Helming the Halls Musical is no small endeavour, as Aoife Daly and Jessica Treacy pointed out, speaking to The University Times last week. “You have a very short amount of time to get things going”, says Daly, “so you have to go with a musical that has a name”. Daly and Treacy are both veterans of the Halls Musical, having appeared in last year’s production of Into the Woods. However, this year the pair are graduating to co-direct Rent, the smash musical that ran on Broadway for over a decade. But despite its commercial success, the co-directors are certain of the intimate connection that everyone has with the musical (in some cases, without even knowing it).
Rent centres on a bunch of misfits living in New York City during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Written by the late Jonathan Larson, who died tragically the morning of the production’s first off-Broadway preview, the revolutionary musical went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1996, as well as the Tony Award for Best Musical. The musical witnesses a community coming together – very emblematic of the Halls experience.
“It’s a great way to start college”, Daly begins. “You’re meeting the same people and you’ve got this group of friends in the place where you live. So it just feels a little bit more like a community”. Treacy agrees, citing her own experience as a first-year student living in Halls, saying she “wouldn’t have know half the people she knows if it hadn’t have been for the Halls musical. It is a musical first and foremost, but it’s also another way of getting to know people”.
From talking to Daly and Treacy, it is evident that the community created by the musical is thriving, only 10 weeks into its existence. However, that is not to say that there were no trepidations on mounting such an ambitious production. “From the offset, what we were most afraid of was will people be wild enough for this?”, says Daly, referencing the character of Angel, who appears in drag. It almost stopped them from embarking on the production. That is, until they found their Angel, in second-year law student and JCR International Officer Salem Barakat. Speaking about Barakat’s presence in rehearsals, Treacy adds: “He’s perfect, he’s wild. He’s been trotting around in his high heels and he is Angel.”
With an incredibly fast turnaround between auditions and casting, Daly and Treacy had their work cut out for them in selecting a cast that could pull off Larson’s story with ease. However, what was striking was the sheer amount of interest from Halls. Remarking on the variety of songs heard at auditions, Daly remembers “Baby Shark” and “Happy Birthday” as two notable renditions. This is where both Daly and Treacy believe that having two directors comes in useful, as it created a low-pressure environment for first-timers who had never taken to the stage before.
Creating a fluid ensemble came naturally for both the first-time directors and cast. Talking about the show’s iconic act one finale number, “La Vie Boheme”, Daly raves about the young cast’s enthusiasm. “Everyone needs to be going wild and partying, and so we’d make jokes about how they could do these wild things.” And in truth, they deliver. “We honestly couldn’t have asked for a better cast”, Treacy admits. “They’re perfect.”
Rent also boasts a female-led production team. With choreography by second-year European studies student Ellen Murphy, musical direction by Kate Henry and special help from Eavan Gribbin, Abby Fry and Cathal O’Driscoll, both Daly and Treacy are confident the production will wow their audiences. Reminiscing with excitement about their first dance rehearsal for “La Vie Boheme”, both directors recognise the moment the production took off. “We were watching them jumping and dancing on tables”, remembers Treacy, “and saying, ‘this show is going to be good!’”.
Rent plays Trinity Hall this Thursday and Friday at 7.30pm, with a Friday matinee of 3pm.
