For this Roosevelt Island
family, Rent Pays the Rent
As Owen Johnston II was about to audition for
the Broadway musical Rent, a thief ran off with his wallet. He chased the culprit down a stairwell and pinned him against the wall. Grabbing the wallet, he threw the thug down the stairs and sprinted back to the audition. He got the part.
Photo Credit: The Main Street Wire
The Orange County, California, native has since settled into New York – a city he first found "disturbing" – with a move to Roosevelt Island. For the past five-and-a-half years, he has played various Rent characters – including Angel, the drag queen, and Roger, the struggling rock
musician. As the show’s dance captain, he also teaches the choreography to new dancers and
is charged with maintaining the look of the show. “I spend a lot of time watching,” he explains.
Now in its seventh year, Rent swept all the major theater awards of 1996, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award. Based on the opera La Boheme, the musical transports Puccini’s starving-artist characters to New York’s East Village. (Mimi, a seamstress with tuberculosis in
La Boheme, is a heroin-addicted exotic dancer with AIDS in Rent.)
“The show puts the big issues in your face,“ Johnston says. “It’s an amazing thing, to be a part
of it.” The actor/singer/dancer (he started out as a dancer/singer) began his career at a place
the Rent characters would never turn up: Disneyland. “One of the few“ who never pulled on a character costume, he danced in shows like Mickey’s Birthday Bash. “I was the host of the Bash. There were about a hundred kids dancing around me!”
As a child, he never aspired to be an actor, singer or dancer, though he did take tap lessons
for two years. Even as he enrolled at Orange Coast College, he “had no idea, not a clue, what
I wanted to be.“ He happened to park his truck near the dance department, heard the clack of
tap shoes and thought, “That would be an easy credit!” The tap class led to a degree in dance
and a spell at Disneyland. Then his high school drama coach called, coaxing him to audition
for a show. “It was a cheesy little song and dance show at a Japanese amusement park,” he
recalls. The job paid $250 a week."
At rehearsals near Los Angeles, he met actress/singer/dancer Bridget Bernell. The two carpooled to rehearsals, an hour-long drive each way. “I was shy, so the commute gave us an excuse to talk.“ Today, in the Rent Playbill, Johnston thanks “his wife, Bridget, who is truly a gift from God.“ Bridget, in fact, found Johnston his next job. In the theatrical publication Drama-Logue, she
saw a notice for auditions for the national tour of 42nd Street. Johnston pursued it. After a nervous first tryout, he was stuck with a group of dancers who would shortly be sent home – though he didn’t know it at that point. On edge, he started to tap-dance. “I caught the attention of the producer, and he moved me to the other side of the room!” He landed an ensemble role
in the show.
Back in California, Johnston gave her an engagement ring at Crescent Bay Beach. “We were at
the tide pools. Bridget was out at the edge and I was hanging back, looking for a really pretty sea anemone. I found a big purple one and put her ring inside it. I called her over and just as I told her to look at this really cool sea anemone it opened up and she found her ring.“ Shortly after their 1990 wedding, Johnston landed his first Broadway role, playing “a samurai ninja guy”
in Shogun: the Musical.
When the production closed nine months later, the Johnstons fled their Hell’s Kitchen apartment for shows on a Caribbean cruise and in Atlantic City. Cast in the national tour of Miss Saigon, the couple then hopscotched across North America for four years. Johnston played 23 different parts – called “swing” – filling in for up to three sick, injured or vacationing performers each night. He also was an understudy for Thuy, the jealous Vietnamese fiance.
The actor had packed for The King and I tour when the
Rent casting office called, offering a spot on Broadway. Bridget was expecting their first child, so he switched to
the show’s national tour, which would play in California
at the time the baby was due.
The family of three traveled with Rent until eighteen-
month- old Jordan got fed up with life on the road.
“We were living in hotels, on a plane every Monday.
We would bring out the suitcases, and Jordan would
get upset.“ They unpacked in July 1999, when Johnston
joined the cast at Broadway’s Nederlander Theater.
He had heard about the Island from one of the show’s
musicians, who lived in Island House. “I had no idea
you could live in the middle of the East River!”
In New York, five-year-old Jordan launched his own acting career. His credits include commercials for Nickelodeon
and MCI. His baby brother, six-month-old Noah, has booked
Babies R Us and Kmart photo shoots. “We were shopping for fish at a pet store in Queens when Jordan heard his voice over the radio in an MCI commercial, saying, ’I have a loose tooth!’ He loves it! And he didn’t have to start out at Disneyland!”
Rent, meanwhile, has climbed to number 14 on Broadway’s
list of longest-running hits. “There is truth in it,“ Johnston said. “The likelihood of being in another show this powerful
is not great. I could do this another fifteen or twenty years.”
With that, he knocked on a wood table.
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