{"id":1425,"date":"2026-04-16T18:42:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T22:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=1425"},"modified":"2026-04-16T18:42:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T22:42:29","slug":"rent-the-oral-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/rent-the-oral-history\/","title":{"rendered":"RENT: The Oral History"},"content":{"rendered":"
When\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0began rehearsals in December 1995, it hardly looked like a phenomenon in the making. Composer Jonathan Larson had only recently quit his job at a Soho diner, its stars for the most part had little theatrical experience, and Broadway was dominated by long-running British-import megamusicals like\u00a0Les Mis\u00e9rables<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>The Phantom of the Opera<\/em><\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Miss Saigon.<\/em><\/div>\n
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Yet between its Off Broadway opening and Broadway debut in late April 1996,\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0generated a buzz rarely seen in theater and not truly replicated until\u00a0Hamilton<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/div>\n
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Unexpected tragedy accompanied\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0to the Nederlander Theatre; Larson died suddenly from an aortic aneurysm the night before Off Broadway previews were to begin. He was only 35-years-old. But though Larson wouldn\u2019t see the\u00a0rave reviews<\/a>\u00a0for his show, they confirmed his belief that\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0was going to revolutionize the musical theater of its era. The story of a group of East Village bohemians determined \u2014 against the forces of HIV, drug addiction, and gentrification \u2014 to maintain their \u201cNo day but today\u201d philosophy was one that a generation of audiences had been waiting to hear.<\/div>\n
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Today, it\u2019s impossible to imagine contemporary musical theater without\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u2019s influence,\u00a0<\/em>but as with any new musical, its evolution was far from smooth. Here, the cast of characters who brought\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0to life recall the winding path that led to Broadway history.<\/div>\n
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I.\u00a0A playwright and composer find inspiration.<\/strong><\/div>\n
Julie Larson<\/strong>\u00a0(Jonathan Larson\u2019s sister)<\/strong>: Jonathan lived at 508 Greenwich Street in this fifth-floor walk-up; when you look at the\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0set, that\u2019s what it was like.<\/div>\n
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Billy Aronson (co-creator and playwright)<\/strong>: I came to New York in the early \u201980s, lived in Hell\u2019s Kitchen, but I also used to go to the Met Opera and saw\u00a0La Boh\u00e8me<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>Walking home felt so different after seeing that opera. It\u2019s about people who are going through similar things as me, burning their scripts for heat. I was begging people to do my plays. I thought it would be cool to do something with the\u00a0Boh\u00e8me<\/em>\u00a0story. I went to Playwrights Horizons, a theater that was doing readings of my shows, and they recommended working with Jonathan Larson. He loved the idea right away. He said, \u201cThis could be our generation\u2019s\u00a0Hair.<\/em>\u201d<\/div>\n
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Julie Larson:<\/strong>\u00a0He\u2019d had big disappointments. He spent years on his musical\u00a0Superbia,\u00a0<\/em>which won the Richard Rodgers grant and was never fully produced.<\/div>\n
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Jonathan Larson\u00a0<\/strong>[from Larson\u2019s papers, quoted in the book<\/em>\u00a0The Playwright\u2019s Muse<\/a>,\u00a0edited by Joan Herrington (Routledge)<\/em>]: I think ultimately my work can make a lot of money and I\u2019m not afraid of that. But I\u2019m not interested in using my talents strictly to make a buck. My primary goal is, with integrity and class, to fulfill my artistic talents.<\/div>\n
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Aronson:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019d write lyrics and he\u2019d write music. The trouble was, neither of us had collaborated before. Collaborating on a musical is harder than marriage. The first try he said was \u201ctoo\u00a0Thirtysomething.<\/em>\u201d The next draft I did was angrier. The song \u201cRent\u201d\u00a0<\/em>had really angry lyrics. When Jonathan was ready, he called me over. He had this Casio keyboard, and as he started playing, I\u2019m thinking,\u00a0What am I going to say when this is over so I don\u2019t hurt his feelings?<\/em>\u00a0But \u201cSanta Fe\u201d was cool, and so was \u201cI Should Tell You.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Jeffrey Seller<\/strong>\u00a0(producer):<\/strong>\u00a0A friend invited me to see a rock monologue on the Upper West Side called\u00a0Boho Days.\u00a0<\/em>This lanky guy came out and sang about wondering if he\u2019s ever going to realize his dreams, that no one\u2019s interested in his music, and he\u2019s contemplating whether he should sell out and get a job writing advertising copy on Madison Avenue. It was Jonathan. I wrote him a letter the next day saying, \u201cI want to produce your next musical \u2014 any musical.\u201d Shortly thereafter, he told me about this idea to make a\u00a0La Boh\u00e8me<\/em>\u00a0in the East Village where tuberculosis is replaced by AIDS.<\/div>\n
