(VIA Rail issued the following news release on June 17.)
MONTREAL — VIA Rail Canada will be a major sponsor of the first French adaptation of the musical comedy RENT. The original American version, by Jonathan Larson, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and is still playing to packed houses in New York, seven years after it was created. VIA Rail will present the Francophone version, a Sandler-Poulin and Just for Laughs production, at the Olympia Theatre in Montréal (starting June 2) as part of the Just for Laughs Festival. Directed by Evan Ensign and staged by a New York-Québécois crew, the show will star “ex-Star académie students” Marie-Mai and Jean-François Bastien and a number of other performers as well.
“VIA Rail Canada is proud to be associated with this production that celebrates youthful dynamism and faith”, said Steve Del Bosco, the corporation’s Vice-President of Marketing. “It’s an honour for VIA to be supporting the Francophone premiere of a play that took home no less than 18 prizes and is still one of the most popular shows around.”
Inspired by Puccini’s opera, La Bohème, RENT is the story of a community of young New-York artists who are exposed to the harshness of life in an East Village inhabited by the homeless, AIDS victims, and drug addicts. All of these denizens are fighting in their own peculiar but determined ways against a landlord who was once one of them and now wants to evict them. RENT’s searingly beautiful music combines rock, R & B and ballads to create an energetic hymn to life.
For more information on RENT , go to www.hahaha.com/rent. To purchase tickets to the musical comedy, please contact Ticketpro at (514) 908-9090 or at www.ticketpro.ca.
VIA Rail Canada is the national passenger rail service, connecting some 450 communities from coast to coast. Demand for VIA’s rapid intercity services in the Québec City-Windsor corridor has grown in recent years, as more Canadians turn to train travel as a hassle-free and cost-efficient way to travel. Passengers can book their train tickets by calling 1-888-VIA-RAIL (1-888-842-7245), at kiosks in major Corridor stations, at www.viarail.ca or through their travel agents.