‘RENT’ Comes to Avon Summer Theater This Month

Rehearsals began Monday for Avon Summer Theater’s production of RENT: School Edition. Fifty students from many towns in the Greater Hartford area and Farmington Valley have come together to produce and perform the rock opera at Avon High School.

On-stage Performers and Technical Theater participants (behind the scenes,) will work hard over the next four weeks to produce a dynamic, challenging show. The diversity of the cast provides great opportunities for the young actors to get to know new friends through shared activities such as bowling, private screenings of movies at the Avon Library, singing at Sweet Frog and the mall and more, according to a release.

This school edition of RENT has been written to retain the dramatic intent of the groundbreaking rock musical, while incorporating changes to language and the removal of one song ("Contact") to make it appropriate for high schools to perform. The original script by Jonathan Larson won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1996.

Avon Summer Theater began in the late 1950's as an Avon Public School summer music and arts program, and RENT, School Edition marks the 54th summer production.