RENT isn't exactly a "disney" musical....?

Question:Does anyone have any experience with altering it slightly to make it more high school appropriate; I would really love for my school to perform it.

Or do you think that would be too hard to do and that it would ruin the whole message?

Thanks!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Does anyone have any experience with altering it slightly to make it more high school appropriate; I would really love for my school to perform it.

Or do you think that would be too hard to do and that it would ruin the whole message?

Thanks!

Now there is "RENT: High School Edition" and it has been performed by several schools around the country. Clearly, it has been modified, but I do not know how.

Your school could perform it if you got the rights, and school board approval.

It wil be hard to do, but not too hard because it is already modified, and just because it is modified, does not mean it should be losing its message.

Have fun!

You can't LEGALLY do that. For a musical to be performed anywhere, you have to get the rights to it. It is illegal to alter the work. Many musicals that are performed at the high school level have been altered by the playwright or their publishing company to make it appropriate for that level.

RENT has not been edited for high school use. In fact, it is not even released to be done at the community level yet. If your school were to do it, both your school and whoever edited the piece could be in alot of legal trouble, which could add up to thousands of dollars in damages.

There IS Rent "School Edition." However, I think that even this slightly-modified version is too risque for a school. I think there is no way to make the show more appropriate without entirely losing the message -- I think it's supposed to be edgy to encourage people to really think about the message. Between the drug use, homosexuality (which, depending on where you live, could be offensive...), sexual promiscuousness, stripping...all of which is important to the plot...not to mention the tragic theme of AIDS that, depending on your audience, could be too much....I think it's not school appropriate in the least.

I'm pretty sure multiple parents would have a fit if they saw it. If you look at the main characters, really only Mark and Benny acceptable. (This is me pretending to be conservative, I'm really liberal about this sort of stuff.)

Roger's a former drug addict
Mimi still is a drug addict
Tom and Angel gay
Maureen is bisexual
Joanne's a lesbian

And there's all sorts of references to their traits. Sure, it's realistic, but there's a huge chance that a number of adults would throw a fit over the production. Really, in order to make it high school appropriate, you'd have to change far too much stuff around. And yes, you are right, I feel that it would lose it's meaning.

There's no way you can change it to make it high school appropriate. If you took away the taboo issues (homosexuality, drug use, AIDS, etc, etc) It would just be a bunch of people that have no money singing about living in New York. It would take away the depth. Plus you'd have to change the words to the songs or even possibly delete songs. Not a good idea. Even if you did all that AND got legal rights, I'm sure some conservitive parents would still complain. Rent is amazing...the West End is already changing it enough (not to its benefit) as it is!!

It actually has been performed in community theatres.
There has also been high school performances too.
I'd check the Rent IMdb boards for more information ( http://www.imdb.com )

And yes, you would have to re-edit the whole show, and take out mostly...everything. It would ruin it.

i think it would ruin the essence of the musical.
i mean, there are some stuff that you could get away with but it really would ruin the message of the play. and i know that if i wanted to perform it at my school without changing it, it would be physically impossible...

Although difficult it can be done. Just think of how many movies that have R ratings that eventually get shown on network TV. When objectionable words/lines are about to be said the networks have the "dubbed".

cut La Vie Boheme and re-write over half the script; really there is no way of making RENT appropriate for a school setting,sorry.