RENT: Your First Time

I saw for the first time when the tour came to Kansas City, Missouri at Starlight Theatre which seats around 8,000 people (it's an outdoor theatre). I went with my a few friends. I loved it because I always liked the music. I was excited to see it, the first act was wonderful. Second act started with Seasons of Love. After that number the rest of the act just dragged.

I wanted to see it on Broadway after that. I believe the energy would have been different for me.

But hope the rest of the run goes fantastic for Rent! You will forever remain on my iPod :)

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Updated On: 1/16/08 at 12:38 AM

June 28th 2003 was my first of six Broadway experiences with Rent. It was good and still remained entertaining, but Adam and Anthony gave my last viewing of Rent the way I wanted it to be. They had a good run, but I don't think it affected me more than any other show has from the past 3 decades.

Way back in 1996, when you could wait in the line. I've seen the show 171 times and havent seen it since the 10th anniversary concert. I dont know if I can deal with seeing it again, don't want a bad cast to ruin it. RENT used to be such an amazing show. While it is still a good show it ISN'T the amazing show it used to be.

Hearing this news makes me incredibly sad. Times change.

How did YOU become a Renthead?

My first time seeing it was the tour at Chicago's Shubert Theater on Sunday, November 9, 1997. I read about the show coming to Chicago earlier that year, and I bought the cd and I got hooked on the songs, and I went with my old grade school friends to see it (I was 20 at the time) and we all just fell in love with it. This was before that dumb RENT-head term came into use.

I remember Thanksgiving 1997, I opened the Chicago Tribune that morning and I saw an ad for an added performance of RENT for Thanksgiving night--November 27, 1997. RENT was sold out for weeks at that time, so I called up my cousins and I said "we have got to see RENT tonight after dinner! And so my grandma bought us the tickets and we went. I remember New Year's Eve, 1997, I laid on my bed and listened to the entire OBCR from start to finish before I went to my friend's party. I saw the tour with other friends on January 27, 1998, and March 12, 1998.

My first trip to New York was in December of 1998, and of course I bought tickets to the Broadway production of RENT. I saw it on Thursday, December 17, 1998. I sat in the second row of the Mezz, and I couldnt have been more excited. I remember through the whole show, I could not believe the way people were cheering and hooting and hollering like it was a concert. In Chicago, the audiences were quiet and reserved. The energy of the audience that night renewed my love for RENT.

The RENT tour came back to Chicago in 1999, and I got to see it again with my grade school friends on October 7, 1999, again at the Shubert. It was so great to see it again. But I remember when I went back to my car after the show, the passenger window was smashed and my car was broken into.

The RENT tour returned to Chicago again, but this time at the awful Rosemont Theater. (think of the Minskoff or Gershwin Theater, only 10 times worse) I saw it on October 7, 2000. The show did not belong in that antiseptic, suburban environment. For all of you who complain about how skanky the Nederlander Theater is, try seeing RENT at the Rosemont Theater and you'll be begging to go back to the Nederlander.

Well, in 2001 I moved to the east coast for graduate school, and on my weekend visit to Seton Hall University, I got tickets to RENT for Sunday, April 29, 2001. Little did I know that it was the 5th anniversary! The cast made a little speech afterwards, and I remember them saying "here's to another 5 years on Broadway" and I thought wow I sure hope this show does last another 5 years.

I saw RENT again on June 19, 2003, after a day of walking around the city. I bought the ticket at the TKTS booth. This was my first time seeing the show post 9/11, and the line "I'm a New Yorker-fear's my life' took on a whole new meaning. The line no longer referred to street crime; it now referred to terrorism.

I saw RENT again on Friday, April 8, 2005. I took a new friend to see it this time, and we had 3rd row seats. I didnt know him that well, and I couldn't believe how much he cried and how loudly he cried at Angel's death and when Mimi lay dying. I was thoroughly embarrassed because people were turning around, pointing, snickering. Wow.

I also saw RENT another time in spring 2005, and that was when I was assaulted outside the theater, which I just wrote about in a recent RENT post, so I wont relate the story again. But, it was so upsetting that I did throw out that particular RENT ticket.

