadian principals also have limited or no stage experience.
Montrealer Danny Blanco began singing in bands after he lost the four fingers on his left hand in an industrial accident in 1988. Blanco, who auditioned at the encouragment of his mother, will be making his acting debut.
Scarborough's Karen LeBlanc studied musical theatre at Sheridan COllege, but spend the last three years touring the world doing a Tina Turner impressonation. She also appeared for a season on CBC-TV's Material World.
Francophone Montrealer Jenifer, a singer.songwriter, had a continuing role in the popular teleroman,Chambres En Ville. Having missed the auditions in Montreal, she flew dow for the final round in Toronot in May and was cast in three days.
"I was lucky," she says. "Im in the big league now."
The other leads are: Jai Rodriguez, a 19-year old New Yorker fresh ou of school; Krysten Cummings, an American living in England who has played Billie Holiday in Mama I Want To Sing; Damian Perkinds, who acted on stage in Los Angeles, and New Yorker Luther Creek, who has appeared in the US touring version of Rent.
The other Canada ensemble members are Divine Earth Essence, Tamara Podemski, and Tricia Young of Toronto, Tom Allison of Winnipeg, Dean Balkwill of Regina and Gavin Hope of Calgary.