ABOUT THE PLAY
In the beginning, there was Billy Aronson, a Yale trained playwright who loved opera and had an idea: Billy wanted to write a musical updating of La Bohème. He wanted the show to be about people like himself - struggling to make art under lousy conditions. Some theatrical acquaintances suggested he work with Jonathan Larson. In 1989, they met and swapped ideas. Jon came up with the title: RENT. He didn't like Billy's proposed Upper West Side setting; Jon lived a bohemian life downtown. He rented a scruffy loft that had a bathtub in the kitchen. For a while, he and his roommates kept an illegal, wood-burning stove. He dated a dancer for four years who sometimes left him for other men and finally left him for another woman. Jon wanted to write about his experience. In 1991, he called Billy and asked if he could make RENT his own, and Billy agreed.
New York Theatre Workshop put on a reading of RENT in the spring of 1993 and a workshop production was planned for November 2004. Jon sent a letter to Stephen Sondheim, his mentor, asking for advice and assistance. The older composer responded by encouraging Jonathan to apply for a Richard Rodgers foundation grant. Jonathan eventually won $45,000 to support a workshop production of Rent.
For all of its flaws, the November workshop was a tremendous success. It ran two weeks with the audience growing larger and more enthusiastic each night; by the last week it was sold out.
The Workshop decided to stage a full production of RENT the following year. The night of the final dress rehearsal, Jon was sick with a sore chest and a fever. Still, he took a taxi to Fourth Street, watched the show, and sat for his interview with the Times. Jon died an hour later.
After Jon's death, there were a few revisions. The play opened at NYTW on January 25, 1996, and moved to Broadway April 29, 1996. It won the Tony for Best Musical among numerous other awards. The Broadway production closed on September 7, 2008, after a 12-year run and 5,124 performances, making it the seventh-longest-running Broadway show.
RENT toured internationally in 2005-2006 and has been performed in countries around the world, including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, The Netherlands, Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Greece, Canada, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, South Africa, Australia, Guam, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and Austria.
The musical has been performed in twenty-two languages: Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Estonian, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, Greek, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
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