HUMN 303N Week 4 Assignment; Essay - Play Analysis; Rent

Rent: Play Analysis Student Name Chamberlain College of Nursing HUMN 303N: Introduction to Humanities Fall Session Instructor: Erin Morris Rent: Play Analysis Introduction Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway was the final performance of the original Broadway production of the musical Rent on September 7, 2008. The original musical was written by Jonathan Larson which was loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera “La Boheme” and had first premiered in 1996. The Broadway musical had won four Tony Awards including Best Musical, six Drama Desk Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (Broadway Musical Home, 2019). Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway showcased the finale of one of the longest running Broadway shows to audiences across the country in a dynamic way. The play takes place in the late 80’s and early 90’s, a group of friends in Manhattan’s East Village struggle daily with things such as little to no money, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS, social tension, and political unrest that make it difficult to build the lives of their dreams. It showcases these problems as they face them head on while they make personal self-discoveries and discover what matters most in life (Broadway Musical Home, 2019). Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway took a drama type musical and used the stage, lighting, costumes, and characters to display a hard-hitting reality with comedy, romance, and tragedy. Staging, Lighting, Costumes, & Characters Creating theater involves making something worth watching, something that will hold the audience’s attention and human action is that something (Carroll, 2009). When it comes to the staging, lighting, costumes, and characters of this musical, it is clear to see that every moment was planned down to the tiniest detail in order to fully display the emotions of the moment. The stage was built in a way that little change was needed between each scene to create a connected flow of events. Each scene takes place in a multitude of places in Manhattan, including apartments, restaurants, alleys, streets, and different buildings. In order to eliminate multiple scene changes, the stage was built with multiple areas in one and used lighting as a way to signify where each scene was taken place at. The use of lighting is an important role in many aspects to creating the illusion of the performance. The lights would shine on only parts of the stage at moments to eliminate the unimportant background and signify where the scene is occurring. With this, the lights would display a different color using cool and warm tones to signify night from daytime or the mood of sadness and happiness. Another aspect of the lighting would be where the light originated from such as below or above the characters to cast certain shadows in the background and on the actors. The use of costumes strongly correlated with and complemented each character’s personality to reveal to the audience who they were. The costumes followed the crazy transitioning style of the late 80’s and early 90’s with use of crop tops, colorful outfits, low rise jeans,