Interview: Director Sammi Cannold on bringing RENT IN CONCERT to the Segerstrom Center For The Arts

Jonathan Larson's beloved 1990s rock opera RENT may not be on Broadway anymore, but those who miss the music will want to check out the latest one-night incarnation, RENT IN CONCERT, at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts on March 15. 

The symphonic concert will be directed by Sammi Cannold (How to Dance in Ohio) and conducted by Sarah Hicks. Cannold, who made Forbes'  "Thirty Under Thirty" list in 2019,  debuted the symphonic concert adaptation in July 2023 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

"One of the beautiful things about this project is that we get to combine the theater world with the symphonic world," Cannold told BroadwayWorld. "There are very few instances of that and I think it's so exciting to take musical theater artists and bring them into a symphonic space and have them work with a symphony orchestra."

The cast will include Grammy winner Abigail Barlow (The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical) as Maureen, Frankie Rodriguez (High School Musical: The Musical: The Series) as Angel, Warren Egypt Franklin (Hamilton) as Collins, Kennedy Holmes (The Voice) as Joanne, Coby Getzug (Merrily We Roll Along) as Mark, Jasiana Caraballo (Dogman: The Musical) as Mimi, and Tyler Matthew Burk (Jersey Boys) as Roger. 

RENT, a rock opera written by Jonathan Larson, opened at the Nederlander Theatre April 29, 1996—after which it received 10 Tony nominations and won four, including Best Musical. The story follows a group of struggling artists and friends in 1990s New York City as they navigate love, loss, and the pursuit of their dreams while facing the challenges of poverty and the AIDS epidemic. 

BroadwayWorld sat down with Cannold to find out what to expect of the one-night-only engagement: 

Hi Sammi! Thanks so much for talking with me! Give me your best two to three-line summary of who you are and how you got here. 

I am a Broadway director and filmmaker. I started directing professionally about 10 years ago after studying it in school. Now, I direct musical theater, plays, opera, a little bit of film, a little bit of TV, and a little bit of ceremony work. I love it, and I'm so excited that my next project is Rent In Concert in Costa Mesa! 

Okay, so RENT IN CONCERT. Do the performers just stand in a line, ”Seasons of Love” style, and sing the songs?  Tell me what people should expect?

So Rent In Concert is an experience where you are getting nearly the entirety of the musical Rent. We perform the whole show with the exception of about 10 minutes that we've cut and it is backed by a symphony orchestra for the very first time. 

The singers are performing the music in a stripped-down kind of minimalist way, with music stands. There isn't choreography and there isn't set design or costume design, but there is this beautiful story and this beautiful score and we're really excited to bring this performance of it to Costa Mesa. 

As a director, what's the difference between directing a concert of a Broadway musical and directing a musical? 

I think the difference is really in terms of scope and scale and how nimble you can be. One of the beautiful parts of doing Rent In Concert is that we can bring it all over the country in a way that allows us to work with symphony orchestras. If you were to do the show on Broadway, there would be no way that you could have an orchestra of this size. So our goal with this was really to focus on this gorgeous score and this gorgeous story, and for me as a director that means that I get to spend a lot of time working with the actors on their storytelling and how they're bringing this piece to life instead of the nitty-gritty of, 'Okay this light cue or this automation cue' or things like that.

On that note, how do you cast this show? Are you looking for people who are singers
first? Or actors first? Are you looking for anything different given that it’s a concert, and not the whole musical?

I think we're looking for folks who are double threats—they don't have to dance—who are both incredible singers and are incredible actors. In every time that we've gotten to do the show, and now this is the fourth time that we're doing it, we've worked with an incredible casting director whose name is Peter Dunn. Peter does these massive searches where we ask for submissions from folks to send in videos of themselves if they'd like to be in the show. Then we watch all the videos, we call some people back, we ask them to sing some material from the show. And then we select a group of people who is bespoke to the specific location that we're doing the show in, which means that we are predominantly looking at casting folks who are either local to the place where we're doing the concert or are originally from the place that we're doing the concert. 

We really want these concerts to feel very homegrown and unique to their location. And we've had some really beautiful homecomings of folks who grew up in the theater communities in these cities and then have moved elsewhere over time, but are coming back to perform in these concerts. 

Does the concert feature all the songs? Which ones are omitted? Any surprises in store?

So the concert features nearly all the songs in the show. We don't do the song, 'We're okay.' We don't do a few of the voicemails, and there are some small cuts within a few of the songs, and that's largely just to be able to fit the schedule of an evening for a symphony orchestra and how things sort of work out in terms of timing allotments.

All the cuts that we made were made with the blessing and approval of the Larson estate and of MTI who licenses the show. And the surprise that I will tip people off to here, but you'll only really know how the surprise feels if you come to see it, is that we have an overture in the show that our incredible orchestrator Shawna Laughlin wrote specifically for this version. 

Where has the show been before this, and where will it go from here?  

The show was at the Kennedy Center in D.C. prior to its new unfortunate leadership. It's been at the Rayshell in San Diego with the San Diego Symphony. Most recently it was in Lincoln, Nebraska at the Leeds Center and this is now the fourth time that we are doing it. Where does it go from here?  I'm not at liberty to say, but I'm very excited that there will be hopefully many more iterations down the line and excited to show that information as soon as we are able to. 

Do you cast locally for every show? 

We have so far had local casting processes for every iteration of the show, and it's very much our intent to continue doing that.

Why do it as a concert and not just the actual stage show? And, why just one night? We all want more!

I'm with you. Obviously, the more the merrier, but I think that the reason that the show is structured this way is that we understand that symphonies—and I will say that our producers could probably speak to this more eloquently than I can—but my understanding is that symphonies around the country have very busy schedules where they're doing all kinds of programming and the whole point of this version of Rent is that we are combining musical theater and symphonic world, and so I think that our thinking was, you know, we can get into the schedules of these symphonies if we do shorter, sort of more stripped down stints versus trying to mount a whole mass of production. 

There are wonderful productions of Rent that are performed around the country and around the world that are full productions, and what we're trying to do is actually intentionally something different. 

Why is Rent so enduring? 

I think it knocks me out every time—that the music and the message of the show feel completely timeless even though they are so very specific to their time and culture. And I think that it's about the spirit of young people who are fighting for what they believe in and want to see change. I think that that is something that, no matter the generation and no matter the circumstances, is part of an energy of,  democratic culture. And it's so beautifully manifested in this show.

So I think it's that energy and that spirit—and also the score. The music is just indelible.  I don't know a theater person who doesn't love the score of Rent. 

What's your favorite Rent song? 

This is such a tricky question; I love them all. I would say it's a bit cliche to say "Seasons of Love" but I just love it. It's so beautiful and heartbreaking and heart-restoring at the same time. It's so iconic. We have this moment in the concert, where you just hear those piano chords, and instantly you know it's going to be this piece that is going to speak to your heart.

So yeah, I would I would say "Seasons Of Love,: and with apologies for being cliche. 

What Rent character do you connect with most? 

I guess I would probably say Mark because he is trying to capture a moment in time. He is trying to capture the circumstances of his community, and as an artist, I really resonate with the struggle to do justice to people and stories, and the sort of artistic frustration with, you know, what am I devoting my life to, and what stories am I devoting my life to telling.

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