”They, I think, have a very fundamental understanding about who these characters are, why they exist, what their pain is, and what their struggles are, so they bring so much thought and passion to it,” Ms. Mills says. “That was something that I thought would be really exciting.”

   And despite the years, she says the musical still resonates today.

   ”All of the issues that they confronted 10 years ago are the same issues that they are again looking at, perhaps somewhat differently but not all that much,” she says.

   Based on Puccini’s opera La bohème, Rent tells the story of Bohemian artists living in New York City. In this world is Mimi, an exotic dancer who is HIV positive, who on a cold Christmas Eve night meets Roger, a musician who also has the virus. The other male lead is Mark, a filmmaker documenting the world and events around him.

   Featuring characters with AIDS was groundbreaking for a Broadway show, and while humanizing those characters is one of the show’s goals, Ryan Crimmins, who’s playing Roger in the Rider production, says the show is really about how everyone handles their own individual “dark clouds.”

   ”I think that is what resonates for me,” he says. “When you come to ‘Rent’ you expect a story about AIDS and the struggle, especially the impact that it had in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. But if you look past that and you look at the characters themselves and individually what’s bothering them besides the disease and everything else, I think that’s what you can dig into and make a character out of it and tell a story.”

   Rent may be based on an opera, but it’s a rock-style musical. It features wall-to-wall music and songs like “One Song Glory,” “La Vie Bohème” and “Seasons of Love” present vocal challenges to the performers. Mr. Crimmins is a classically trained singer (studying at Rider’s Westminster campus), so fitting his style to the show has meant some adjustments.

   ”This is definitely rock, it’s rock singing,” he says, “so it’s been a challenge for me to make sure that I don’t sound too operatic in the role because it wouldn’t work. It doesn’t fit the character and it doesn’t fit the context.”

   Nick Anastasia, who’s playing Mark, has more of a rock background, and he’s familiar with Rent, having seen it three times during its Broadway run.

   ”It’s been a crazy ride, just because this show hits home to me because it was the show that got me into theater,” he says. Putting aside his memories of the performances he’s seen has been difficult, he says, but he’s enjoyed creating his own interpretation of Mark.

   ”It’s been really cool to bring pieces of me to Mark that maybe a lot of people haven’t tried to do. I’m looking forward to giving it my own spin,” he says.

   He may get some help from Adam Cantor, who played Mark on Broadway and will be watching one of the rehearsals at Rider and talking with the cast. That arrangement was made after a cast member happened to meet Mr. Cantor and passed his e-mail address on to Ms. Mills.

   Rent is a challenge for its young performers, but that’s one of the goals for the Rider program. “We try to pick a season that is a challenge but yet not impossible,” she says. “The goal is to get them to succeed and to grow.”

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  Rent will be performed at the Yvonne Theater on the campus of Rider University, 2083 Lawrenceville Road, Lawrence, Nov. 12-21. Performances: Thurs. 7 p.m., Sat. 8 p.m., Nov. 13, 7 p.m., Nov. 20, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $20 ($10 for preview performances, Nov. 12, 13, 19), $5 seniors/students; 609-896-5303.