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Aronson:<\/strong>\u00a0So we took an outline of the show to theaters. And they said, \u201cThese are great songs, but what will you do with them?\u201d I didn\u2019t know how to tell the story to his music, and we both didn\u2019t want to spend a lot of time on a thing that seemed to be going nowhere. [Jonathan] had me sign something saying if the show ever made money, I\u2019d get an \u201coriginal content and additional lyrics\u201d credit. I never thought I\u2019d see it in a program.<\/div>\n
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II.\u00a0A theater agrees to workshop the show.<\/strong><\/div>\n
Jim Nicola\u00a0<\/strong>(artistic director of New York Theatre Workshop):<\/strong>\u00a0It was the summer of 1992, and we were moving into a theater on East 4th Street. Jonathan rode by on his bike with a draft of\u00a0Rent.<\/em>\u00a0He knew our production manager, and we decided to do a reading.<\/div>\n
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Seller:<\/strong>\u00a0I attended the first-ever reading of\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0with two colleagues, one of whom was rich, and I thought maybe he\u2019d invest. He left at intermission. The other guy waited till the end to say, \u201cThis will never work.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Jonathan Larson<\/strong>\u00a0[from a grant application in\u00a0<\/em>The Playwright\u2019s Muse]: My goal as a lyricist-composer is to take the best aspects of traditional American musicals \u2014 well-made plot, three-dimensional characters, sense of humor, and integrated choreography \u2014 and combine them with current themes, aesthetics and music. I believe theatre should (and could) again be a source of pop music, which would attract a new audience.<\/div>\n
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Michael Greif\u00a0<\/strong>(director):<\/strong>\u00a0Jonathan was really getting at contemporary music, putting the right sounds in the right characters\u2019 mouths.<\/div>\n
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Kevin McCollum\u00a0<\/strong>(producer):<\/strong>\u00a0The theater put on a two-week workshop, and Jeffrey brought me. I remember we each had a slice on the corner by the subway, and then we went over, and I just knew it was called\u00a0Rent<\/em>.\u00a0For the first 20 minutes, I thought,\u00a0I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on, but there\u2019s great energy.<\/em>\u00a0Then 25 minutes in, \u201cLight My Candle\u201d happens.<\/div>\n
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Nicola:<\/strong>\u00a0When I heard \u201cLight My Candle,\u201d I clicked into Jonathan\u2019s gifts. It was not only a great pop song, but a real theatrical scene: It had a beginning, middle, and end, and the characters were different at the end than at the beginning. That\u2019s not so easy to find in aspiring composers, and Jonathan had it innately.<\/div>\n
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Greif<\/strong>:<\/strong>\u00a0The show\u2019s examination of how you live your life when you\u2019re confronted with your own mortality was meaningful to me coming out of the AIDS plays of the late \u201980s\u2013early \u201990s.<\/div>\n
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McCollum:<\/strong>\u00a0I turned to Jeffrey and said, \u201cThat\u2019s the best piece of musical-theater storytelling I\u2019ve seen in a long time.\u201d At the end of Act One, I went up to Jonathan and took out my checkbook. He was like, \u201cWell, do you want to see the second act?\u201d<\/div>\n
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Jonathan Larson\u00a0<\/strong>[From a pitch letter in\u00a0The Playwright\u2019s Muse<\/em>]: I write for the twenty-to-forty-year-old audience. People who don\u2019t usually attend musicals yet spend money on Eric Bogosian or the Rolling Stones. I\u2019ve studied the traditional form \u2026 but grew up listening to Springsteen, Paul Simon, and the Who, and my music reflects that.<\/div>\n
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Nicola:<\/strong>\u00a0There\u2019s a good chunk of time when [Jonathan and I] were at odds. I had said Jonathan should think about bringing someone in to work on the book. He didn\u2019t want to hear that. At every performance, people could fill out response forms. There were some people who had a negative response, which was pretty consistent: Why should I care about these kids? Why don\u2019t they get a job?<\/div>\n
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Tim Weil\u00a0(musical supervisor):<\/strong>\u00a0I began my experience with\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0as the audition pianist for the workshop. New York Theatre Workshop had an alphabetical list of audition pianists. It was 1992, so they were paying like $7 an hour. The person who called me said, \u201cWell, no one else called us back, we got you on the phone, so come on down.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Anthony Rapp<\/strong>\u00a0(Mark Cohen)<\/strong>: I\u2019d auditioned for Michael earlier that year, and even though I didn\u2019t get the part, it was a good experience. So I was happy when I got the audition for that \u201994 workshop [to play optimistic filmmaker Cohen]. It was only three weeks of work; it didn\u2019t seem like a life-changer.<\/div>\n
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Nicola:\u00a0<\/strong>Anthony, I remember thinking it was such a convergence of character and actor. It didn\u2019t feel like acting \u2014 it felt like, this is who Anthony is.<\/div>\n
