On Tuesday, September 2, at 11 AM an email went out to the Upper School announcing RENT as this year’s Upper School musical. I was trepidatious about this choice, to be mild. Given Parker’s track record, I was unsure we would pull off this production. When I expressed these concerns to those involved, I was largely ignored. The choices made by the Parker administration and adult production team created a production that ultimately failed to meet the mission of the show and served to make the school feel less diverse and welcoming.
Of course, the show itself was a delight. Set design, performances, lighting and all the technical aspects of the production came together beautifully. I certainly enjoyed seeing my peers performing and hold no ill will or particular criticism towards them. However, it is this spectacular technical aspect of the production that makes it feel all the worse. While watching the show, I couldn’t shake the feeling that all this spectacle could have gone to a show with a better ethos, better relationship to Parker, and better scaffolding.
Among my chief concerns with Parker’s RENT was its portrayal of marginalized identity. RENT, because of its setting during the HIV/AIDS crisis, portrays a swath of marginalized identities – many of whom were hit hardest by the crisis. Though gay men are often at the center of conversations around HIV/AIDS, it was an epidemic that spread mostly to those the government ignored, marginalized, and forgot. Though I’m sure I could go beat by beat, we will narrow our scope to one form of oppression never discussed at Parker: transmisogyny.
In Julia Serrano’s 2007 book Whipping Girl, she lays out her theory of transmisogyny. Transmisogyny is the unique form of oppression experienced by trans feminine people and particularly trans women who exists at the intersection of transphobia and misogyny. As a term it serves as a useful framework for discussing Angel, a gender non-conforming character part of the main ensemble cast and the only character who dies, and her poor treatment in the text of RENT and by the Parker production.
Angel is undeniably transmisogyny affected, even if the exact terms of her identity are up for debate. Transmisogyny hurts more than those who fall neatly into the box of trans women. When transmisogyny affected characters are replaced by cis performers, without the necessary framing, you lose a pivotal element about a narrative.
While Angel is on stage, she is never referred to with masculine terms. In fact, every time she is on stage, she is always referred to by her name. Many drag performers, particularly cis ones, choose to have distinct stage names and are not referred to the same way on and off stage. Angel, however, does no such thing. This practice is far more aligned with trans feminine people of the late 20th century’s fight to be seen than the performance culture of drag. These lines, of course, blur, but it certainly makes it more difficult to write Angel off as a cis drag queen.
In A Short History of Transmisogyny, Jules Gill Petersen lays out the history of “street queens,” a category of trans misogyny affected people that have existed for much of the existence of metropolitan cities. Street queens represented trans feminine people who expressed their femininity primarily on the street and were often the subjects of police violence for this expression. Angel is similar in many respects to these street queens who were often the subject of transmisogyny and transmisogynistic violence.
The treatment of Angel after her death is also reminiscent of a trend of misgendering and degendering trans women and trans feminine people after their death, relegating their femininity to merely an after thought or a performance. Mimi, Angel’s only friend in the group prior to the events of RENT, never deviates from she/her even after her death.
Perhaps the most insulting moment in Parker’s RENT in regards to Angel, is during “La Vie Boheme,” the characters sing “homos, lesbians, crossdressers too.” This line in the school edition replaces a string of homophobic slurs, with the exception of the word ‘crossdresser’ which has been preserved. In Parker’s production, as ‘crossdressers’ is sung, the entire cast turned and pointed at Angel. To refer to Angel, and frankly almost all trans feminine bodies, as crossdressers is transmisogyny. I believe if the show had included trans feminine voices it may have avoided this obviously hurtful creative decision.
Angel is just an example of the warping of RENT’s characters to fit Parker’s production. Many of the characters in RENT were played by actors of color in their original productions and their stories are richly informed by their racialized identities. Collins, for example, is historically played by a black actor. Though his exact racial identity is never referred to, it certainly informs his relationship to the rest of the characters, to New York, and to elite institutions. Racism is an undeniable part of what Collins experiences in most productions of RENT. This element of RENT was stripped from Parker’s production.
This is of course not the fault of the actors in the production. They are responsible for the roles they were cast in. It is, however, the fault of those who made the decision – the school’s administration and theatre department. Parker is a predominantly white school and our theatre department particularly has a pretty singular racial make up. Though I cannot speak for the racial and gender identities of the individual performers at Parker, overwhelmingly, the options for casting at Parker were white and cis performers. This fact, evident from past productions, should have informed the school that we were not equipped to handle the setting of RENT.
I must remark that these concerns were not unknown to the school. As soon as RENT was announced, I expressed my concerns to the Performing Arts Committee, asking they approach Dr. Goh with this concern and express these concerns and that potentially a student conversation could be held about the choice. I was told “it would be more effective coming from me.” I then went directly to Dr. Goh with my concerns, specifically about Angel, where it was expressed to me that he both did not believe Angel had a transmisogyny affected identity and that education would be a component of the production. I took this at face value. When the cast was announced, I returned to express my earlier concerns as well as my concerns that the cast as it was selected did not accurately reflect the population of Alphabet City, a neighborhood in New York City’s East village that became the center of the gay scene, nor the population most affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis. I was told that that would be addressed as part of the show’s introduction to the community and that education would be a piece of the school’s production. These promises did not materialize.
In the end, we were left with a production of RENT that did not represent the communities the show proclaimed to uplift. The HIV/AIDS crisis is not present in Parker’s curriculum (nor is much of queer history), so, for many Parker students, their first exposure to one of the most consequential epidemics of the last 50 years was a show that avoided its harsh edges and its disproportionate effect on communities of color, trans people, and poor people.
This is not just a problem with RENT. Angel is among the stories of trans feminine people who have been silenced at Parker in favor of gentler ideas about queerness.
