Karrington Sneed (clockwise from top left), Ryan Michael Friedman, Ralphael Agee, Gideon Ethridge and Lauren Teders from the cast of Circle Theatre’s 2026 production of “Rent.”
Taystan Photography
Rent is so big, it can’t be contained on a stage. In the 30 years since the groundbreaking musical premiered on Broadway, productions have been spilling into the aisles when they’re not surrounding the audience.
At Fort Worth’s Circle Theatre, director Garret Storms takes advantage of the tiny basement performance space to create an intimacy that feels organic, even when the actors step into the dark and sing right at patrons sitting a couple of feet away.
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Interrupted on opening night by a storm passing through Fort Worth, Circle’s production is still one of the most satisfying shows of the North Texas theater season. An anticipatory electricity was in the air even before the performance officially started.
This is a show people love for the hummable songs and sympathetic characters, who face down disease and poverty with youthful, if skeptical, exuberance. Featuring a talented young cast with few major stage credits, Circle’s production proves once again that Rent, despite the specificity of its setting — or maybe because of it — is a timeless classic.
The casually precise choreography by Amber Marie Flores keeps the actors swirling around the stage — and off of it — matching the layered music that builds to a crescendo over the course of the show.
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Inspired by the Puccini opera La bohème, written 100 years before Rent, the first act covers just seven days in the lives of eight friends, half of whom are HIV-positive. The second picks up on New Year’s Day, jumps to the spring and then another holiday season, bringing a show that emphasizes the power of living for today full-circle.
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It’s the late 1980s on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, specifically East 11th Street and Avenue B in Alphabet City. Christmas bells may be ringing, but an encampment of homeless people is about to be kicked out of an empty lot. In an adjacent building, struggling musician Roger (Gideon Ethridge) and budding filmmaker Mark (Ryan Michael Friedman), chronicling it all with his camera, live on the top floor rent-free. Or so they think.
The land is owned by their ex-roommate Benny (Vincent Witherspoon), who has married into Connecticut money and shows up to collect. He’s planning to build a cyberstudio on the property.
In the first big number, the title rocker “Rent,” they refuse to pay. Benny offers them an alternative: get Mark’s ex, Maureen (Lauren Teders), a performance artist, to cancel her show protesting the eviction, and he’ll waive payment. The publicity is bad for business.
Meanwhile, Roger, who’s been off heroin for six months, is tempted by Mimi (Maria Shorunke), the exotic dancer next door, who’s not. She asks him to “Light My Candle,” but he’s still stinging from the death of his girlfriend April, who committed suicide when she found out they had contracted HIV.
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Recognizing Mimi from the club where she works, Roger remembers, “They used to tie you up.” “It’s a living,” she retorts. Like voicemails from Mark’s concerned mother in Scarsdale, it provides comic relief.
The other characters include their HIV-positive friend Tom Collins (Ralphael Agee), an out-of-work philosophy professor who falls for the drag queen Angel (Landon Blanton) and vice versa; and Maureen’s new squeeze/producer Joanne (Karrington Sneed). Tom dreams of moving to “Santa Fe” to open a restaurant. Joanne just hopes to make it through Maureen’s performance.
While Rent is a rock musical in the tradition of shows like Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair, the genius of Jonathan Larson’s score is how it touches on so many genres, mostly American plus the tango, without losing its sense of being all of a piece. In his director’s notes, Storms calls the show “a cultural reset” that “broke all of the rules” while still “deeply honoring the art form.”
The first act ends with the gospel-rocker “La Vie Bohème” and the second opens with “Seasons of Love,” both beautifully and forcefully sung by the entire cast. “Seasons,” with its breakdown of the year into 525,600 minutes, is one of the great ballads in musical theater history.
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As Rent raced to its finish on opening night last Saturday, the performance was suspended for 25 minutes while a storm passed through. Though we were in a basement, producers said it was a safety issue. The show resumed at Angel’s funeral, the cast picking up right where they left off, bringing the show to a satisfying conclusion.
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Even high winds and intense rain couldn’t stop a musical they’ll still be performing 100 years from now.
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Through May 16 at 230 W. 4th St., Fort Worth. $40-$45. circletheatre.com