Rent Reunion Concert 2006

In a week where we've been reminded how even the classics of the American musical stage are rarely revived in Broadway or Broadway-bound productions without their deceased authors' work being anything from tweaked to drastically rewritten, it's very refreshing to see a major revival where the material has been kept as it was and the show has simply been creatively refreshed. Director Michael Greif, who staged the original New York Theatre Workshop production of Rent that quickly moved to Broadway, gives us a new Off-Broadway mounting at New World Stages that looks at the material from a wholly different angle without any noticeable changes to the late Jonathan Larson's text. While still a life-affirming celebration of youthful passions and the need to create, this presentation is grittier and more realistic than the original, performed by an excellent ensemble placing their own interesting stamps on what, after 12 years on Broadway, many would consider iconic roles.

Shortly after word started spreading through the internet tonight about the announced June 1st closing of the Broadway production of Rent, BroadwayWorld's News Editor, Eugene Lovendusky, started a thread on our Broadway message board asking readers to share their experiences of seeing Jonathan Larson's breakthrough achievement for the first time. I'll be checking in on that thread and enjoying the stories but first I'd like to share my first Rent experience here. If you know me personally you've probably heard this one before. I've told it a lot in the past 12 years