Cut The Check, RENT is Due!
A Story of Love, Family, and Resilience.
Tralee Jacobs | STAFF WRITER
April 09, 2026
RENT is due! Whittier College’s production of Jonathan Larson’s iconic musical is a timely and heartfelt staging, led by a cast and crew who clearly care about its message.
The show follows a group of artists as money, health, and time slip away. Over the course of a year, they navigate developing relationships and personal challenges while struggling simply to live.
Inspired by La Bohème, Giacomo Puccini’s opera about Parisian bohemia in the 1830s tuberculosis epidemic, RENT is a rock musical set in New York City during the AIDS crisis of the 1900s. Both works ask the same question that endures the test of time: How do we live in the face of loss, and how do the people we love stay with us?
In preparation for the show, the cast held a screening of the 2012 documentary directed by David France, How to Survive a Plague, that offers an unflinching account of the early years of the AIDS epidemic and the activist movements that arose in response.
“It reveals the impact AIDS had on the population and how important community was,” Play Director Jennifer Holmes explains.
The screening not only grounded the production in historical context but also gave actors a deeper understanding of the world their characters inhabit.
“A lot about being a performer is educating yourself on what you’re stepping into,” Holmes says. Fourth-year Carly Jade Mandell, who plays Mimi, a dancer with HIV, admires Holmes’ commitment to that process: “She takes being a director very seriously while also making sure all of her students feel loved and cared for.”
That process leads directly to the questions at the heart of RENT: How does a community come together to mourn and care for one another when it seems like no one else will? How do you love in the face of loss, in a world where you’re living a death sentence?
The cast carries the weight of these questions both onstage and off. Whether refining choreography or moving between scenes, they remain connected to the characters they portray and the people who lived their experiences. That sense of care translates into a visible feeling of community onstage, shaped in part by the work of choreographer and Julia Centeno, ’25, whose movement emphasizes connection and shared energy among the cast.
“I’m with my friends playing a group of artists who are all friends, and I think that connection is very apparent in the show,” says Meredith Lee, a fourth-year who plays Angel.
Cielo Valenzuela-Lara, a fourth-year who plays Joanne, emphasizes the story’s importance: “It’s a very timely story right now. It doesn’t shy away from social and political issues that are still relevant.”
Musical director Lacey Benter reflects on the show’s message: “To be present in what you have and what you love in the moment that you have, because that is all that you have.”
RENT will be performed in the Robinson Theatre at the Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts. Performances run from April 9 to 19. It is an opportunity to witness and experience a story about resilience and found family, brought to life by performers who understand its stakes.
Don’t miss it!