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THE musical Rent, much-loved by theater-goers and musical fanatics, may have officially ended its Broadway run two years ago but various productions around the globe have been busy staging the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical.
Last month, Rent had its run at the Castro Valley Center for the Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area. This week, a new production opened in Hoboken, New Jersey and two Filipino actors are in the cast.
Glen Llanes, a Filipino-Thai-American, is essaying the role of Angel, one of the most colorful characters in the production. His understudy, Jerome Amanquiton, is the other Filipino in the ensemble.
"Playing Angel has always been my dream role, that is why I am very grateful for this opportunity," Llanes shared.
Asked what he thought of Angel’s character, Llanes said that Angel is someone who has a lot of positivity and happiness and would like to share that with others.
"She always looks at life as a glass full, no matter what obstacles she has," he added.
Angel Dumott Junard is one of the seven major characters in the musical. She is a drag queen percussionist with AIDS, who falls in love with Tom Collins, a gay philosophy professor and anarchist with AIDS.
Rent is the story of friends who struggle to survive in New York’s East Village in the late ‘90s as they live their Bohemian lifestyles and deal with love, loss and AIDS. The show’s songs range from edgy rock numbers to ballads such as the now classic Seasons of Love. The musical has been translated into 15 languages in 25 countries.
"As it ended on Broadway, it gave the opportunity for other theater companies throughout the United States to stage it so that gave the opportunity for us to audition in these productions like this one here in Hoboken, which is very close to New York, where I live," Llanes said.
After fulfilling his obligations with this production, the California-born Llanes is set to fly to Manila to further pursue his dreams.
"I will be traveling to Manila to do Xanadu and Legally Blonde. I auditioned from New York and sent my video clips to them," he shared with a lot of excitement.
Born to a Thai father and a Filipino mother, Llanes last visited the Philippines when he was a kid.
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