On Friday, October 7th, 2005, I took my first group of students to see RENT. It was 7 junior boys. When we sat down in the Mezz, a woman behind us asked my kids if they were a basketball team. My students all looked at each other with puzzled faces and said "no we're not" to her, and then they whispered to me to wonder why should would think that they were a basketball team, and they decided it was probably because they were all black. It turned out the woman worked at Purdue University, and she gave all my kids her business card. She also apologized for her basketball team remark before the show.

I saw RENT on August 29, 2006. This was one of those shows where I thought "uh oh..........there are some problems up on that stage"

Same with the November 2, 2006 performance. Why did the ensemble seem so bored? Why was the Take me or leave me number so down??

One of my seniors started to really get into guitar playing, so he asked me to take him to RENT on February 24, 2007. We had really good seats, and he closely identified with Roger...except for that whole AIDS thing.

March 29, 2007.........just another performance. How precious it seems now.

Monday August 6, 2007. Adam and Anthony!!!! Who would have thought I'd ever get to see them. It was so exciting to see them, so exciting to hear them. Adam just rocked the house, but Anthony's performance was mediocre at best. But wow the audience cheering for them, especially when Adam dropped the Captain Crunch box and stuff like that.....wow what a night.

September 27, 2007, I went to see Adam and Anthony again, but Adam was out. Still it was fun to see Anthony again.

That was my last time seeing RENT. I don't want to see it again now that it is closing. It will be too hard to watch. As I've said before, RENT was like comfort food.....you dont always feel like it, but darn it it sure is nice to go back to once in a while........and its even nicer to know that it will always be there.........or so I thought. : (

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Updated On: 1/16/08 at 01:03 AM

November '05, senior year of high school (early november, before the movie came out) with a bunch of my friends

I have loved Rent ever since my sister shared it with me in 8th grade. But my parents had refused to buy me tickets for it. I finally was able to convince them to let me go with friends.

And Oh my god. AMAZING. I was in Center Orch, Row E, which were great seats. I loved every moment of it, and I remember crying my eyes out from "Without You" on, bawling during I'll Cover You reprise.

I saw it again this summer, during the Adam and Anthony run. I was the 2nd to last row in the Mezz, but I was center, so it was still great seats. It was simply amazing to see those two in their roles. Tamayra was a decent Mimi, and I had seen Merle as Joanne my first time, and she was equally as good as she was previously. It was also so cool to see the Nederlander so packed with so much energy radiating from the fans (even if some of them were slightly annoying with the fangirling).

But overall, my Rent experiences were great, and I will be sad to see this show go!

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Here is the blog I posted on MySpace:

RENT is closing in June. How surreal is that?!?! I still remember rushing home from Record Town in the Grand Central Mall with breahtless anticipation, ripping open the just released Cast Recording, loading it in my player and for two hours (while reading along with the libretto booklet included with the CDs) being transported to the bohemian world of Alphabet City. I sobbed throughout the second act. This was in the summer of 1996 after having seen the amazing cast perform on the Tony Awards.

Flash forward to October and there I am arriving at the disgusting building my school in NYC was forcing me to live in for the first time and as I checked in, the music was blaring. I felt like it was welcoming me, finally, home. This was on a Wednesday and that Saturday night I sat in the mid mezzanine at the Nederlander Theatre and let the show wash over me. It was one of the rare moments in theater where you're so moved there are no words to describe it.

Now here we are, 12 years and multiple viewings later and the show still has that same affect on me. Even the movie (though to a lesser degree) gets me. And yes, I still sob throughout Act 2 every time. Through it all - the stunt casting, the less than great casts, the long rush ticket lines, the insane fangirls and boys who almost made me turn away from this beautifully crafted slice of life - I have had love. Now it's leaving. I can't even begin to describe how I feel about the show going away. I realize (to quote from "Chess") "nothing is so good it lasts eternally," and I truly believe Jonathan Larson's amazing message will be carried on in other productions around the world for years to come, but knowing that soon there will be a New York City without this show is hard to think about. I didn't even realize how hard this would hit me until I read the news.

Well, farewell dear friend. May the future hold wonderful things for you.

"...forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road, no other way. No day but today!"

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I was first introduced to Rent in 1996. My sister (who is a singer but is not a musical theater person by any stretch of the imagination... she finds it slightly obnoxious, actually) was absolutely obsessed with the show went it first came out. She and her friends would listen to it all the time, sing it all the time, and see it all the time. I remember sitting in her room with her and listening to a really pretty song over and over with her, which I would later learn was "Seasons of Love."

