Samantha Gutterman has seen "Rent" on Broadway more than 70 times.
 DARYL STONE photo Manalapan High School junior Samantha Gutterman with "Rent" cast members (from left) Mark Setlock, Jim Poulos, Darryl Ordell and Jacques Smith. |
When four cast members from "Rent" came to talk to students at her school at Gutterman's request, squeals and claps filled the auditorium.
"I'm like -- ahhhhhh! I'm so excited, I can't sit still," said Melanie Ostrowitz, a senior, who is planning to see "Rent" for her third time.
"'Rent,' it's just everyday people," Gutterman said before the talk. "At 'Rent,' they make you feel like you can be yourself."
One of the hottest shows of the '90s, "Rent" -- loosely based on the opera "La Boheme" -- tells the tale of a group disenfranchised people on the lower East Side of Manhattan, some of them dying from AIDS.
Gutterman describes herself as one of the many "Rent-heads" who flock to the show over and over, and wait outside the theater to meet the cast.
She has seen the musical so many times that she has gotten to know several cast members personally, including Mark Setlock, who plays Gordon.
In fact, he is writing Gutterman a college recommendation and agreed to round up a few other cast members on a recent Monday -- their day off -- to talk to students at Manalapan High School.
Twisting in their seats and bursting into applause every few minutes, drama and music students shot question after question at Setlock and fellow cast members Jim Poulos, who plays Mark, Darryl Ordell, who plays Paul, and Jacques Smith, who plays Benny.
"Do you have any advice about auditioning?" a student asked.
"They used to tell me to dress up," Ordell said. "But I've found that if I dress however I feel that morning, that works for me."
Another student asked the performers how they had felt when they heard they had made the cast.
"I cried like a baby because it was fulfilling a dream," Smith said.
Gutterman, who hopes to get into a performing arts college, said the cast members have been very encouraging to her about pursuing an acting career.
"They're just so supportive," she said. "They tell you about perseverance and following your dream."
But the actors were also frank about discussing the rejection they had suffered before making it into "Rent."
"You get told 'no' a lot," Smith said. "But that is based on several criteria, most of which you have no control over."
And the cast members were honest about their fears about the future.
"God forbid, when 'Rent' closes, we're unemployed actors again," Ordell said.
This sort of frankness about life, and about young people in trouble, is what draws so many teens and 20-somethings to the show over and over, Setlock said.
And those fans, "Rent-heads" like Gutterman, help keep the cast going during their eight performances a week, the actors said.
"They're like part of the family," Setlock said.
Source: Asbury Park Press
Published: March 24, 1999
