The Alliance Youth Theatre’s production of “Rent” is a tour de force rock musical that features three locals home from college for the summer.
The first is Tyler Scott. He plays Roger Harris, a despondent musician obsessed with writing that one breakthrough song before he succumbs to AIDS. Scott says his portrayal has been informed by much of what he’s learned at Florida Southern College this past year.
“Being able to incorporate certain techniques from the classes that I've taken have been very helpful because it makes me feel like my work is more honest,” said Scott.
Florida Southern sophomore D’Adrean St. Louis plays Tom Collins, a ray of sunshine in the play’s dark storyline. He, too, says his performance in “Rent” reflects what he learned at FSC during his freshman year.
“My dance classes, I'm taking a lot of that skill and applying it here,” St. Louis said. “My vocal lessons definitely helped a lot …. And acting, I feel like I became really more grounded at FSC. Being grounded and natural is what I learned, and I've just been mixing everything from that big mixing pot into Tom Collins.”
Hannah Cruz plays Maureen, the polar opposite of the princessy roles she played in high school. When she was cast in the role, Cruz made a beeline for her acting professor.
“He was very helpful,” Cruz remarked. “He was like, before you go onstage, you need to think where is she coming from? What is she doing? Why is she coming into this space? Why does she not like this certain character? Why does she love this certain character? Having those deep conversations with him about this made the transition to playing this role … easy.”
Under the direction of Artistic Director Carmen Crussard, Director Miguel Cintron and Choreographer Kiana Raine Cintron, the entire ensemble cast of high school and college students is, in a word, outstanding.
Remaining performances are Friday, June 26 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 27 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, June 28 at 2 p.m.
For tickets, visit artinlee.org or telephone 239-939-2787.
MORE INFORMATION:
“Rent” is loosely based on Puccini’s “La Boheme,” but with electric guitars supplanting woodwinds and HIV/AIDS taking the place of tuberculosis.
The storyline follows a year in the life of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to live creatively under the shadow of HIV/AIDS in New York’s Lower East Side. The physical and emotional complications of the disease pervade the lives of Roger, Mimi, Tom and Angel. Maureen deals with her chronic infidelity through performance art; her partner, Joanne, wonders if their relationship is worth the trouble. Benny has sold out his Bohemian ideals in exchange for a hefty income and is on the outs with his former friends. Mark, an aspiring filmmaker, feels like an outsider to life in general. How these young bohemians negotiate their dreams, loves and conflicts provides the narrative thread to this groundbreaking musical.
The creative team
Artistic director: Carmen Crussard
Director: Miguel Cintron
Choreographer: Kiana Raine Cintron
Music Director: Gary Stroh
The cast
Mark Cohen: William Urban
Roger Harris: Tyler Scott
Mimi Marquez: Jay Encalada
Tom Collins: D’Adrean St. Louis
Angel: Gabe Cruz
Maureen: Hannah Cruz
Joanne: Isa Oren
Benny Deangelo Arnold
Gordon: Reagan Fournier
Mark’s Mom: Delilah Mendez
Rodger’s Mom: Ollie Anderson
Mr. Grey/Pastor: Tristan Michael
Drug Dealer: Taylor Barbara
Coat Vendor: Justice Williams
Waiter/Police Officer: Reagan Strachan
Alexie Darling/Vendor: Samantha Boddicker
Homeless People: Alex Bates, Mardin Liberal, Delilah Mendez, Sisi Ortiz
Ensemble: Taylor Barbaro, Alex Bates, Reagan Fournier, Victor Galarza, Genevieve Haas, Karrington Kennelly, Mardin Liberal, Tristan Michael, Sisi Ortiz and Justice Williams
The musicians
The Alliance Youth Theatre’s production of “Rent” features a five-piece band, sequestered stage right (audience’s left) behind a chain link fence. The members are:
- Gary Stroh: Piano conductor/Music director, vocal teacher at Cypress Lake High
- Karoush Shadaran: Guitar and piano 2, recent graduate of Lehigh Senior High School
- Adaline Easterly: Graduate of Baker Day School Full-time Theatre Performing Arts Academy, will be attending Florida Atlantic University in the fall to study commercial music
- Cole Ellis: Graduate of Cypress Lake High School, currently attends Berklee School of Music
- Matthew Ford: Student at FGCU, will be leaving for Army boot camp four days after "Rent" closes
Tyler Scott in the footlights
In the role of Roger Harris, Scott is called upon to play a young man who is forced to confront his own mortality.