Many years later, I was re-introduced to Rent through friends of mine who knew it. I told my sister how much I loved the music and she thought it was great, and slightly surreal, that a new generation was obsessed with the show. (She has since outgrown her obsession with the show, but can still recite every lyric.)

I saw the show for the first and only time in my freshman year of college. A friend of mine had the idea to go, so we went a bought discounted tickets that ended up being third row orchestra, dead center. I was mesmerized by the show and will never forget that experience.

As a side note, when I was first introduced to the cast recording of Wicked, I thought that the woman playing Elphaba sounded familiar and looked familiar, at least in the pictures in the booklet. When I researched the name Idina Menzel, I realized that she was in Rent and that she looked familiar because she was the woman that I would refer to as "the girl with the huge mouth" on the cover of the Rent CD when I was young.

KUDOS to all who can even remember when/where they saw their first production.

While I do not remember the exact circumstances surrounding my first introduction to the show, I do remember that I was much younger, and found myself standing outside a theater in Toronto one Saturday morning with a good friend, because we heard this new show contained "rock" music, and was pretty radical accoridng to the reviews.

More importantly, they were going to sell us tickets for the FRONT ROW for $10 just for waiting in line! HAHA!

I remember we didn't quite know what to make of it while it was going on, but then played the recording of it over and over again for weeks, acting out every scene in the basement with other friends who had seen it. It must have been pretty good.

Little did we know...

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I was in the fourth grade when I first discovered Rent. They were giving out these bookmarks about stuff related to the year 1997 and I heard the word theater, so I rushed up to grab it (I remember that the teacher ripped up the one about movies cuz Titanic was mentioned. Guess she didn't like it that much). Rent was one of the two musicals mentioned, the other being Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk. Seemed interesting. Then I got the CD of Broadway Kids and one of the songs they sang was Seasons of Love from Rent. I almost cried when I heard the song. Then I heard Seasons of Love by the real cast on 88.9 WERS. So I started doing research here and there. It wasn't until seventh or eighth grade that I finally listened to the CD and I admit, I was put off at best by a lot of the material (I was a kid). Then, in 2005, I found out me and my parents were going to New York and I thought, "We should go see Rent." So we bought the CD and I finally fell in love with the show. I saw the show in February of 2005. I remember not being too crazy about Roger (It was that Carey Shields guy) and Drew Lachey was playing Roger so how memorable could HE have been? But I remember that even though it was 2005, the show struck me as fresh and the cast struck me as energetic. I almost cried when Angel and Collins shared that first kiss cuz it was such a beautiful moment. I also almost cried when I saw the empty spot where Angel stood when the company lined up for I'll Cover You (reprise). I thought the show was amazing and for a while, it was my favorite show next to Wicked.

Then The Light in the Piazza changed my ways. Now my two favorite shows are Dreamgirls and Parade.

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When and Where:
First preview of the National Tour of Rent, on it's first stop in San Francisco. Circa 1999.

Who:
Trey Ellet, Dean Balkwill, Erin Keany, SHaun Early, Daphne Rubin Vega in a much-publicized return, and others whom I don't recall.

I was the senior class token musical theatre dork. I spent my free time playing Parade and Songs For A New World on the piano in the theatre (BEFORE the music of JRB was trendy, I might add :), and Alice Ripley & Emily Skinner's Unsuspecting Hearts was at the top of my play list. I had friends in theatre, friends who weren't in theatre, and had just gotten over a major case of the closet the year before, and I was headed to NYU the following year to study Dramatic Writing and be a musical theatre writer and take over the world.

There are those who generalize Rent as "that musical about sex and AIDS". But when I was this eighteen-year-old Baptist-raised first-generation Asian American from an uppper-middleclass suburb, who admittedly knew little of either, and what I saw was two and a half hours of raw emotion and inspiration. I'd listen to the cast recording 525,600 times. I knew what was coming. But there were just so many moments - the final counterpoint during "Another Day", Angel's funeral, the first time I actually heard the opening chords to "Seasons of Love" played by the band and everyone form the line which has more of place in my heart than Michael Bennet's - that gave me goosebumps, and to this day, I can't say why, except that, to quote Jonathan Larson, it made me certain that I want to spend my time this way.

I don't remember--long time ago. It was with Tim Howar and Matt Caplan though.