Where high school theater is concerned, there are a few key productions in which every aspiring young thespian hopes to land a role.

"West Side Story." "The Wizard of Oz." "Oklahoma." "Les Misérables."

"Rent" doesn't usually make the list.

Leave it up to the kids in the Saint Louis School theater program to take things to a different level.

It's what they do.

Under the direction of theater teacher Kyle Kakuno, Saint Louis teens have already tackled two Broadway mega-hits, "Footloose" and "Aida." Most school troupes wouldn't even consider staging those. But Kakuno, a stage actor turned director with a knack for making difficult things look easy, said he never wanted his students to be like everyone else.

"I'm not trying to breed actors here," he said during a rehearsal for "Rent," which opens tonight at Mamiya Theatre as part of Saint Louis School's summer outreach program. "I'm trying to teach the kids the correct reason to go into theater. You don't do it for fame or recognition. You do it because you have a story to tell."

But what if the story is about homosexuality, bisexuality, AIDS and sexual promiscuity?

That one needs telling, too, said Kakuno, who is dedicating the production to the late John Kauffman, who was artistic director at Honolulu Theatre for Youth. Kauffman died of AIDS in 1990.

Getting the Saint Louis School board to approve the student staging of the post-modern play took some convincing, but in the end, said Kakuno, everyone agreed that the message of "Rent," despite its sometimes racy content, was one that the students could embrace and pass on without offending the masses.

The original screenplay has been edited to make it more suitable for young audiences, essentially taking the play from an R rating to a PG-13 rating, said Kakuno. But it's far from sterile.

The young cast, which is made up of students from a few schools including Punahou, Kamehameha and McKinley, is certainly dealing with a story line and dialogue that is much more gritty than it's used to.

At a recent rehearsal, the kids proved that they are mature enough not to break out in giggles during the play's more intimate moments, but are they grown-up enough to deliver such overtly adult material without making the audience uncomfortable?

That remains to be seen.

If the audience has a hard time believing that a 9th-grader knows what he's singing about when he rattles off a string of lines that include references to Kurosawa, Vaclav Havel, Pablo Neruda and 8BC (not to mention a fair share of sexual references), it won't be for a lack of sincerity.

These kids, all of them high schoolers — some of them just barely — are serious about the message of "Rent."

It seems, then, that Kakuno has gotten through to them.

As for offending audiences that might gasp and raise their eyebrows at the school's (and a Catholic school, at that) decision to go ahead with the play, Kakuno said he's not worried.

"This is not just a beautifully sung rock opera. It's a call-out to a generation," said Kakuno. "It's time for society to grow up. At it's core, this play is about unconditional love. What better message for a godly school?"