RENT is set in which year(s)?

[DMsquared2]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 5:05pm

I totally apologize for beating a dead horse but does anyone have an idea of the years Rent takes place.

It definitely must be pre-Guiliani which would be before 1994 and continuity-wise it must be after Thelma & Louise, which was released in 1991.

Of course the movie is 1989 but I feel like that's too early.

[IsolatingAge]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 5:10pm

Columbus didn't seem to be thinking very clearly when he set a specific year for the action to occur. It is never mentioned in the script, but the references set it anytime in the 90's. Arguably, it could be "timeless", but thinking literally about the pop culture references, it doesn't make a ton of sense to place the setting in this decade.

[exedore]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 5:23pm

I believe the accepted timeframe is somewhere between 92 and 95, or when Larson was heavily working on it. IMHO 93-94 makes the most sense.

[blaxx]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 5:25pm

Don't they scream "at the end of the millenium..." a dozen times in the show?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 6:17pm

I agree based on the Thelma & Louise reference that the show takes place in the early 90s. Perhaps earlier incarnations of the show did have Larson thinking more 80s, especially with the AZT references, but as he continued to work on it -- it seems to me that it became more set in the 90s and it was pretty lame of Columbus to set it in the 80s prior to the release of Thelma & Louise and then still include the lyric.

[Miss Elphaba]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 6:20pm

Don't they scream "at the end of the millenium..." a dozen times in the show?

In Larsons defence, it's a thousand years, the 1990's is pretty near the end..

Posted: 6/4/08 at 6:39pm

I've always wondered about this, as well as what planet it is set on as these characters seem completely alien.

[TooDarnHot]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 6:49pm

I've always wondered how aliens can break into song about AIDS and drugs.

[Craww]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 6:53pm

I think it works either way. You either assume late 80s and the pop culture references are a faux pas, or you assume early mid 90s and the social circumstances become slightly dated. Some of the details are a tad contradictory., so...whatever.

[Jon]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 7:28pm

"Yellow rental truck packed in with fertilizer and fuel oil" is clearly a reference to the Oklahoma City bombing, which happened in 1995.

[TooDarnHot]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 7:31pm

good point, Jon.

firstly... why does it matter?

secondly... it seems it is set around the time when RENT opened in '96. so there you go

[george95]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 8:50pm

If you remember, when the show came out, common usage of email and cellphones was still a novelty. So when Alexi Darling gives her email address, its supposed to be this cutting edge thing, right along with Joanne not only talking on a cellphone, but having calling-waiting on her cellphone! What an age we lived in!

But seriously, would even a reporter've had email in 1989? I doubt it. And a cellphone in 1989 would have been Zack Morris style---as big as a brick. So that's why the show is definitely set in the early to mid-90's....right when cellphones and email really started to trickle down to the masses.

[DMsquared2]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 8:59pm

I practically forgot about the references to the internet so '95/'96 seems to be the most logical.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 9:11pm

The time really can't be pinpointed because the cultural references are all over the place.

The gentrification of the Lower East Side had already begun by the early 90s. I believe the riot in the show happened in 1988. It's wrong to place it in the mid-90s because most of the artists and squatters had been driven from the area and younger, richer people were moving in. In order to believe the area was run down it really can't take place past about 1992.

[LittlexFallxOfxRain]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 9:12pm

Honestly, I don't understand the people who say it's timeless. Yes, the message is timeless, but the issues are a bit dated. I'd agree with mid 90s. '94 - '96.

[NYCboy2]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 9:29pm

1994-1996.

[martinman]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 10:17pm

The first line of the movie and musical both say "December 25th 9:00p

[martinman]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 10:19pm

The first line of the movie and musical say "December 25th 9:00 p.m. 1989". I just watched the movie this afternoon.

[heathurrr]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 10:44pm

I disagree with those who say Rent is dated.
The issues brought up in Rent (ie: AIDS in America in the 80s-90s) chronicle an important part of history. It's a picture into the life lived by the most marginalized of society - those sick with AIDS, those who are gay, poor and drug addicted.
I don't think these issues are at all dated, they're just playing out in other parts of the world in recent years.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 10:46pm

I think 1996, personally.

[george95]

Posted: 6/4/08 at 10:52pm

The musical says "December 24th, 9pm, Eastern Standard Time", and at the end of the show its December 24th 10pm.......no mention of the year. The movie went out of its way to be 1989.

As for the LES being gentrified by 1992...sure it started by then, but it was by no means DONE by then.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/5/08 at 10:17am

I still maintain that the time of the show can't be properly placed because of the variety of culture references.

Rent opened at NY Theatre Workshop in January 1996. It had gone through two years of workshops so that pushes it back to approximately January 1994. Larsen had been writing the show and shopping it around before NYTW picked it up, so let's say that happened in 1993. There is nothing in the show that makes the audience think that it is a futuristic show. So I think we have to pinpoint it between 1988 (the time of the actual riot) and 1993 (the time Larsen was shopping it around).

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 6/5/08 at 10:20am

Obviously it takes place in the late seventies since all the songs sound like Jim Steinman via Styx.

[Mealz1042]

Posted: 6/5/08 at 12:27pm

its not set in a specific year and doesn't need to be. Just know it's the east village in the early 90s.

[DrewBill]

Posted: 6/5/08 at 12:51pm

There's no clear-cut date, but based on the "Thelma & Louise" reference, and the characters' AZT regiment, I would peg the date around 1991. (The 4-hour AZT regiment began around 1987, but was largely replaced by other drug therapies by around 1994-95.)

But on the other hand, the internet and email were not widely available outside of the academic community until the mid-90s.