“You really can't describe him as anything less of like angsty and just going through a lot,” said Scott of his character. “In one of the first few songs [in the musical], it's revealed that his girlfriend died because of AIDS.”
In fact, when she learned that she was HIV-positive, she left a note for Roger saying “We’ve got AIDS” before taking her own life by slitting her wrists in the bathroom.
“He doesn't know when he's going to die, so he's living every single day just trying to live to the next minute,” Scott said. “He doesn't know what's going to happen to him so his main goal, as we see in the first act, is he's trying to make one big song, try and have a breakthrough so that he feels like he has some sort of purpose in life.”
The audience learns much of this information in “One Song Glory,” which is one of Scott’s favorite numbers in the musical.
“When you first see him, he's just kind of, he's just kind of down,” Scott explained. “He doesn't want to do anything. Just depressed. And then you kind of see into his character on why he feels that way.”
Said Scott, “One Song Glory” is one of a series of songs that conveys the climate of fear and impending doom shared by those who’d been infected with the virus before the development of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), when an HIV diagnosis was still a death sentence.
“’Rent’ was very, was very out there for the time,” Scott noted. “It was during the AIDS pandemic or the crisis, and it's shared in the musical in a way we hadn’t seen before – as in ‘Contact’ and ‘La Vie Boheme.’ It's very extreme. It's just very, it's kind of like taking the power back for people who feel like they've lost their dignity and just giving people who have had AIDS or people who have known people with AIDS a voice during that time.”
Given this context, it’s challenging for any actor to conjure the wide range of dark and fearful emotions that Roger experiences during the timeline of the play. In this, Scott said he was aided by the tools he acquired during his first year of studies at Florida Southern College.
“I took a stage movement class and learned about ‘le bon movement’ (which translates to the right movement in English),” Scott related. “It’s about being able to take certain beats to really emphasize a certain part of an emotion because if you think about an emotion and you try and just act it, it's not, it's not going to feel authentic.”
Le bon movement focuses on the alignment of body movement with emotional truth and character intention, teaching actors to be aware the ways in which their body language conveys their character's feelings. The concept encourages fluidity and spontaneity in performance, avoiding rigid or forced movements. Observing real-life interactions can help actors incorporate genuine movements into their performances.
“Being able to portray emotion through the songs and acting and the dancing, that's one of my biggest goals,” Scott added. “I'm really excited to be able to show people this awareness through a beautiful story.”
Scott is a product of Director Janelle Laux’s North Fort Myers High School musical theater program. While at North, Scott starred in the title role of “Pippin.” He didn’t just score the lead; he blew audiences away with his portrayal of the iconic young prince searching for purpose.
Other credits include Emmett in “Legally Blonde” at Florida Southern College, Benny for the Alliance Youth Theatre in “In the Heights” and Hades in “Hadestown Teen Edition” for Arts Bonita.
“’Pippin’ [for which Scott received the North Fort Myers High School Outstanding Performer Award at the 2025 High School Musical Theatre Awards) was very kidlike, very happy-go-lucky, all the time,” Scott noted. “With Hades, I got to play a villain, a dark character with a lot of turmoil inside. Benny was a mixture of different aspects of both roles. Benny is not kidlike, but very light-hearted, joyful kind of exterior, but on the inside, he could also be very serious when he had to be. So very different for me and very cool to experience a new role.”
The character of Benny also challenged Scott to play a character who is on the outside looking in, who continually fights for acceptance by his Latino friends and co-workers.
For more on his artistic journey, visit “Stage mom Tracy Halloran-Scott helps son, Tyler, achieve lofty goal at North Fort Myers High.”
D’Adrean St. Louis in the footlights
St. Louis and his character, Tom Collins, have something in common. They’re both the type of guy that everyone gravitates toward because of their upbeat, ebullient attitudes.
“Tom Collins is one of those characters that everybody is attracted to because he's funny and he's real,” St. Louis observed. “He helps the crew out a lot. He's one of the pieces of the group that really keeps it all connected together, along with Angel. Collins is that guy that walks in the room and he cracks jokes and everybody's like, oh god, this guy, like gotta love him. So he's just like a big ball of sunshine, I guess, with a deep voice.”
His unbridled optimism shines through in the song “Sante Fe.”
