‘Rent’ brings local actors home for the holidays

Making a living as an actor is tough. Most actors wait years for a break that never comes.

So to finally get that call for a role in a real movie, TV show or stage production is an incredible feeling. When that call gives you a chance to go back to the place where you grew up and put your talents on display for the people who raised you and helped you get where you are, it takes that joy up another level. When that work takes you home for the holidays, that’s a truly rare gift.

The touring production of “Rent” arrived at the Blaisdell Concert Hall this week providing just that opportunity for two local actors.

Joshua Tavares, a Kamehameha and UH-Hilo graduate from Kona and Castle alumnus Zare Anguay are part of the cast bringing that iconic Broadway musical to Honolulu. That it brought them here at this special time of the year is a bonus they never could have imagined.

“We get two weeks off after this,” Tavares said, “so it’s like a dream come true that we got to come home for Thanksgiving, do shows for Christmas and then get a couple weeks off still to enjoy after.”

With eight performances across six days — today is the cast’s only day off — Anguay and his family celebrated Christmas early. He’s the youngest of nine siblings, and all but two of them are home for the season, so there’s been a lot to catch up on.

Get-togethers have been simple — “whoever can come over come over, just grinds!” — but have offered the chance to reconnect. “It’s good to see them, all them and their 40 new kids (nieces, nephews and cousins),” Anguay said with a chuckle.

Tavares has three little nephews under age 8 to dote on and a musical heritage to help pass on.

His father is Walter “Waltah Boy” Tavares, a founding member of seminal Jawaiian band Ho‘aikane. Tavares grew up singing with his father and dancing hula with his mother, Kuuipo. When he returns home to the Big Island, the family still sings together (he has a brother and a sister) around the house and plays ukulele and guitar. Now that the show has opened, the party has moved to Honolulu, where his brother lives.

“My ohana’s all coming up to Oahu for the show and also for Christmas,” Tavares said last week, “so we’ll all be together for Christmas on Oahu.”

Anguay also comes from a musical family, with a history of high-level theater experience. Two sisters made it to Broadway with “Miss Saigon,” and another played Nala in the Los Angeles production of “The Lion King.” Their experience was invaluable for Anguay. “I had a really good support group with my family,” he said.

Life on the road

Anguay was speaking of his blood relatives, but he could have just as easily been referring to his “Rent” family, which has grown as close as you might expect given that they are about halfway through a nine-month, 54-city tour that is taking them through three countries, including 25 states and five Canadian provinces.

In some stretches the tour takes them to four cities in four nights. They said there is not always time to do their full preparations, often just warming up before going on. The tough circumstances have tightened the ranks.

“Road life is way different than I expected,” Anguay said. “This group is really really kind and really supportive of each other — that makes it a lot easier.”

Many of the cast-mates came in early, knowing they wouldn’t get to explore much once the show’s run starts, and the guys were planning to show them some of Oahu’s best: North Shore beaches, hiking, Ma­tsumoto’s shave ice, Honolulu Hale for the city lights.

True to this being Anguay’s and Tavares’ second family, they will get to enjoy two Christmases.

“I think the (“Rent”) company’s throwing us a little paina, too,” Tavares said, “so the cast who don’t get to be as lucky as we are with all our family here get to go somewhere and celebrate.”

Playing an ‘Angel’

Along with the glory of returning home for the holidays on his first tour, Tavares arrives playing a role he has wanted to play for as long as he’s been an actor: drag queen Angel Dumott Schunard.

“Angel is the only role that when I was introduced to (where) it was like, oh, that’s a role — even if it was unconscious at the time — that’s a character I would like to play one day,” Tavares said. “When I started writing down my dream roles, Angel was at the top of the list.”

Casting directors and teachers saw the fit, too, he said, mentioning to him the role as one he could play one day.

The musical is set in New York in the time of AIDS, and Angel is afflicted with the disease. How he has chosen to react to his diagnosis is a key message in the show.

“(Angel) can celebrate life even in the face of that,” Tavares said, “which is what’s so beautiful about the character and why he’s the heart of the show. … Angel also has the capability to see the beauty in other people even if they aren’t kind to Angel.”

