THE BUSHNELL ENTHUSIASTICALLY OPEN FOR “RENT”

                                                    NATIONAL TOUR OF "RENT"

Composer and playwright Jonathan Larson accumulated a

veritable treasure chest of awards including the Pulitzer Prize for

Drama, Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book and Best

Original Score as well as the Drama Desk Awards for

Outstanding Musical, Book and Lyrics, all for his seminal work

“Rent.” Unfortunately,,Larson died the day before the first

preview of “Rent” Off Broadway at the age of 35 in New York City. 

A musical adaptation of Puccini’s opera “La Boheme,” “Rent” 

shadowed much of Larson’s life as he too lived in a rundown New 

York apartment with many roommates, including having a love

affair on and off with a female dancer, using an illegal wood-

burning stove to combat the building’s lack of heat, with everyone

a struggling artist trying to create a bohemian life style. One of

Broadway’s longest running shows, you now have the unique

opportunity to experience Jonathan Larson’s opus “Rent” at the

Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts until Sunday March 17.

In 1989, when Larson was only 29, he began working on the

musical “amid poverty, homelessness, spunky gay life, drag

queens and punk.” The title “rent” stands for lives “torn apart.” 

Puccini’s work 100 years earlier centers on young wannabe

artists and the devastation of tuberculosis while Larsons

introduced HIV/AIDS,Puccini’s Paris became NewYork’s East

Village, and many of the characters’ s names stayed close to the

same. 

For example, Mimi the seamstress sick with TB is now Mimi the

exotic dancer with HIV. The poet Rodolfo is now Roger, a song

writer/musician who is HIV positive and Mimi’s boyfriend.

Roger’s roommate is Mark, a filmmaker, adapted from Marcello, a

painter. The singer Musetta becomes Maureen, a bisexual 

performance artist who loves Joanne, a lesbian lawyer, while the

musician Schaunard is now the drag queen Angel. Angel is

dating Tom Collins, the earlier philosopher Colline who teaches

philosophy at college.The landlord Benoit is now Benny..

 Larson wrote “Rent” in part to celebrate the achievements of

the artists stolen by illness so young and to show how the

community copes with a tragedy within its ranks.

In “Rent,” we meet Mark the narrator cinematographer who is

chronicling the activities of his friends as he adjusts to his ex-

girlfriend Maureen’s new relationship with Joanne . Meanwhile his

roommate Roger is trying desperately to compose one “glory”

song before AIDS takes him. His chance meeting with another

AIDS patient Mimi may be just the impetus and candle of

inspiration he needs.

The time is Christmas eve and there is no holly and no

heat, no mistletoe and no money, but the motley group have

gathered to celebrate with the natural exuberance and hope that 

the youth cling to so promisingly. Sexual gender blurs as

this questioning generation musically explores the seasons of

love contained in the 525, 600 minutes that make up a year, 

contemplate the death of the soul in “Without You” and do a

danceof protest in “Tango: Maureen.”

For tickets ($23 and up) call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue,

Hartford at(860)987-5900. Performances are Tuesday through

Thursday at 7:30 p.m.,Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8

p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m,.

Explore this spirited and high decibel Tony and Pulitzer Prize

winning musical, originallydirected by Michael Greif and now

restaged by Evan Ensign, that explodes to the rafters with a

hunger for life and for art.