“’Santa Fe’ is a number that takes place right after a confrontation between a homeless woman and Mark, and during the song they realize even though like times are really bad right now, there's hope after this,” St. Louis explained. “They're singing about getting out of New York and opening a restaurant and starting a new life, and I just love the number so much because it gives you a sense of hope, especially in the dark time that they were going through. You know, they found a glimmer of hope and they had a dream and they're just having fun and they're singing about it despite everything going on around them.”
“Rent” is inextricably tied to the early days of the AIDS epidemic, but that was a full decade before he was born.
“Not a lot of us knew exactly what was happening then and how that affected people,” St. Louis conceded. “I did some research and I looked back at how many people were affected by AIDS and how it affected the people close to you. You didn't know who was going to be next. You didn't know how long you had to live. There was a lot of uncertainty and a lot of fear. I feel like I'm trying to capture that in this show. Tom Collins does have AIDS, but he's the type of person that didn't let it stop him from doing what he loved and loving the people he loved.”
In addition to greater knowledge of what people with HIV experienced before the advent of antiretroviral regimens, St. Louis has gleaned another benefit from his work in “Rent.”
“Just seeing the representation of Tom Collins, a gay black man in the ‘90s with AIDS is really just eye-opening and makes me feel so much more connected to the role,” said St. Louis. “Tom Collins, he's resilient, he's brave, and he's determined, no matter what the world around him thinks, and I just think that's something really beautiful, and I think that's something that we can apply to our world now. As much stuff that's going on around us, we still have to stay resilient and brave and strong because at the end of the day, everybody's different and we shouldn't be ashamed of that.”
St. Louis is a product of Director Miguel Cintron’s Lehigh Senior High School musical theater program. At Florida Southern College, he is pursuing a BFA in musical theater.
His long-range plan is to become an equity actor, “whether that involves Broadway, local theaters or maybe even a cruise line somewhere. Performing is something I see myself doing for a very long time as a career.”
St. Louis last appeared at the Alliance for the Arts in the role of Usnavi in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s "In the Heights." Other credits include work in the ensemble of “Legally Blonde” and “Carousel” at Florida Southern College, Hermes in “Hadestown Teen Edition” for both Arts Bonita and Lehigh Senior High School (the latter performance garnering a Best Supporting Actor in a Male-Identifying Role at the 2025 High School Musical Theatre Awards).
Hannah Cruz in the footlights
Like St. Louis, Cruz has gained a greater understanding of what it was like for HIV-positive people during the AIDS epidemic. What struck Cruz most was the way in which HIV caused people to be ostracized by society.
“Whether it was from needles or from doing something with someone else, you were basically looked like as a leper,” commented Cruz. “If you had HIV, no one touched you, no one talked to you, because people didn't know how it actually spread.”
While that’s the backdrop of the play, Cruz said it’s not the musical’s overarching theme.
“The meaning of the story is about just being yourself and not being afraid to express who you are, who you love, being true to yourself and having the courage to stand up for what you believe in,” Cruz continued. “Some of us are freshmen in college. Some of us are seniors in high school. Despite us being so young, I think we do an excellent job of telling the story and showing, like, it's OK to be who you are, but be true to yourself, don't hide in a corner, hide in a bubble. Show who you are, because that's the person that people will love to see.”
When Cruz began rehearsals for “Rent,” she expected that “Take Me or Leave Me” would be her favorite number in the show. Never did she expect to fall in love with “Over the Moon.”
“It forces me to really put myself out there in a very weird, odd way,” Cruz explained. “I'm saying things that don't really make sense, that sound dumb, but have an underlying, deep meaning. Taking things that sound like gibberish, that don't make any sense, and having to perform it as if there's a deep, deep metaphorical meaning, was really challenging at first.”
Like having to moo like a cow in front of her castmates, many of whom are also friends.
“It was very weird at first, but everyone's so supportive, and now it's great.”
Cruz has been acting from an early age. She’s appeared in more than 60 plays and musicals. But she experienced a reality check at Florida Southern College, when she wasn’t cast in the first play of her freshman year.
“In high school or community theater, you always run the risk of not being cast in a show, but if you don't get cast for one show, you can just go to a different theater,” she explained. “You have so many other things you could go out and do, but at school, if you didn't get in, you just didn't get in, and you had to wait for the next audition. At first, I was really hurt. I was like, dang it, not in the show. But I took that and ran with [it]. OK, now this is where I need to work on my dancing. I need to work on my singing. I need to work on my acting and just really trying to put myself out there and grow in my craft. It was a weird shift for me, but at the end of the day, I'm very thankful. I had a great first year.”
