Area Stage Conservatory To Present RENT: SCHOOL EDITION in March

Area Stage Company has announced their upcoming conservatory production of Rent: School Edition. This production will take place at ASC's Black Box Theatre on Sunset Drive, playing four performances over one weekend from March 10th to 12th. Directed by incoming ASC instructor Elizabeth Guerra, the production will feature 21 student actors thirteen and up, who will work alongside two professional actors joining the production as teaching artists: Luke Surretsky, who will be playing the role of Mark Cohen, and Tico Chiriboga, who will be playing Roger Davis.

The cast will also include Carlos Bravo as Tom Collins, Matthew Gory as Benjamin Coffin III, Ava Bean as Joanne Jefferson, Colton Mopsick as Angel Schunard, Nicole Becker as Mimi Marquez, Penelope Cartaya as Maureen Johnson and Emma Van Assche as Alexi Darling. The ensemble will include Allegra De Armas, Micaela Androchuk, Chris Adonis Atzanos, Adriana Ayala, Dominique Cederberg, Reese De Moya, Matthew Gory, Jesus Nuńez Del-Cuadro, Maria Olea, Isabella Polier, Lia Roderiquez , Alexa Rump, Olivia Serrano-Salow, Anniemarie Valcarcel, and Celeste Zwingel.

Rent: School Edition is a teen-appropriate version of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award musical by Jonathan Larson first produced on Broadway in 1994. Based loosely on Puccini's La Boheme, the show takes us through a year in the life of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York's Lower East Side under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. The disease poses a ticking clock to four of the play's main characters, including guitarist Roger, who has reacted to his diagnosis by trying to shut out the world.

All he wants now is to write one great song in the time he has left, but a series of chance encounters instead leads him into a fraught affair with stripper Mimi Marquez. As she tries to teach him to reopen his heart, anarchist professor Collins and flamboyant drag queen Angel begin their own passionate romance. Performing artist Maureen protests a soulless corporate takeover while juggling tension with her tighter-wound girlfriend, and reserved filmmaker Mark devotes himself to capturing his friends on camera while he still can.

Originally considered groundbreaking for its contemporary pop-rock score and edgy subject matter, the musical is one that reinvigorated the art form and made a lasting cultural impact. The ASC team is excited to offer a new generation of performers a chance to explore this timeless story of love, loss, and living life to the fullest, as well as to share it with a new generation of audiences. Further details about the production are as follows:

SHOWTIMES:

7:30 PM on Friday March 10th

Saturday March 11th at 2:00 and 7:30 PM

Sunday March 12 at 5:00 PM.

PERFORMANCE ADDRESS:

Area Stage Company

5701 Sunset Drive, Suite 286

Miami, FL 33143

TICKETS:

General admission, available at $30 per adult and $15 per student; on sale now here, at a link which can also be found at our website, areastageconservatory.org.

ABOUT AREA STAGE COMPANY (ASC)

Area Stage Company is a non-profit, professional theatre company founded in 1989 on principles of artistic innovation, education and inclusion. Throughout our 34 year history, we have striven to bring extraordinary theatrical experiences to members of the Miami-Dade community, and have consequently become one of South Florida's most influential arts organizations. In addition to our acclaimed mainstage productions, ASC houses a

world-class Conservatory program, which provides professional level theatre training to hundreds of young aspiring artists each year, as well as to the Inclusion Theatre Project, which provides a similar opportunity to students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Recently, ASC has been named 2022's "Best Theater Company" by the Miami New Times, our sixth time earning the title, as well as received four Carbonell and two Silver Palm awards for our recent production of Beauty And The Beast.

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