Review - My First Rent

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.

It was January of '96 and I was office temping at a company in Union Square. As usual, when office temping, I would make several phone calls a day to the theatre ticket papering organization I belonged to, checking to see what free shows might be available. Around 3pm their recording of offerings listed an Off-Broadway preview performance of a new rock musical based on La Boheme for that evening. I recalled reading some short article about this new musical called Rent, maybe in that week's Voice so I reserved 2 tickets and started calling friends to find someone to join me. Well, in the days before everyone had cell phones and email reaching someone at 3pm to invite them a show at 8pm wasn't always easy, and those I did reach had grown tired of me dragging them to the freaky experimental theatre pieces I was known to frequent, so that evening I had an empty seat next to me front row center at the 150 seat New York Theatre Workshop.

I can't remember the exact date of the performance, but I know it was one of the first few previews. I wasn't even aware of the recent tragedy and the author's name wasn't fresh in my mind so when Anthony Rapp began the performance by saying it was dedicated to Jonathan Larson, it didn't really register with me.

Two things really stuck with me while watching it. First was that this was the first time I could ever remember seeing a rock musical written by someone who was obviously a dramatist who knew how to structure a musical and effectively tell a story through lyrics. The second was how familiar I was with the neighborhood and culture depicted. And the reason I was so familiar with it was because of my habit of attending theatre 4 or 5 times a week. In those days P.S. 122, La MaMa and plenty of other exciting performance art and experimental theatre havens would frequently hand out comps through papering organizations and I was (still am) such a theatre whore that I was up for seeing anything... anything! Free tickets are such effective enablers.

But my reason for telling this story is because of what happened at the end of that performance. The cast took their company bow to strong, supportive applause. I don't think anyone was standing. No wild cheering. Just very strong appreciative applause. And the cast left the stage and the lights came up and the band started the playout music... and the audience just kept applauding. And when the playout music was done the applause got stronger. But still, it was just clapping, nothing more. For maybe thirty seconds (that's a long time for applause) the band members just sat on stage hearing the applause grow louder and perhaps wondering if they should start the playout again. Then I noticed timid heads starting to emerge from the wings. It seemed like some cast members had just returned to see what was happening, then a few at a time they meekly started lining up on stage again and improvised another bow. The applause finally ended as the company headed for the wings again and once they couldn't be seen I heard what must have been at least a dozen simultaneous gasps of astonishment coming from backstage.

I later found out that Jonathan Larson wrote much of Rent at the now defunct Bell Café, a casual pre-Starbucks coffee house I used to frequent. And I sometimes wonder if I ever saw him there, a fellow just two months younger than me, writing his legacy in longhand.