Rock ‘n’ Role : Singers Vie for a Part in the Contemporary Opera ‘Rent’

No stars were going to be made Friday. But they lined up anyway--singers and actors, students and bankers.

Carrying sheet music, resumes and the occasional guitar, hundreds of twentysomethings waited for the first of two days of open auditions for “Rent,” the rock opera that shook up Broadway last year. Inspired by Puccini’s “La Boheme,” but set among aspiring artists in the East Village, “Rent” won Tony awards for best musical, book and score.

Casting director Bernie Telsey says he is looking for raw rock ‘n’ roll talent, people with great voices and matching good looks. He has 15 roles to fill for the third “Rent” cast, which will give the show its West Coast premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in July, then move to the Ahmanson Theatre in September.

A similar open call in New York last July drew 2,000 actors, some of whom got in line as early as 4 a.m. With that in mind, Anthony Elizondo and Jeanie McKelvey left Fresno shortly after midnight and arrived at a Burbank studio before dawn Friday.

They were the only ones there, and kept warm in their car until others started to arrive around 6:30 a.m.

“We made the trip because this is the show of our generation. We’re performers and we couldn’t miss the opportunity to be here,” said Elizondo, 27, who called in sick to his bank job. “I would pull curtains for this show.”

By the time the auditions started at 10 a.m., the line ran down one block of Burbank Boulevard and around the corner. Still, it was a fraction of the crowd that mobbed the New York audition.

Casting agent Will Cantler stood sentry at the main door to Screenland I, the final hurdle to the four audition rooms inside. Cantler’s job is to “type-out” actors--scan actors and their resumes, and give them a thank-you-for-coming dismissal if they are obviously wrong for the show.

This casting session was much like ones before “Rent” became famous and moved to Broadway, Cantler said. “A lot of people don’t know the show. So I’m being a lot more generous,” he said.

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That was some relief to 28-year-old Jennifer Aquino of North Hollywood, who was waiting behind about 120 people. If she got typed-out, she said, she’d be back tomorrow, dressed in a different look. And if that didn’t work, since she’s eligible to join Actors Equity, she’d go to the audition for union actors next month.

Aquino was one of the few who actually had seen “Rent” on Broadway. “It moved me. It was very inspirational--about living for today,” she said.

Composer Jonathan Larson lived in poverty while working on “Rent” for almost seven years, then died of an aortic aneurysm hours after a final dress rehearsal at the New York Theatre Workshop. In addition to two Tonys, Larson was posthumously awarded the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Anthony Rapp played the video artist Mark in that NYTW production and now stars in the show on Broadway. He came to Los Angeles this week to promote the open call on TV and radio. Rapp sat in the back of the large, mirrored dance studio where Telsey listened as actor after actor sang 16 bars from songs they brought. Cantler’s generosity at the door showed on occasion--including the young man who sang a pretty lousy version of “Piano Man” and then admitted he was there only to lend moral support to his girlfriend.

Telsey had to repeatedly ask for rock ‘n’ roll songs--the musical staple of “Rent.” This is not “ ‘Oklahoma!’,” Telsey said.

Besides vocal talent, Telsey was looking for a particular appearance: the edgy urban look required of characters Angel the transvestite, or Mimi the junkie or Roger, the HIV-positive rocker.

“I don’t give big points for that because someone can be costumed for that,” Telsey said. “I am looking for personality to show through.”

Mostly, though, he is looking for vocal chops. And in a matter of measures, he can tell.

Even after Alan Mingo Jr. had filled the room with a soulful ballad, Telsey asked him to “rough it up a bit.” Telsey suggested improvising on “Amazing Grace.”

“Just sing it like it’s just you rocking out or souling-out,” he said.

Mingo did.

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Rapp looked sideways and said softly, “He’s great.”

“That’s why I love to be at an open call,” he added after Mingo left, “to see people get up and really shine.”

Mingo was one of only a handful to come before Telsey Friday morning who got a callback. Mingo, a graduate student in drama at UC Irvine, was relieved after the audition. But he knows he’s not that much closer to the floorboards of the La Jolla Playhouse. At least three more cuts stand between him and director Michael Greif.

“I’ve got to learn a lot of music and do it for them and then take it from there,” Mingo said. “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

Local auditions continue today beginning at 10 a.m. at the Performing Arts Center in Van Nuys.