Hinsdale South will be performing its production of Rent from Thursday, November 11 through Sunday, November 14.  To get students excited about Rent, the Hinsdale South Drama Program organized a spirit week, encouraging students to don outfits inspired by various themes from the musical on each day leading up to the debut performance. 

Tuesday, November 9 is “All Out 90’s Day.” Students are encouraged to dress up in 90s style or anything that represents that time period. All Out 90’s Day has been chosen because Rent takes place in the early 1990s. Much of Rent was drawn from Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Boheme (which premiered a century before the first showing of Rent), including stories centered around poor, young artists. Jonathan Larson, the creator of Rent, replaced tuberculosis, explored in Puccini’s opera, with HIV and AIDS. Additionally, the location was changed to New York’s East side and set in the early 1990s so that it would give the musical life touched with the coarseness and noise of ‘modern’ New York. Larson sought to have the play contain elements of gay life and punk and be set amid poverty and homelessness. 

The East Village neighborhood was the perfect spot for Rent’s setting and also happened to be down the street from Larson’s Greenwich apartment. The 1990s is the perfect time period where Jonathan Larson’s vision of impoverished young artists trying to live life to its fullest during an AIDS epidemic could come to fruition. 

So students, get out your inner 1990s style and get excited for Rent with All Out 90’s Day.