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Daphne Rubin-Vega\u00a0(Mimi Marquez):<\/strong>\u00a0I had been in a girl group and we\u2019d made a couple albums and toured, and I paid the rent with that, and then after two years I was working at Patricia Field selling makeup, copping the styles. My erstwhile evening job was working with this Latino comedy troupe called El Barrio USA. And my purple beeper went off one day. My agent said there\u2019s this role \u2014 it\u2019s a rock opera and the character is a junkie stripper with HIV.<\/div>\n
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Nicola:<\/strong>\u00a0Jonathan initially felt she wasn\u2019t as strong a singer as he\u2019d imagined for the role. He was in favor of an actress who had an almost operetta kind of voice. Michael and I were like, \u201c[Daphne\u2019s] is not opera singing, but she makes these songs come alive.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Rubin-Vega:<\/strong>\u00a0I spoke to Jonathan and said, \u201cWhat do I need to do to get this role?\u201d He said, \u201cJust relax. And make me cry.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Greif:<\/strong>\u00a0Daphne helped set the tone for how authentic we wanted these people to be. We wanted to continue to find Daphnes, and in many happy instances we did. If someone came in and showed us they were a vital, interesting, potentially authentic inhabitant of this world, that was way more important than their experience.<\/div>\n
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Nicola:<\/strong>\u00a0The resources to produce something of that scale, it just wasn\u2019t something we were capable of at the time. We made a presentation to the board to help us find $100,000 more, but I failed to persuade them. I realize now that when you\u2019re making that kind of ask, you can\u2019t be hedging your bets. You can\u2019t say, \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be really good.\u201d But I didn\u2019t have it in me to say, \u201cGet in on the ground floor! This is gonna be the best thing ever!\u201d<\/div>\n
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McCollum:<\/strong>\u00a0We asked Jim, what do you need for a full production? \u00a0He and the board thought it would take $150,000 more than they had, but I figured I could scrape together $75,000. We called [producer] Allan Gordon and told him to come see the show. I figured, if he loves it, then I\u2019ve gotten all the audience I need. And he loved it, so we met with Jim and I said, okay, we can give you $150,000. We wanted to acquire the commercial rights so we had an option if we wanted to move it. I figured maybe we\u2019d license it, maybe it was Off Broadway.<\/div>\n
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Jonathan Larson\u00a0<\/strong>[From an interview collected in\u00a0The Playwright\u2019s Muse<\/em>]:<\/strong>\u00a0The expenses just quadruple doing a musical \u2026 It\u2019s gotten to a point where the American musical is sort of an endangered species because it\u2019s such a gamble to produce. If you\u2019re young and just starting out writing a musical, it\u2019s almost impossible to break in.<\/div>\n
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Rapp:\u00a0<\/strong>There was no reason to think it would become mainstream in any way.<\/div>\n
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Lynn Thomson\u00a0<\/strong>(dramaturg):<\/strong>\u00a0I was hired in the spring of \u201995 to help develop the book. I suggested setting the current draft aside and starting with basic questions about the story. That was the issue: There was no story.<\/div>\n
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Nicola:<\/strong>\u00a0We insisted Jonathan work with a dramaturg. We said [to Jonathan], \u201cShow us something by July 1.\u201d We got to July 1, and he didn\u2019t have much. But by September, the first act was in good shape.<\/div>\n
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III.\u00a0The show\u2019s ensemble is filled out with a cast of relative unknowns.<\/strong><\/div>\n
Nicola:<\/strong>\u00a0From the very first reading, we decided it couldn\u2019t be an all-white group, because that wasn\u2019t the East Village.<\/div>\n
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Bernie Telsey<\/strong>\u00a0(casting director):<\/strong>\u00a0I didn\u2019t know it would be the hardest thing ever to cast. You go to meetings and hear, \u201cWe don\u2019t want a traditional musical-theater voice, we want a rock voice,\u201d but it wasn\u2019t like today, where half the musicals are some sort of rock or pop musical. For an actor, there was no business reason to do it \u2014 it was a $300-a-week paycheck. Where was I going to find these people? It was like being a detective. Like, \u201cOkay, I don\u2019t know who Idina Menzel is; she sings at bar mitzvahs, but I\u2019ll try her.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Wilson Jermaine Heredia\u00a0(Angel Schunard):<\/strong>\u00a0Drag was not something I\u2019d done before, but the lifestyle was very familiar to me; I\u2019d been a club kid. I went into my audition in overalls, combat boots, and a goatee. I figured,\u00a0I\u2019m not changing for an audition.<\/em>\u00a0I\u2019d done a couple Off Broadway shows, but at that point I was working the graveyard shift at the complaint center for a property management company, and my health insurance had just kicked in. Even after I got the part, I was debating taking it because it was a limited engagement, and what about my health insurance?<\/div>\n