Which included being cast in “Legally Blonde.”
In addition to Maureen in “Rent” and “Legally Blonde,” Cruz’s credits include Nina in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights,” Catherine of Aragon in “Six the Musical” for Melody Lane Theatre (which marked the milestone of being her 57th stage show), the titular role in “Mary Poppins,” Amy in “Little Women,” Miss Jones in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” Carmen Diaz in “Fame” at Fort Myers Theatre, Crystal in “Little Shop of Horrors” and Katherine in “Newsies Jr.” with Florida Repertory Theatre, Little Gloria in “On Your Feet” (Broadway Palm), Anna and Middle Anna (two productions) in “Frozen Jr.,” Ms. Andrew in “Mary Poppins Jr.,” Duffy in “Annie Jr.,” Young Nala in “The Lion King Jr.,” Young Fiona in “Shrek,” Beatrice in “Miracle Worker” and Simon and Tart in “Big River.”
She also participated in the Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta twice.
Gabriel Cruz in the footlights
Heather’s brother, Gabe, plays the part of Angel. It’s a big role, but he is up for the challenge. The role follows the lead in Florida Rep Education’s production earlier this summer of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” the father in “Eurydice” and Anatole in “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1918” (for which he was runner up in the category of Outstanding Performer in a Male Identifying Role at the 2026 High School Musical Awards at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall).
Cruz’s other stage credits include “Heathers,” “Mary Poppins” at Bishop Verot and Brett in “13 the Musical.”
“Theater just gives me an opportunity to express myself, really step out of my comfort zone and be someone who I’m not,” said Cruz, who is entering his senior year at Cypress Lake High School. “I like creating art. It’s fun to make choices. Meet different people. I love it.”
His sister has certainly noticed a big change in her brother’s skill set following her year away at school.
“110%,” Hannah exclaimed. “I didn't get a chance to see ‘Great Comet’ at Cypress, but I saw 'Sweeney.' That was amazing. I was like, I don't even know who you are. It was a complete 360. I was just so proud of him, sitting there watching and hearing all of these strangers that I don't even know being like, your brother is amazing, and the only thing I could say was I a hundred percent agree. That was insane. And going from 'Sweeney Todd' to playing Angel is a crazy shift, but he does it with ease and he does it flawlessly, and I'm very proud of him for that.”
And, she added, his improvement raises the bar for her.
“He pushes me to want to work harder, to do even better, to work to get better.”
Jay Encalada in the footlights
Jay Encalada’s character is Mimi Marquez.
“She's a struggling person. She's a drug addict, but she cares deeply about everyone that she knows,” Encalada observed. “She’s just a very deeply hurt person who does what she has to do to survive in a hard world.”
That’s also what she sees as the show’s central theme.
“Even if you don't correlate with any of the values in the show, there are always going to be people who are struggling, Encalada said. “There's always going to be people different from you and so all those ideas and morals are going to resonate with someone in the audience.”
Encalada noted that Mimi may be the last character she plays. That’s because she is pursuing a degree in forensic science at Florida Gulf Coast University, with a master's in forensic anthropology to follow that. So her course load and field study may not leave any time for theater.
That would be a loss as she has a lovely singing voice and is an intuitive character actor. Previous roles have included Daniela, the sassy middle-age salon owner in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights,” Austyn in “In Pieces” at The Belle Theatre, Catherine of Aragon in “Six the Musical” at North Fort Myers High School, Alice in “Alice by Heart” and Chiffon in “Little Shop of Horrors.”
“We'll see what the future holds.”
Delilah Mendez in the footlights
Delilah Mendez elicits laughs in the role of Mark’s mother, who leaves a string of messages on her son’s answering machine throughout the timeline of the show. She also appears periodically as one of the homeless people who populate the East Village in New York City.
Mendez was last seen in the role of Nellie Lovett in Florida Rep Education’s production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” Other credits include the ditzy salon girl Carla in “In the Heights” for the Alliance Youth Theatre; various roles in “Riding Bikes,” the Robert Rauschenberg homage penned by playwright Samara Siskind for Stuart Brown and Florida SouthWestern State College; and Holly in “Wedding Singer” at Cypress Lake High School.
Isabela Oren in the footlights
Isa Oren is Joanne Jefferson in “Rent.” She previously appeared for the Alliance Youth Theatre as Abuela Claudia in "In the Heights."
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