Take, for instance, the 2025 Pride MX, an MX that focused on the history of the ballroom scene was a featured part of Parker’s PRIDE week programming, and a planned part of that MX was featuring the documentary “Paris is Burning.” This plan was denied by the administration. “Paris is Burning” demonstrates the reality of gay life during the AIDS crisis. Venus Xtravaganza, a trans woman, is featured heavily in the documentary. Venus was murdered during filming of the documentary. Venus is one story of thousands of trans women who have been murdered for expressing femininity. “Paris is Burning”, too, could have helped educate about queerness in 80s New York, but, like RENT, it was sidelined.
Mark, when trying to create art through street photography, tries to film a homeless woman on the street. The homeless woman, not wanting to be part of the art, rebuffs him and tells him, “My life’s not for you to make a name for yourself on.” This quote, I believe, perfectly encapsulates Parker’s production of RENT. Mark’s documentary is a project made by a rich kid with financial safety to convince himself of his own goodness and bohemian-ness. However, Mark does not come from a place of revolution or genuine interest in reforming a culture that kills his friends. He makes no revolutionary action against the treatment of those infected with HIV/AIDS, choosing to not pay rent simply to make art. Mark has no commitment to community or enrichment or uplifting his neighbors. He is simply interested in capturing the real by “shooting without a script.” When the same homeless figure asks him, “Hey artist \ You gotta dollar? \ I thought not,” Mark simply shrugs and moves on, completely unaffected by the material suffering of his compatriots. He feels that by making the art he does, he need not actually engage with the material circumstances of his community.
Parker, too, failed to serve education about the AIDS crisis. A part of Parker’s promised concession with producing RENT was wide scale education. My understanding of this would be that community time, like MX time, would be used to address and educate about the HIV/AIDS crisis. My hope was that this time could be used to address the true diversity of the alphabet city, the endless lives spent fighting against not just landlords but governments for recognition, the ways AZT was toxic to those who took it, or any of the myriad of things left unaddressed. With this false hope, I gave literature to the production team to incorporate as they needed. The MX, however, came and went, and no education was provided to the broader community. Indeed, I know of middle schoolers who left the MX with no ideas about HIV/AIDS and just saw the elements of RENT that were promiscuous. Later, after the Friday show – the one I attended – a talkback was held. I hoped education would come then. It did not. Ultimately, those going into the show not knowing about the HIV/AIDS crisis left at best no more illuminated and at worse with misconceptions about how the crisis was resolved.
RENT suffers from similar problems to Parker’s existing Civic Lab program. It uses social issues and civic issues as a method to gain social capital. Take, for instance,the Pride Civic Lab. As a member of that group, we did no civic work. We did, however, hear about the problems and solutions being implemented by people other than us. Though education is a piece, the school can not claim we engaged with our civic duty, yet it does. Similarly, the new proposal to expand the school includes seven new affordable housing units. Though this appears nice on paper, it doesn’t solve the problem being created by the expansion, yet it has been sold to Parker students as our school is unique in taking a step. If we were truly taking some revolutionary civic action, we would not be landlords. It is mightily ironic to launch a production of RENT as your school ramps up to take the position of its villain. The problem here is perhaps best exemplified by Lindsay Ellis’ phrase about RENT: it exists to “look pretty and do as little as possible.”
I have done my best, where possible, to refer to existing literature when I point to the mishandling of oppressed groups in RENT as a text and as a production. If you are interested in a deeper dive from academics far smarter than I, I encourage you to read them. Lindsay Ellis has a wonderful video about RENT and both Julia Seranno and Jules Gil Petersen both provide wonderful introductions to trans feminism.
This is not just some petty gripe with a one off school musical. These decisions matter. A friend of mine, who I will leave unnamed, told me something that I can’t get out of my chest when I asked about RENT. She told me without RENT, without Angel, she wouldn’t have realized she was trans. But sure, Angel is just a drag queen.
I do not care if Dr. Goh believes that Angel is a trans woman or not. I do care about the trans girls in the audience who will not get to see a trans feminine person be themselves and project their lived experience into the theater. I care about the girls who will spend a little bit longer searching for themselves because, surely, if Angel can be a man, so can she. Whether or not you believe me that Angel represents a category of women that has been folded into the trans umbrella by subsequent activism, it is certainly the more artistically safe and boring choice to assume Angel is a drag queen and not elaborate. Parker already does very little to protect its trans students, particularly its trans feminine students. These statements are buried in articles in “The Weekly.” The choice to ignore the truth of Angel’s identity only serves to further isolate the students, and fails to create the space proper for students to come out . This is true of more than just Angel. When communities are not represented, it undoubtedly hurts those watching in those communities. These choices betray what seems to be the only justification for this show I was given – a political message.
Representation is not just about exposure. It is important for students with marginalized identities to see their lives and their communities’ lives on stage. By stripping RENT’s characters of much of their identity, you lose this element.
This is not an article about RENT. It is simply our case study. This is an article about Parker’s commitment to inaction. It’s an article about Parker’s commitment to puppeting social causes for its own financial benefits. This is an article about Parker’s poor message to trans students. This is an article about the rot present in Parker’s messaging and administration.
I am beyond angry at Parker’s decision-making around RENT, its failures to represent its subjects, its use as virtue signaling, and its failure to educate. If I had enough time and page space, I could pick apart every step the administration has taken to get here and every contradiction. Though I would love to discuss how Angel falls into the archetype of the sacrificial trans woman, for the sake of keeping this article readable, I will leave you with this.
This production, wrapped in a faux and terrible purpose, has done exactly what its fierce defenders have claimed it stands to warn against. A school and a production so convinced of its own goodness it failed in every aspect of its mission. It has left its most vulnerable behind in favor of light and spectacle.