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Don Summa\u00a0<\/strong>(press agent):<\/strong>\u00a0There weren\u2019t really musicals written about people who are gay and in interracial relationships. But Michael Greif\u2019s direction never underlined that there was a black woman and white woman singing a love duet [\u201cTake Me or Leave Me\u201d], or that there was a black guy, Collins, with Angel, his gay Latina drag-queen boyfriend \u2014 it just was.<\/div>\n
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Telsey:<\/strong>\u00a0[Activist-professor] Tom Collins was written as a Bruce Springsteen type, which I\u2019d call a white guy. But after not finding that, someone said, \u201cWhat if we start seeing a Marvin Gaye\u2013type Collins?\u201d<\/div>\n
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Jesse L. Martin<\/strong>\u00a0(Tom Collins):<\/strong>\u00a0Bernie called and said, \u201cThere\u2019s a musical being developed by New York Theatre Workshop \u2014 you should audition.\u201d He sent me a cassette with Jonathan singing. I don\u2019t mean this as a dis, but he sounded like Kermit the Frog. I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t know about this.\u201d It wasn\u2019t a great fit for me on paper.<\/div>\n
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Telsey:<\/strong>\u00a0Jesse was like, \u201cI don\u2019t do musicals.\u201d I kept saying, \u201cThis is nontraditional, it\u2019s not about \u2018Sing out, Louise!\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/div>\n
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Martin:<\/strong>\u00a0I walked in and sang \u201cAmazing Grace.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Telsey:<\/strong>\u00a0They cast him on the spot.<\/div>\n
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Idina Menzel (Maureen Johnson):<\/strong>\u00a0I was singing at weddings, playing gigs at the Bitter End, begging friends to come. January and February are the slowest wedding months, so I auditioned hoping to \u2026 pay my rent.<\/div>\n
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Telsey:<\/strong>\u00a0I remember Idina came in to the audition with this leather-patchwork miniskirt, all different colors. And she had the killer voice.<\/div>\n
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Greif:<\/strong>\u00a0I had seen Idina in an audition a year earlier, and I\u2019d written a note to myself: \u201cNot exactly right for this, but she\u2019ll be great as Maureen [a lesbian performance artist].\u201d She had that sexuality and innocence and kookiness.<\/div>\n
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Adam Pascal\u00a0<\/strong>(Roger Davis):<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019d just broken up with the band I\u2019d been playing in. Idina and I grew up together, and she dated a friend of mine. He told me she\u2019d been cast in this rock musical and they were having trouble casting the role of an HIV-positive rock singer. So on a lark I auditioned.<\/div>\n
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Telsey:<\/strong>\u00a0Fifty guys showed up; 49 of them looked like Alice Cooper, and there\u2019s this one good-looking guy. It was like,\u00a0Please, God, can a guy this handsome sing?<\/em><\/div>\n
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Pascal:<\/strong>\u00a0Michael said, \u201cWe like you for this part, but you sing with your eyes closed. Sing \u2018Your Eyes\u2019 to Bernie with your eyes open.\u201d So I sang it to him as if he was dying Mimi. They wanted to see if I could act.<\/div>\n
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Tim Weil\u00a0<\/strong>(musical supervisor):<\/strong>\u00a0So much of the role of Benny [an opportunistic landlord] depended on Taye being Taye. He\u2019s charming, with attitude.<\/div>\n
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Taye Diggs\u00a0<\/strong>(Benjamin \u201cBenny\u201d Coffin III):<\/strong>\u00a0I skipped the first two audition requests. The first time I called in sick, the second time I said I didn\u2019t want to do it, and then the third time I half-assed it to get my agent off my back. I was trying to do TV and film. At the audition, I sang something from\u00a0Jesus Christ Superstar<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
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Greif:<\/strong>\u00a0We were all looking for ways in which Benny was not the villain and in fact represented a credible point of view, even if he had to do some shitty things.<\/div>\n
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Diggs:<\/strong>\u00a0I saw my character as the one with the least lines. It wasn\u2019t until I had a conversation with Michael \u2014 he made me feel like I was just as important as the others.<\/div>\n
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Martin:<\/strong>\u00a0Everyone had an interesting quality. Daphne sounded like this tragic little bird, and then she\u2019d burst into an angsty growl. Idina, that girl opened her mouth to sing, I was like,\u00a0Whoa, where did you come from?<\/em><\/div>\n
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Pascal:<\/strong>\u00a0Daphne was this little firecracker of sexiness. I couldn\u2019t wait to come to work to be around her.<\/div>\n
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Rubin-Vega:<\/strong>\u00a0Adam was adorable. And when we had to kiss, he actually\u00a0kissed<\/em>\u00a0me!<\/div>\n
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Diggs:<\/strong>\u00a0I had my eye on all the girls. Idina and Daphne, they were the most shapely and dynamic.<\/div>\n
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Pascal:\u00a0<\/strong>I didn\u2019t have any gay friends. I didn\u2019t know anyone who was HIV-positive. All my friends were white. And now I had this new multiethnic and multisexual group of friends.<\/div>\n
