On Jan. 31 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Bowker Auditorium, Broadway stars Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp performed a medley of influential music that shaped their lives, told stories of humorous chaos and melancholy and brought a crowd to numerous uproars of applause and cheers.
Pascal and Rapp have been inseparable since starring together in the hit musical “Rent,” which opened on Broadway on Apr. 29, 1996, at the Nederlander Theatre.
In this musical, Pascal plays Roger Davis, a struggling musician and ex-junkie coping with the fact that he is HIV positive during the peak of the AIDS epidemic. His best friend and roommate, Mark Cohen, played by Rapp, is a documentary filmmaker who narrates the musical while grappling to make ends meet, hence the name of the show.
“Rent” ran on Broadway for 12 years and won numerous accolades including a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and four Tony awards, including Best Musical. When speaking about the success of a musical they starred in over 30 years ago, Pascal and Rapp still display a sense of gratitude towards “Rent.”
“I always believed that it was something special, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it would then translate to the kind of success that it reached,” Rapp said. “I just hoped it was going to be well received and be some kind of degree of success, but certainly not on this level.”
Pascal shared a similar sentiment: “My initial thoughts when we were rehearsing off-Broadway was that ‘Oh, this is [going to] be a really fun few weeks. I think people might like this,’” he said. “That was really as far as I could envision.”
Looking into the audience at Bowker that night, anyone can see that the sensation that is “Rent” continues making its way through any theater lover’s heart, no matter what age, something that Rapp discovered after a matinee of “Rent” one night:
“We came out of the theater after a matinee, and there was this older couple, I think they were maybe in their 60s and I don’t know if any of us young people would have predicted that they would have been as moved by it as they were,” Rapp said. “They stopped us and they talked to us about how it made them feel so connected to their children, their grandchildren and they could see themselves in these characters. When I was looking back, that was a little hint of the cross-generational impact of it.”
The theme of music being a timeless concept was prominent in Pascal and Rapp’s performance on Friday evening, covering songs that encapsulated what they were both listening to in the mid-90s such as “If It Makes You Happy” by Sheryl Crow, “Starman” by David Bowie, “Stay” by U2, “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie, “All Apologies” by Nirvana and “Say Hello 2 Heaven” by Chris Cornell.
When asked about what their favorite song is to perform with one another, the musical duo responded with “Under Pressure,” quickly followed by “all of them.”
“The tones of our voices in the way that they mix has been a huge part of why we’ve been able to be successful at doing this all these years …” Pascal said. “The blending of two very different-sounding voices and how they come together is something you can’t predict. It just happens. It’s the alchemy, we have this great sort of vocal alchemy with each other.”
The pair performed iconic songs from “Rent” including a hilariously raunchy rendition of “Light My Candle” which transitioned into an innocently sweet cover of “I’ll Cover You” and the songs sung by the characters of Roger and Mark such as “What You Own,” “One Song Glory” and “Seasons of Love.”
In between songs, both actors told stories that kept the audience engaged and wanting to learn more about what life is like behind the curtain for them.
As for how long the two Broadway performers will be sharing the stage, it would be no surprise that it would last for a lifetime.
“I think it’s very special, the friendship and connection that we have,” Pascal said. “Most people don’t have from a situation we started out in to now, all these years later to still have that connection. I think it’s extremely grateful. And again, I think it’s very rare.”
Rapp states that he’s “just grateful that we get to do this kind of thing. As a fan of live performances and concerts especially, I’ve had this dream of doing concerts like this, and ‘Rent’ has afforded me that opportunity. We get to keep doing it all these years later; it’s just the gift that keeps on giving.”
Paige Hanson can be reached at [email protected] and can be followed on Twitter/X @Paige_Hanson1.
