The Bing Theatre buzzed softly with excitement Saturday afternoon as a small team of ushers guided attendees to this year’s spring musical, “Rent.” This half-full Saturday matinee, however, made up for their small numbers in sheer enthusiasm. As the second act began and the opening notes of “Seasons of Love” played, the crowd shook with excitement and, well, love.

This show, with its huge runtime and lauded history, seemed like an ambitious and challenging musical for any group of students to take on. At least, that’s what one might think if they didn’t take the time to ask Tori Coleman, a senior majoring in theatre.

“I think this has been one of the easiest shows I’ve been in,” Coleman said.

To explain why putting on “Rent” was so comparatively effortless, Coleman, who plays Maureen in the production, immediately pointed to one person: the show’s director, Professor Anita Dashiell-Sparks.

“I have never had a director who’s been so attentive to the text and just discussing the different characters and relationships to each other,” Coleman said. 

This attentiveness stretches to the careful detailing that went into this show’s production design. The set matches the play’s distinct characterization, complete with rough scaffolding. The intentionally drab backdrops — save some Christmas lights —  only heighten the characters’ struggles and put the pressure on the characters to shine. 

But this stacked cast is up to this task, from Ryan Burton’s grippingly unstable performance as Roger to Nate Riel’s scene-stealing mannerisms as Angel. The ensemble seamlessly glides through dozens of difficult

numbers and comedic interludes alike —  in particular, the show’s comedic “voicemail” interludes are elevated by the cast’s undying commitment to passionate performance. 

But it wasn’t just the cast who stayed attentive due to Dashiell-Sparks’s guidance — the crew was affected as well, as Lexey Glouberman,  a junior majoring in stage management, explained. Glouberman also credited Marty Austin Lamar, the musical director for the production, for his contributions to the show’s straightforward journey.

“For some reason, with this particular show, it’s been really smooth. And I think a lot of that comes from Anita honestly, and Marty, our musical director … they’ve helmed the ship in such a beautiful way,” Glouberman said.

“Rent” has long been iconic for its portrayal of New York City, specifically in the late 20th century — Coleman and Glouberman both did not hesitate to call the show a “period piece.”  

When it comes to the songs themselves, pieces like “Seasons of Love” and “Take Me Or Leave Me” have achieved seminal status in the theatrical world. The latter song took Coleman and her scene partner, Joanne (a delightfully overwhelmed Maya Rena), an hour-long talk to fully process — despite being just four minutes long. It shows, too — the duo’s striking performance of this showstopper completely silenced the Bing Theatre for its entire runtime.

Perhaps because of these struggles with the show’s lengthy and highly acclaimed history, Dashiell-Sparks has been directing this particular production around a central question: Why, exactly, are they going to perform “Rent” in 2024? 

There were a few differing answers to this query. Emiko Ohta, a senior majoring in theatre, was one of many to connect the musical’s focus on the AIDS epidemic to the cast’s collective experience with the COVID-19 virus.

“The sort of devastation of not knowing whether your friends are going to die the next day … That was a point of connection to the story that a lot of my classmates found,” Ohta said.

Ohta further reasoned that “Rent” has stayed relevant because of what they termed as the show’s “universal truths,” timeless themes like the value of a chosen family and the inevitability of death. In contrast to Ohta, a statement from the lead “artistic team” in the production’s program insists that while “Rent” heavily features discussions of death, it’s not really about death at all — rather, it is “a show about life.”

When discussing the ways “Rent” still resonates now, Dashiell-Sparks emphasized the importance of the musical as a story about civil rights, especially in the modern political climate.

“The message still endures now …  in a moment where we are seeing so many different dynamics in terms of policies literally being rolled back — our human rights, our civil rights being rolled back,” Dashiell-Sparks said.

The director also made sure to note that she regards her students just as highly as they praised her, particularly noting the kindness shared by the entire company.

“​​Well, I think one of the things that I think has been such a beautiful characteristic across the company … has been the generosity and the joy and the support that has been brought into the room,” Dashiell-Sparks said. “I reflect upon it all the time, because it’s not an automatic thing, that’s just how everybody has been.”

Glouberman took time to reflect on her team’s shared generosity in spite of their differences. They chose to, as Coleman impressively belts as Maureen, to “Take me for what I am / who I was meant to be.”

“We’re all people from very different walks of life,” Glouberman said. “It’s a very beautifully diverse cast in pretty much every way, and we all have deep love and understanding for the story that was cultivated early on.”

Without spoiling where the story of “Rent” goes, the reprise of “I’ll Cover You” in the second act showed this love in particular, as the death of a major character doubles as a tribute to this production’s dedication to diversity and a “deep love” for Jonathan Larson’s original story. In fact, the entire denouement of the story — especially Roger’s climactic performance of “Your Eyes” — left the audience in transfixed silence.

After all, Dashiell-Sparks stressed that merely performing this show as normal was not enough.

“There’s a difference between executing all those things, and really embodying them — owning it … I’m looking forward to the moment where the whole collective owns the show and sends that out so generously in the theater,” Dashiell-Sparks said. “That, to me, [is] when it’s magic.”

“Rent” is running at the Bing Theatre through Apr. 14.