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Greif:\u00a0<\/strong>Starting out rehearsals with \u201cSeasons of Love<\/a>\u201d was Tim Weil\u2019s wonderful idea. We began with those large numbers to be sure everyone felt they were an important part of this musical and there wasn\u2019t a hierarchy of who mattered and who didn\u2019t.<\/div>\n
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Martin:\u00a0<\/strong>Somewhere during the first week of rehearsal, Jonathan came and he had these ratty Converse All-Stars, and I remembered seeing those shoes at the Moondance Diner where he worked. Before\u00a0Rent<\/em>, I\u2019d waited tables there, and Jonathan trained me. I was like, \u201cDude, now I know where we met!\u201d<\/div>\n
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Greif:\u00a0<\/strong>In the \u201994 workshop, there was another song at Angel\u2019s memorial service \u2014 a very beautiful song a woman from the ensemble sang. And one of the first conversations Jonathan and I had with Tim\u2019s participation was, what would the extraordinary pay-off be if Collins sang that song instead? It was very exciting to be there the moment the notion of the \u201cI\u2019ll Cover You: Reprise<\/a>\u201d was born.<\/div>\n
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Martin:<\/strong>\u00a0I was always struggling with the \u201cReprise.\u201d I\u2019d go home and try my damnedest to open up my voice and just let the song come out, but it wasn\u2019t coming. I remember Michael telling me, \u201cYou need to sing the shit out of this song.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Greif:<\/strong>\u00a0A lot of it was: \u201cTake control.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Martin:<\/strong>\u00a0I remember grabbing myself by the balls and saying, \u201cJust sing it, just let it out.\u201d I had to go to a gospel place.<\/div>\n
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Rapp:<\/strong>\u00a0Between \u201994 and \u201995 Jonathan wrote \u201cHalloween\u201d and \u201cWhat You Own<\/a>,\u201d which hadn\u2019t existed in the earlier workshop. He told me he wrote them with my voice in mind.<\/div>\n
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Heredia:<\/strong>\u00a0My character Angel\u2019s voice is something we developed out of \u201cI\u2019ll Cover You<\/a>.\u201d Tim initially said, why don\u2019t you sing like Stevie Wonder? Eventually Angel\u2019s voice became that.<\/div>\n
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Martin:\u00a0<\/strong>Wilson and I decided that we didn\u2019t want to be cartoonish or stereotypical. And it took a lot of work to get there. I\u2019ll never forget the first time I saw him put on those heels. He seemed so comfortable just walkin\u2019 around; I was like, \u201cHave you done this before?\u201d \u201cNo, but I\u2019m gonna look like I\u2019ve done it before.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Heredia:<\/strong>\u00a0During that time, portrayals of LGBT characters were more like comedy relief, and I didn\u2019t want Angel or the relationship to be that. Jesse has such a warm personality \u2014 you look into his eyes and even if you\u2019re straight, you\u2019d fall in love. I trusted him wholeheartedly \u2014 that made it easy.<\/div>\n
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Pascal:<\/strong>\u00a0A lot of directors could have been frustrated or condescending with a guy like me, but Michael never made me feel like the inexperienced one. That made a huge difference in my confidence.<\/div>\n
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Julie Larson:\u00a0<\/strong>I love \u201cWill I?<\/a>\u201d Jon\u2019s closest childhood friend was HIV-positive and he started going to this AIDS support group, Friends in Deed, to support him. At one meeting this gentleman said, \u201cI\u2019m not afraid of dying, but will I lose my dignity?\u201d That\u2019s where that song came from.<\/div>\n
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Rapp<\/strong>: \u201cLa Vie Boh\u00e8me<\/a>\u201d \u2014 there were things in that song I\u2019d never heard a musical talk about. \u201cTo faggots, lezzies, dykes, cross-dressers too\u201d; \u201cto people living with not dying from disease.\u201d That was shocking, a jolt of reality.<\/div>\n
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Thomson: \u201c<\/strong>Rent<\/a>\u201d was initially a complaint. Jonathan always wanted the word\u00a0rent<\/em>\u00a0to have a dual meaning \u2014 it was about being torn apart, as well as paying rent.<\/div>\n
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Nicola:\u00a0<\/strong>Some of the best stuff in the piece came late. \u201cWhat You Own\u201d was very late. \u201cTake Me Or Leave Me<\/a>\u201d arose in the first week of rehearsal.<\/div>\n
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Weil:<\/strong>\u00a0There was this slot in Act Two for Maureen and Joanne to have that song, and [Jonathan] was trying to write something funny. He came in one day with this rock waltz, and Michael said to him very nicely, \u201cI think you have to go back to the drawing board.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Greif:<\/strong>\u00a0Between the end of \u201994 and winter \u201995 Jonathan probably wrote three or four duets for them, and couldn\u2019t quite land them.<\/div>\n
