You could feel the desire.

January 27, 2016 12:16 PM

Remembering Jonathan Larson, who died 20 years ago this week, weeks shy of his 36th birthday. The 20th anniversary tour of the show that began previews the night of his death, RENT, will launch this fall.

Jonathan Larson's obituary, which ran in the New York times on January 26, 1996.

Jonathan Larson - 30/90
No Day But Today - The Story of Rent

posted by roomthreeseventeen (9 comments total)

Bookmarking that doc for later; can't wait to watch it.
I've seen it live 3 times, but never at the Nederlander, as the Nederlander isn't in Florida.
Love the Original Cast & soundtrack, like the movie, but nothing beats a good live cast.
I'm hoping for a great one for the 20th tour, and they better come to Tampa or thereabouts.
No day but today.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 1:32 PM on January 27, 2016

What a terrible loss. Props to his estate for investing heavily in the next generation of composers.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:37 PM on January 27, 2016

Thanks for posting this. For a whole variety of reason, Rent is a big deal in our household.

Tumbleweeds...prairie dogs...
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:04 PM on January 27, 2016

How fitting that two decades later the hottest ticket on Broadway is a groundbreaking musical with a young, diverse cast which (among other things) celebrates the creative process and New York City's heritage.

Seeing Rent in 1998 at the Nederlander was a dream come true for thirteen-year-old me. I saw it again when NPH did his production at the Hollywood Bowl a few years ago and remember thinking that I had gotten so old since my Renthead days. The songs are still great, but when you feel yourself sympathize with Benny...oof.
posted by town of cats at 9:40 PM on January 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

To be fair, Benny is friends with a bunch of assholes. They are SO MAD that he married a bougie lady and moved out of the squat he shared with two heroin addicts and Mark, but somehow it never bothers them that he's cheating on his wife with a 19-year-old HIV+ addict. They're all kind of terrible.

Except for Collins. Collins is a perfect cinnamon roll.
posted by nonasuch at 10:42 PM on January 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

I was in Santa Fe for the first time this past summer. There was an empty storefront with a sign saying "Restaurant Space for Lease". You know what I was walking around singing the rest of the afternoon. I snapped a picture on my phone just so I could use it as a set-up for my music theater geek friends.
posted by Jazz Hands at 10:53 PM on January 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

To be fair, Benny is friends with a bunch of assholes. They are SO MAD that he married a bougie lady and moved out of the squat he shared with two heroin addicts and Mark, but somehow it never bothers them that he's cheating on his wife with a 19-year-old HIV+ addict. They're all kind of terrible.

I'm in agreement with more than a few of the criticisms of the show David Rakoff makes here (see Act 8).

But I can't really say that aloud in my house...heck, I can't even speak Rakoff's name aloud for that very reason. Heresy, you see.

On the other hand, if you think about the odds for and against the show becoming the success it did at the time it did, it was a hell of a thing.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:15 AM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I obsessively loved Rent as a teenager and have deeply fond memories of seeing it several times with friends. Poster on the college dorm room wall, etc., etc.

I also told my sister recently as she hovers on the cusp of her thirties that the realization that you are actually on Team Benny is a defining moment of adulthood.

I contain multitudes.

The multitudes love Rent to greater or lesser degrees at this current moment in time but none of them are sorry for having invested so much love in it at the time it was A Thing.
posted by Stacey at 10:23 AM on January 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

Thanks to my husband and a very, very good touring cast of Rent we saw in 2000, I developed an appreciation for the raw power of a musical.

A few years later, we got to see it with Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal reprising their roles.

For him, a lifelong musical theatre nerd, Rent was something else entirely. As he tells it, seeing the cast when they performed on the Tonys was a bolt from the blue as a gay kid growing up in an isolated town. He'll be the first to admit that it has dated a bit for him as he's gotten older, but it occupies such a powerful, affirming place in his heart that I can't question it.

I've seen it live three times. This includes an execrable drama school production of it. He really wanted to share it with some friends of ours, so we went to this production. As it unfolded, I leaned over to him (he's blind) as Tom Collins took the stage. "Tom Collins is white," I whispered. He groaned and put his face in hands.

In fact, the entire cast was white. And off key.

Except for the guy playing Angel. He was good, and the only non-white member of the cast.

But as a composer, Larson was brilliant. He put the work in, and he created something that touched the people it was aimed at deeply. Then it crossed over to people who, had you told them what it was really about, would never have gone. They went because it was Broadway smash. And I like to think that Larson got through to them in ways big and small through his talent.

If you watch the No Day Today documentary in roomthreeseventeen's post, you'll see an evolution of his work that makes yoi ask: if he'd had another 20 or 30 years to capitalize on the success he was just about to hit...who knows?

But he left something behind that made careers, changed minds and told my husband, a kid growing up in remote northern Ontario town "Hey - you're ok."

So, thank you Jonathan Larson
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:58 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]