Five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes
Five hundred, twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
For musical theatre fans, all it takes to bring a sigh to one’s lips are the opening notes of the iconic tune from Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Rent. A stalwart of Broadway, the musical – based on Puccini’s 1896 opera La Bohème – follows the ups and downs of several impoverished, artistic friends living in Manhattan’s East Village in the 1990s. It’s a time before the Gap and Apple took over Alphabet City and when another pandemic – HIV/AIDS – was ravaging the planet.
Nestor Lozano Jr. as the kind-hearted percussionist drag queen, Angel Dumott Schunard, in Thom Allison's take on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
The musical, which opened off-Broadway, quickly took theatre by storm because it was so stylistically different from what was playing at the time. Unfortunately, Larson, who was only 35, died of an aortic dissection the night before Rent’s premiere, and never got to see its success.
This summer, the Stratford Festival’s Thom Allison takes on the musical with Nestor Lozano Jr. in the role of Angel Dumott Schunard, the kind-hearted percussionist drag queen. Angel is the soul of the group who serves as a comfort and conscience for the other seven characters as they grapple with poverty, artistic expression, their HIV diagnosis and their sexuality.
Photographer Carlos Osorio followed Lozano Jr. for a day as he prepared to play this physically demanding and musically challenging role.
– Judith Pereira
Sign up for The Globe’s arts and lifestyle newsletters for more news, columns and advice in your inbox.
