In Rent, Matarazzo plays struggling film-maker Mark, who chronicles and narrates the lives of his friends.<\/p>\n
It has been 30 years since the show first opened off-Broadway in New York, but the actor says there are “certain songs that weirdly resonate now”.<\/p>\n
“What You Own, which feels like a reflection on information overload, is incredibly relevant,” he says.<\/p>\n
“That’s really fun to sing in context of today.”<\/p>\n
When it was first performed, Rent shone a light on young friends and artists living in late 1980s and early 1990s New York during the HIV\/Aids crisis.<\/p>\n
It was considered groundbreaking at the time for tackling social taboos and centering stories of LGBT people. <\/p>\n
Writer Jonathan Larson died suddenly the night before its premiere. <\/p>\n
Matarazzo’s co-star, Travis Ross, who plays Roger, says the show’s themes still “ring true” today.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old says having Rent tends to attract people who “care so deeply” about the show’s message, resulting in a connection between actors and the audience.<\/p>\n
He calls it a “really beautiful community-driven piece of art”. <\/p>\n
Both Ross and Matarazzo are keen to acknowledge their fellow cast members and point out Rent is “an ensemble” piece.<\/p>\n
“In the same way we get our moments to tell the story there’s also ten other people who get their moments to tell the story as well,” says Ross.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Rent, Matarazzo plays struggling film-maker Mark, who chronicles and narrates the lives of his friends. It has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-796016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}