The Otterbein Theatre Department is ushering in a new season of love with Rent, their first show of the school year.
The show, loosely based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La Boheme, tells the story of a group of artists living in Manhattan's East Village in the late 1980s. Over the span of a year the characters deal with poverty, love, loss, disease and hope, all while connecting with each other and to the city they live in through their art.
Rent has won multiple awards for both its book and score. The music is driven with electric guitars and a rock beat, while the gritty lyrics highlight the trials that the characters face as they struggle to find meaning in their bohemian world.
J.T. Wood, a sophomore BFA musical theatre major, plays Tom Collins. Collins is a part-time philosophy teacher and self-ascribed anarchist fighting for HIV/AIDS awareness, a disease he and many of the of the other characters in the production suffer from.
"He's an anarchist with an attitude towards everything, which is not the way I try to live my life," Wood said. "However, he's so passionate about the people in the community he's in and I think that's something we have in common."
Despite the show's main themes about love, many of the characters fall in and out of love due to the baggage they carry. Senior BFA musical theatre major Erin Ulman stresses the importance of maintaining those relationships in spite of that baggage.
"If you really care about somebody, don't let your pride get in the way," she said.
Wood and Ulman both agree that the most important message to take away from Rent is that love and life are precious but fleeting.
"Love the people that you're with and that you're around and don't take them for granted," Ulman said. "You don't know how long life is."
Wood offers one last piece of advice in the spirit of Tom Collins.
"We're all here on earth looking for love," he said. "You should be more open to giving that love as well."
Rent premieres Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at Cowan Hall. There are performances on Sept. 25 and 26 at
8 p.m. and a matinee performance on Sept. 27 at 2 p.m. The show also runs Oct. 1 through 3 at 8 p.m.
