5/9/2023 0 Comments Larson rent musical![]() ![]() Members of the original production’s cast and creative team discussed the stratospheric heights and ghastly lows of 1996, remembering the gifted young writer who would have been 61 years old today. Within weeks, “Rent” had achieved a level of hype that would not be rivaled on Broadway until “Hamilton” almost 20 years later: earning rave reviews (The New York Times’s Ben Brantley said it “shimmers with hope for the future of the American musical”) a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a frantic transfer to Broadway, where it ran for 12 years and won four Tony Awards. After briefly considering whether to bring in a script doctor, the team decided instead to streamline Larson’s music and lyrics as needed. His shocking death came right before the start of previews, when a creative team typically makes changes based on audience reactions. 25, 1996, when, hours after the final dress rehearsal, Larson was found dead in his apartment from an aortic aneurysm. ![]() But then came full-throated shouts of disbelief and anguish on Jan. ![]() Jonathan Larson’s rock-infused reboot of “La Bohème” had already generated positive chatter during its Off Broadway rehearsals at New York Theater Workshop. It has been 25 years - or, to use a memorable “Seasons of Love” calculation, 13.14 million minutes - since “Rent” upended Broadway’s sense of what musical theater could be. ![]()
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