In 1896, Giacomo Puccini wrote the opera, La bohème. In 1981, Jonathan Larson took upon the adaptation of La bohème and decided to turn it into the rock opera, RENT, which debuted in 1996 and became one of Broadway’s most popular musicals. Now, in 2013, the Ossining High School Drama Club is performing RENT’s school edition.
RENT is about different artists, dancers, and singers in the 90’s struggling financially and physically with HIV/AIDS, covering one year on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The play is written through the lens of struggling filmmaker Mark Cohen, whose documentary captures the events of the musical. His roommate Roger is a musician who is HIV positive and is destined to write one last great song he will be remembered for before he dies. Despite Mark being the narrator of the play, there is no definite main character. The cast includes of several leads that are all equally as interesting and important, including Mimi, a dancer also struggling with AIDS, Tom Collins, an NYU philosophy professor, his lover Angel, a drag queen street drummer, and many more.
Jonathan Larson, the composer and writer of RENT, shared similar conditions to the characters in his musical. He was struggling writing plays while working as a waiter to keep a living through his 20s. Larson lived in conditions close to that of his characters and had many friends struggling with HIV/AIDS. On the night of RENTs debut, January 25th, 1996, Larson died before he was able to see the 15 years of hard work that led to not only his most recognizable piece, but also one of the most famous musicals in recent memory. Larson passed due to an Aortic Dissection, in which the Aorta tears and blood leaves your heart; Larson was only 35 at the time of his death.
RENT opened and was a smash hit. The New York Theater workshop, the theater RENT originally debuted in, and the one members of the Ossining cast and crew came to see, became too small, and RENT was moved to the Nederlander Theater on April 29, 1996. The play then moved to Broadway and continued to achieve incredible success. It won the Tony for Best Musical, the Pulitzer Prize, and the audience’s attention. It stayed on Broadway for 12 years, grossed around $280 million, has been performed in almost 12 countries, and has been adapted into a film that was released in 2005.
Hopefully, knowing the history and story enhanced what you experienced at the production…the famous songs sung on the stage instead of on your iPod or YouTube, and the hard work of the extremely talented cast and crew. Enjoy it, and think of it when you see the play for a second, third, or 37th time.
RENT’s school edition recently premiered in the second week of April. The cast and crew did a phenomonal job of replicating the Broadway classic.
