Now a third-year University of Illinois College of Law student, Mark Perry remembers what a big deal the Broadway musical "Rent" was after it premiered in 1996, around the time he was a freshman in high school.

Since then he has seen the stage version at least three times and the movie adaptation once.

"My friends and I were musical-theater geeks," he said. "'Rent' was sort of new and different and very exciting to us."

Perry, who went on to major in theater at DePaul University in Chicago, is now playing narrator Mark Cohen in the Champaign Urbana Theatre Company production of "Rent," to open this evening at the Virginia Theatre.

"Rent" remains so popular that two of Perry's friends from his high school days in Orland Park plan to travel from St. Louis and Chicago to see him in the show, which features a cast ranging in age from 18 to 46.

The story follows the lives of seven young adults leading a disappearing bohemian life in New York's East Village, with HIV/AIDS complicating things.

"Rent" is based on the same stories that composer Giacomo Puccini referred to when creating his famous opera, "La Boheme," with HIV/AIDS in "Rent" replacing the tuberculosis that Mimi suffers in "La Boheme."

Perry's character has neither the virus nor the disease, though a few other characters in "Rent" do.

"Mark is a documentary filmmmaker," Perry said. "He is a watcher and an observer. He struggles with the idea that the people around him are leaving him and he tries to find a way to find a place within the community around him as he tries to figure out what that community is.

"In that sense, Mark is kind of the fulcrum of the play, but the play is not about him. The other characters are more active and colorful."

Playing Roger, Cohen's roommate, is Archie Messersmith, an event planner for a New York-based company.

"He's a lot angrier than I am," Messersmith said of his character. "I enjoy being Roger. Roger goes through a huge arc. He starts out dejected, with no hope, and at the end he has hope again."

Messersmith, a voice major and dance minor at Samford College in Birmingham, Ala., has prior musical-theater experience; he was part of the national tour of "Showboat" and of the European tour of "42nd Street."

Like Perry, Messersmith emphasized that "Rent" features an ensemble cast of 22 players. About 100 people auditioned.

The other lead characters and actors are Mimi, Maddie Knight of Champaign; Tom, Eric Clausell of Urbana; Angel, William Anthony-Sebastian Rose II of Champaign; Maureen, Melissa Milanak of Urbana; Joanne, Jennye Stirlen of Pekin; and Benny, Corey Flournoy of Champaign.

They will be accompanied by a pit orchestra directed by Aaron Kaplan. Perry described the orchestra as a sort of modified rock band with two guitars, an electric bass, two keyboards and a string quartet.

The 2005 film adaptation of "Rent" cut one of the songs that was in the stage musical, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and several Tony Awards, among them for best musical.

The CUTC version will have that song as well as all the others from the stage musical.

"It was very important to me and the rest of the creative staff to maintain the integrity of the original piece, not only in respect to Jonathan Larson's work but also to present the Broadway style 'Rent' people know and want to see," director Jeffrey Chandler said. "Our goal is not to present a watered-down Central Illinois version of 'Rent'; we are giving you exactly what you would expect on Broadway."

The set, with a brick wall, staircases and a balcony, suggests an urban environment. Mark's and Roger's loft is on the stage floor, and a small balcony is where the "life support" meetings take place for some characters.

The vocal direction for "Rent" is by Tom Mohr of Champaign and the choreography is by Monica M. Samii of Savoy. Co-producers are Chandler and Brenda Lambert of White Heath.