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Larson:\u00a0<\/strong>Jonathan kept saying he felt like he had to better get to know Idina and Fredi [Walker, who played the role of lawyer and Maureen\u2019s love interest Joanne Jefferson]. I remember in the middle of the day he called me and said, \u201cListen, I got it,\u201d and then he had to run to play the song, and he called back and said, \u201cThey loved me,\u201d and that song was \u201cTake Me Or Leave Me.\u201d I have strong memories of how excited he was to have finally found the voice for them.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Thomson:<\/strong>\u00a0There were things that weren\u2019t finished. The whole performance-art piece [that the character of Maureen does] was unwritten when rehearsals started because Jonathan wanted to improvise it with Idina. Which he did, and I was at that rehearsal. Idina was very inexperienced, and she should get more credit for her improvising.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Menzel:<\/strong>\u00a0Michael told me that Maureen \u201cis a woman who has studied performance artists like Laurie Anderson and Diamanda Galas but has yet to find her own voice, so she mimics them.\u201d That was enlightening for [her approach to the character].<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Weil:<\/strong>\u00a0At one point, I invited a director friend, and I said, \u201cIt\u2019s a mess, but Jonathan\u2019s got an original voice.\u201d He came and after the first act said, \u201cDon\u2019t you ever quit this gig. You\u2019re doing\u00a0A Chorus Line.<\/em>\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
IV.\u00a0Hours after\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u2019s dress rehearsal ends, Larson unexpectedly dies.<\/strong><\/div>\n
Nicola:<\/strong>\u00a0There were all kinds of technical mess-ups in the dress rehearsal, but you could feel something there.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Rapp:<\/strong>\u00a0My friends were jumping out of their skin to say how great it was. My agent was practically shaking. After the show, Jonathan was surrounded by strangers who wanted to meet him. Then someone told me he was in the box office doing an interview with the\u00a0Times.<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Anthony Tommasini\u00a0<\/strong>(New York\u00a0<\/strong>Times<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0critic)<\/strong>:<\/strong>\u00a0I was told about this musical opening that was an updating of\u00a0La Boh\u00e8me,<\/em>\u00a0and it happened to be the 100th anniversary of the premiere of\u00a0La Boh\u00e8me<\/em>\u00a0in Turin. So I thought,\u00a0I\u2019ll go to the dress rehearsal.\u00a0<\/em>I sat there thinking,\u00a0This is quite a piece.<\/em>\u00a0He was pulling all these sounds \u2014 rock and grunge and gospel \u2014 into this tradition. After the show, Jonathan and I talked \u2014 the only place we could find was the ticket booth.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Rapp:<\/strong>\u00a0Jonathan was no dummy. He knew what it could mean to be talking to the\u00a0Times.<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Tommasini:<\/strong>\u00a0He talked about his ambition, how it bothered him that pop and show music got divorced. But then he talked personally too \u2014 how he\u2019d been a waiter for ten years, that he\u2019d finally been able to quit his job, and that one of the messages of\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0was that it\u2019s not how long you\u2019re here, it\u2019s what you do while you\u2019re here.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Julie Larson:<\/strong>\u00a0Jon had gone to two different emergency rooms within those last four days before dress rehearsal.<\/div>\n
From the New York\u00a0<\/em>Times<\/a>: \u201cTwice doctors failed to diagnose the potentially treatable condition [an aortic aneurysm] that killed him, a four-month investigation by the State Health Department has found. At Cabrini Medical Center, doctors said he had food poisoning. At St. Vincent\u2019s Hospital and Medical Center, doctors said he had a virus. Both hospitals sent him home.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Rapp:<\/strong>\u00a0I thought about knocking on the glass of the box office to wave good-bye to Jonathan, but I thought,\u00a0I don\u2019t want to interrupt.<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Nicola:<\/strong>\u00a0At 8 a.m. the morning of the first preview, my phone rang. It was our production manager saying his body had been found in his apartment.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Martin:<\/strong>\u00a0I was freaked out when Jim called. The insecure actor in me said, \u201cI\u2019m getting fired.\u201d He said, \u201cJesse, we lost Jonathan.\u201d No part of me heard that Jonathan had died. I thought maybe Jonathan quit.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Aronson:<\/strong>\u00a0It didn\u2019t make sense.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Diggs:<\/strong>\u00a0I didn\u2019t feel like I had the right to go to his funeral. I didn\u2019t really know him. Much later, I felt guilty and wished I had gone.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Nicola:<\/strong>\u00a0We proposed canceling the preview. But the cast felt Jonathan would want the show to go on. So we compromised that we\u2019d sit on the stage and sing it through, and we could all bring our friends and family.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Larson:<\/strong>\u00a0My parents were like, \u201cAbsolutely, the show must go on.\u201d But it was torture.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Martin:\u00a0<\/strong>Everything changed that night when we got to \u201cLa Vie Boh\u00e8me.\u201d God bless brave Anthony Rapp, because he stood up to sing and we were like, \u201cWow, Anthony\u2019s really going for it.\u201d We all decided, well, let\u2019s do this.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Rapp:<\/strong>\u00a0The Act Two funeral \u2014 I don\u2019t know how Jesse did it. He never wavered. Just from a technical standpoint, when you\u2019re singing your throat kinda has to be open, and when you\u2019re crying it closes up.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Martin:\u00a0<\/strong>I held the last note so long I almost passed out. Adam Pascal literally held me up. Honestly, it was then that I learned how Collins sings that song. I hate that it was Jonathan\u2019s death that got me there, but it did get me there.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Grief:\u00a0<\/strong>The preview became this joyous wake to Jonathan.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
