Rent Contextual Analysis

1. Rent Contextual Analysis
The piece ‘Seasons of Love’ from the musical Rent is
about how to measure love, in hopes to teach people
about the preciousness of life, in which it talks about
how many minutes there are in a year and discusses
how we measure time. The musical as a whole was set
in 1989 and tackled the frustrated, defiant aftermath of the first wave
of the AIDS crisis with some of the main characters being HIV
positive. The main themes of the musical are fragility and the
preciousness of life, however Jonathan Larson stated that the main
theme of the musical was ‘Carpe Diem’ which is Latin for ‘seize the
day’. The musical comes under the Rock genre with music, lyrics and
book by Jonathan Larson, and is loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s
opera La Boheme in 1896.
The character I am playing in this piece is Joanne. Joanne Jefferson is
one of the main characters and is based on the character Alcindoro in
La Boheme. Joanne is an Ivy League educated public interest lawyer.
Joanne had a strict upbringing with her parents being a judge and a
government official. I would use the adjectives smart, strict,
determined, organised and loving for the character Joanne due to the
way she acts in the song seasons of love, watching the other
characters in awe, sharp determined walking when entering on and
off the stage, and her confidence when singing the lyrics.
Prior to this piece in the musical Roger and Mimi discover that each
other are HIV positive. Through their excitement and fright they vow

2. to be together in the song ‘I should tell you’. After this Joanne has
been sent back to the lot many times to check on the equipment,
and finally rebels telling Maureen that their relationship is over and
announces a riot in the lot. Benny padlocked the building and called
the cops however the homeless were standing their ground. The
artists rejoice and the riot continues whilst Roger and Mimi share a
kiss, this is the ned of Act 1. The piece seasons of love starts Act 2
off.
This piece uses only one of the musical theatre elements which is
singing. We have chosen to put a purely singing piece into the
showcase to show that as a whole class we are strong in all musical
theatre elements. This piece completely contrasts with all of our other
group pieces in the showcase as the group pieces show mainly our
dance and acting skills, so this piece is a way to show that we can
sing too. The main singing skills that are needed for this piece I think
are; facial expressions (to present the emotion of the song to the
audience), harmonizing, pitch, tone, projection and weight placement
(as we need to have a strong stance, all in a line in this piece).
Within our rehearsals, our main focus for this piece has been working
on the harmonies, as we have found it difficult as a group to stand
next to someone who is doing a different part of the harmony and
get the correct pitch needed for our part of the harmony. However as
a group, I feel like we all have very good singing skills, even if some
of us are not the most comfortable with it, and we all manage to sing
in tune every rehearsal which is surprising as most of us have no
experience in singing before. Another thing we have been working on

3. in this piece that is not singing related is our walks on and off from
our positions, and our facial expressions, in which we practiced many
times walking on and off and miming the whole piece multiple times
so that we could make sure we are characterising properly and
putting lots of emotion in our faces. I think our main targets for the
next few rehearsals of this piece are to make sure we keep up the
characterisation we rehearsed by miming the piece and making sure
we are walking with purpose when walking to and from our positions
for the song.