Tavares’ journey started his senior year at Kamehameha, when the school drama club went on a subsidized trip to the Big Apple, seeing a different show each night.

He moved on to study theater at UH Hilo, where he worked on every production, if not always on stage. He graduated in May 2012 and moved to New York the next month, diving into an 18-month program at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. After a year and a half studying ballet, acting and musical theater 12 hours a day, Tavares gave himself three years to book something, working sometimes three jobs to make ends meet. Three years came and went without a major role, but he wasn’t ready to quit, which taught him something about how much he loved acting.

“It helped give me the understanding that it was something I really wanted to do,” Tavares said, “because after years and years of not getting that big break, I thought, ‘Is this worth it? Am I happy? I moved across the country to do this. I could be back home with a poke bowl or at the beach, and that seems way better than what I’m doing here, working three jobs to pay bills and pay my rent.’”

After more than five years building his resume and connections, going to countless auditions and workshopping “plays that people had never heard of and will probably never hear of” in small theaters and people’s living rooms, Tavares was cast as Angel, and he has made the most of his opportunity.

“He’s doing it different than previous Angels in really lovely ways,” director Evan Ensign said, “which again has a lot to do with why we cast him. It was sort of like, ‘Oh, there’s some different takes on it.’ Angel has to be very giving. Angel is no angelic person, but is a very forgiving person and a giving person. As long as those (qualities) come through. … Josh has a lot more humor than many previous Angels have, and it really benefits him.”

Bright beginnings

Anguay, who plays Paul in “Rent,” got his start with local theater legend Ron Bright when he was about 7 years old, alternating performances with Bright’s son Christopher as one of the children in “South Pacific,” but he didn’t really get the bug until he played Mark Anthony in “A Chorus Line” seven years later — “I just fell in love with dance after that,” he said.

Those years working in Bright’s productions were pivotal to Anguay’s development not just as a performer, but as a young man.

“(Bright) was really kind of like a second father to me,” Anguay said, “the way he taught love and acceptance. He taught that there’s more to theater than just theater. He taught us that theater can be brought into other aspects of our life — all the skills, like memorization, organization, tolerating different types of people, just laughing. Simple things that you just forget sometimes in the craziness of this crazy world.”

After years developing his dance chops studying ballet with Punahou’s Charlys Ing and “everything else” under Marcelo Pacleb of 24/7 Danceforce Studio, Anguay landed work as a backup dancer for Princess Cruise Lines. After two years he decided it was time to move to New York to see what he could do. Wanting a refresher in theater before heading to the Big Apple, he landed a role as the Scarecrow in last year’s Paliku Theater production of “The Wiz.”

He was set to move to New York on April 1 this year, but he was good enough in an audition in Hawaii and a subsequent video submission that the “Rent” creative team wanted to see him in person at about that same time.

“Zare was very interesting,” Ensign said, “so we said, ‘We should get him to New York and let’s see him,’ and he came in and auditioned and was just amazing.”

Anguay loves his character.

“Paul is like Angel in a way,” Anguay said. “He is the light of these people that are coming to this (AIDS) support group because this is the best part of their day, because they’re all dying … from this disease and have to go through these AZT tests that they have to take every four hours to survive and they go through all this negativity, and they go to this safe place where they can talk to each other.

“He’s very accepting. He’s not gonna baby you. He’s here to help you out. That’s what I love about Paul. He’s gonna hear what people have to say, and he’s gonna love them no matter what.”

Anguay, who also is Tavares’ understudy, feels blessed to be working with such great material from the late Jonathan Larson on his first big production.

“There’s some nights when I’m so tired,” Anguay said. “We’re all tired, the crew’s tired, but then once we get to certain numbers, like ‘La Vie Boheme,’ we just start lighting up, we start having fun, run loose and play off of each other. It’s such an honor to do it. It’s such fun.”

‘Rent’

20th Anniversary Tour

>> Where: Neal S. Blaisdell Concert Hall

>> When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 2 and 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

>> Cost: $50-$80 (lottery for $24.50 seats at all shows; see broadwayinhawaii.com for more info; $25 student tickets for Friday matinee)

>> Info: ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000