V.\u00a0Off Broadway previews begin January 26, 1996. Three months later, it opens on Broadway.<\/strong><\/div>\n
Weil:<\/strong>\u00a0After Jonathan passed, we sat down and started figuring out the kinds of things we were interested in cutting. There was a lot of excess fat. I\u2019m sure, had Jonathan been alive during that preview period, we would have made similar cuts. Maybe Jonathan would have rewritten \u201cYour Eyes.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Pascal:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cYour Eyes\u201d is, in my opinion, an unfinished song. I was always a little disappointed that this song Roger is struggling to write<\/div>\n
throughout the entire show, to leave as his legacy, turns out to be\u00a0this<\/em>\u00a0song. It seemed like kind of a letdown.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Larson:<\/strong>\u00a0All shows open being a little unfinished; that\u2019s why they have previews, to suss out what works and what doesn\u2019t.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Nicola:<\/strong>\u00a0The morning after the opening night at the Workshop, we read the reviews. The response was stunning.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Summa:<\/strong>\u00a0I couldn\u2019t handle all the press requests and calls.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Pascal:<\/strong>\u00a0I questioned at first, are people reacting to the show itself or the sadness of the situation and the irony of these lyrics now that Jonathan\u2019s dead?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Rapp:<\/strong>\u00a0The celebrities started coming downtown. The first people we got to meet and hang out with a little bit were Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. It was her birthday, so we sang \u201cHappy Birthday.\u201d We couldn\u2019t believe a famous person wanted to see our little show.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Greif:<\/strong>\u00a0I thought if we extended the run, wouldn\u2019t it be great to move into some old Yiddish theater downtown?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Seller:<\/strong>\u00a0It seemed as if every adult was afraid the Broadway audience wouldn\u2019t embrace a musical this iconoclastic. So to Kevin and I, it became a mission: We must go to Broadway!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Larson:<\/strong>\u00a0When the show was moving to the Nederlander Theatre, half his friends said Jonathan would have hated it and half said, \u201cOh my God, he\u2019d love it.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Telsey:<\/strong>\u00a0All of a sudden,\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0was an industry: We need understudies? What the hell?! When we had our first open call for understudies, 4,000 people showed up.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
McCollum:<\/strong>\u00a0The first day of sales was $750,000. Now that\u2019s nothing, but back then, there wasn\u2019t the technology, you had to actually show up and buy tickets.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Tommasini:\u00a0<\/strong>At the Workshop the show was both a tribute and a demonstration\u2014look at what this guy did, look at what we\u2019ve done, this show is great and we believe in it. On Broadway, it was the triumph of proof. We were right, he was right, and here we are.\u00a0See<\/em>?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Seller:<\/strong>\u00a0This was an era when Broadway was completely dominated by British musicals:\u00a0Cats<\/em>,\u00a0Les Mis\u00e9rables<\/em>,\u00a0The Phantom of the Opera<\/em>,\u00a0Miss Saigon<\/em>. Jonathan was very critical of those shows: \u201cThose aren\u2019t my people, that\u2019s not my music.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Summa:<\/strong>\u00a0The cast\u2019s pictures were everywhere. They were mini-celebrities. Daphne and Adam were on the cover of\u00a0Newsweek.<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Pascal:<\/strong>\u00a0I had the blond spiky hair and was extremely recognizable. I\u2019m glad I had a taste of that visibility. I\u2019m also glad I didn\u2019t like it, because I\u2019d probably miss it now that it doesn\u2019t happen anymore!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Nikki M. James (actress,\u00a0The Book of Mormon<\/a><\/em>):\u00a0<\/strong>I forget how many times I saw\u00a0Rent<\/em>, but it was in the twenties.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Leslie Odom Jr.<\/strong>\u00a0(actor,\u00a0<\/strong>Hamilton<\/em><\/strong>):<\/strong>\u00a0I went to my local HMV \u2014 the cast recording had just come out \u2014 and I thought I\u2019d listen to part of the album at one of the listening stations. I put it on, and I couldn\u2019t move \u2014 I listened to the whole thing. There wasn\u2019t a whole lot of art that looked like me and my friends.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
James<\/strong>: There was this\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0line you could wait in to get cheap tickets each day.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
