When Jonathan Larson wrote Rent in 1989, he had yet to realize the legacy he would leave the world. Rent is an thought-provoking musical written about the different faces of AIDS. These faces are white, Black, Hispanic, female, male, gay, straight and provide a variety of multicultural perspectives. This multiculturalism is necessary not simply because the play is based in New York City, but also because it represents the diversity of victims of AIDS, a disease that leaves no socioeconomic or ethnic group untainted. The original cast of Rent in 1996 contained the type diversity representative of a lower class neighborhood, and the film version of Rent remained consistent with the original intent of the casting organizers. For anyone that has seen the musical Rent and truly understands the importance of diversity, they would be outraged to know that Charlottesville's volunteer theater troop Play on!, in it's production of Rent, cast all the main characters as white. Though some may feel that this is representative of a lack of qualified actors auditioning for the musical, this is unacceptable for a play in which diversity is so crucial to the storyline. It is impossible to tell the story of Rent in its entirety without variation, as well as unacceptable for white actors to portray other races in a sort of colorblind casting model.
Rent was written during a time period when AIDS was overlooked. It was a time period when AIDS was thought to be a disease for the undesirable. From the first scientific acknowledgement of the disease in 1981 to the first mention of AIDS by President Ronald Reagan on March 31, 1986, it is clear that a general lack of awareness of AIDS existed in America. This lack of awareness and discussion can be witnessed in a musical like Rent that aims to break the silence. In the play, Collins is fired from MIT for broadcasting, "Actual reality, act up, fight AIDS!" In the 1980s it had been widely speculated that the lack of response and discussion from the country was because at the time it was seen as a homosexual disease - thus making it irrelevant.
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