Rent Live: Secrets Of The Set

"Essentially, the space is laid out in a series of islands," explains scenic designer Jason Sherwood. "And then there's pasarelles, or runways, that connect all of them. Everywhere that there's not actors walking around on elevated playing spaces, there's audience."

As the audience saw during "Out Tonight," "The whole playing space is a very interconnected web of different scaffolds and bridges [that are] climbing all over the place," Sherman says. "They're moving all through space, so it really feels like a neighborhood of spaces."

"Many of the spaces serve dual purposes," Sherwood explains. "One space that is the park in 'I'll Cover You' that features playground equipment, that stuff changes out and this big header flies in..."

Cast member Brandon Victor Dixon, seen here scaling a subway entrance, describes the set this way: "You have a scaled-down Avenue A, like a block in New York City, then you turn left, you walk down 4th Street, you turn left you walk on Avenue B, you turn left and you walk down 5th Street. And in the middle of that block we built our scaffolding and Mark and Roger's loft."

Rent wouldn't be Rent without a few key parts of the set, such as a Christmas tree made out of repurposed trash. "There's a line about the tree, and the tree is a thing Rent fans have come to expect," Sherman says. "I wanted to make sure that that object existed, but that it was very much our own version of it... What we've come up with is really fun and sculptural, and it's built out of entirely recyclable materials." He chuckles. "I think it looks like something that someone would have preposterously put together, being a crunchy, two-dimes-to-rub-together artist in the '90s in the East Village."

He adds: "There's standing mosh people. There's people seated on big, high bleachers. There's people everywhere, and then there's the live band in the room, as well."

He continues: "And 'I Should Tell You" in particular, with the design, is just a really beautiful moment. I call it our 'Dance at the Gym' moment from West Side Story. The world falls away, and I think the way that we're doing that with lights, camera, scenery and the actors is going to be very beautiful."

Sherman says he's most looking forward to "La Vie Boheme" and "I Should Tell You" at the end of Act I, "because it's exactly the thesis statement of our approach to the show... We're grabbing at some of the iconic images — the long table and all of the actors there at the beginning of 'La Vie Boheme' — but then Sonya Tayeh, our incredible choreographer, subverts that and does something new with it."

"... and it makes a much shorter space for when we go back to that area for the Life Café."

"The goal from the beginning of the show, from my very first meeting with [director] Michael Greif and [executive producer] Adam Siegel about the project was, I said it would be most interesting to me if in every single camera shot, except for some particular ones... you see an actor, you see a physical environment, and then you see the audience around them the same way you would in a filming of a Taylor Swift concert or at an old Madonna concert — that same vitality and that energy that Rent needs."

Cast member Brennin Hunt recalls getting emotional the first time he saw the space where he'd be performing. "It became real for me at that moment. I may or may not have cried a little bit. Seeing it and knowing, 'Oh s—t, you're really doing this. You're really playing Roger. This is your loft with Mark.' It all hit me at once, just standing on the set. It wasn't even done yet!"