McCollum:\u00a0<\/strong>We decided, let\u2019s make the cheap tickets the ones for the seats in the first two rows. At first it was first-come first-served, and it was a great visual \u2014 all these young people waiting on the street.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Seller:\u00a0<\/strong>Within a year, the lines were so long that on Friday night you\u2019d have three lines going: one for Friday night, people starting the line for the Saturday matinee, and the other people for Saturday night.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
McCollum:\u00a0<\/strong>It became a little\u00a0Lord of the Flies\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 some people were getting robbed on the street. So we said, let\u2019s do a lottery instead.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Pascal<\/strong>: Coming out of the stage door every night just got crazier and crazier. Sometimes we\u2019d spend an hour signing autographs.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Martin:\u00a0<\/strong>One of those crazy\u00a0Rent<\/em>heads who was at the door all the time was this tiny girl, always there with her best friend. I remember taking a picture with them and she looked up at me and said, \u201cOne day, I\u2019m gonna be on Broadway, and you\u2019re gonna come and see me at the stage door.\u201d And something made me say, you know what, I believe you! Turns out, that girl was Nikki M. James, who won a Tony for\u00a0The Book of Mormon.<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Larson:\u00a0<\/strong>My brother dreamed big dreams, and it all happened in this one show. Watching what\u2019s happening with\u00a0Hamilton<\/em>, it feels so familiar. It\u2019s that same raw, spontaneous, organic explosion of a show that\u00a0Rent\u00a0<\/em>was.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
VI.\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0goes on to win the Tony for Best Musical.\u00a0<\/strong>It runs for 12 years.<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n
Rapp:<\/strong>\u00a0It started to become a little bit of a machine toward the end, and the cult around the show was in some ways not super-pleasant. The energy had shifted. It looked like I was going to be the last man standing of the eight original cast members, and that started to feel a little funky. The building was already full of ghosts.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Rubin-Vega:<\/strong>\u00a0I was the first to leave because I got a record deal. And then a corporate merger put the kibosh on it. I was given a big fat check and no music.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Pascal:<\/strong>\u00a0I got auditions for big films, and I blew every one. I was arrogant: \u201cWhy do I even have to audition? If you saw the show and you liked it, give me the part, what\u2019s the fuckin\u2019 problem?\u201d There\u2019s nothing worse than being famous and broke. I was still getting recognized for being Roger in\u00a0Rent<\/em>, but feeling like, do I have to get a real job? How do I get a real job after I\u2019ve gotten a Tony nomination? What am I gonna do, work in a Gap?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Martin:<\/strong>\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0led to so many other things. I got a call that David Kelley was looking for a love interest for Calista Flockhart on\u00a0Ally McBeal<\/em>, and he wanted me to be the guy. I was used to auditioning like crazy, and I was just getting offered this role \u2014 how was that possible?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Telsey:<\/strong>\u00a0Did Adam get the show Jesse got? No. Did it take time for Idina to go from\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0Wicked<\/em>? Yes. But I think the cast members were all finding their path. Twenty years later, they all have careers.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Menzel:<\/strong>\u00a0Rent<\/em>\u00a0laid the groundwork for me. Its success gave contemporary composers permission to tell a story \u2014 to prove that building character [in a musical] is possible using pop and rock.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Rapp:\u00a0<\/strong>The success of the show validated for me that when a group of people come together to tell a story they believe in, they can make a difference, which is the reason Jonathan wrote this thing.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Larson:<\/strong>\u00a0Sometimes in the midst of talking to someone, I\u2019ll say, \u201cOh, my brother wrote\u00a0Rent.<\/em>\u201d And they\u2019ll say, \u201cPlease tell him we loved it!\u201d There\u2019s a whole generation now who don\u2019t know the story. Half the people now don\u2019t even know Jonathan died.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When\u00a0Rent\u00a0began rehearsals in December 1995, it hardly looked like a phenomenon in the making. Composer Jonathan Larson had only recently quit his job at a Soho diner, its stars for the most part had little theatrical experience, and Broadway was dominated by long-running British-import megamusicals like\u00a0Les Mis\u00e9rables,\u00a0The Phantom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[32,4],"class_list":["post-1425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-32","tag-rent"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4f2ec9deb9d931c7ab97261b01995a1096abddd5.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-mZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1427,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425\/revisions\/1427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}