25 Years of Rent: Measured in Love (Play)

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    A ‘Rent’ Reunion Measures 25 Years of Love and Loss

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookA ‘Rent’ Reunion Measures 25 Years of Love and LossA fund-raiser, a tribute, a documentary — and a reminder that Jonathan Larson’s musical remains especially inspiring in hard times.Members of the original cast sing “No Day but Today” during New York Theater Workshop’s “25 Years of Rent: Measured in Love.”Credit…via New York Theater WorkshopMarch 3, 2021Is “Rent,” Jonathan Larson’s 25-year-old groundbreaking musical, somber or celebratory? When I was in high school, in the early throes of my “Rent” obsession, I made my aunt see the show. “That’s so depressing!” she wailed afterward. “No it isn’t!” I insisted. She looked at me like I was crazy.I often think of that exchange, now 14 years later. For me, the adjective “depressing” never fit this musical, which was about so much more than its tragedies: a generation fighting AIDS, poverty, gentrification and the everyday drama and griefs of those 525,600 minutes that make a year.On Tuesday night the New York Theater Workshop hosted “25 Years of Rent: Measured in Love,” a virtual fund-raiser commemorating the show, which premiered there in 1996 before going on to Broadway, Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and international renown.It is well known that Larson died just before the musical’s first preview performance. So even though this was a tender, even intimate celebration, the “Rent” event, hosted by the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contestant Olivia Lux, also embraced loss.Olivia Lux hosted the show, which was at once a documentary, a telethon and a tribute to the “Rent” composer Jonathan Larson.Credit…—-, via New York Theater Workshop“25 Years of Rent,” directed by Andy Señor, worked as a tribute to Larson, a contemporary telethon packed with stage celebs and, most touching, a documentary about the making of the beloved show. The theater summoned him back to life through archival images and footage — a broad-grinned waiter making milkshakes at the Moondance Diner; singing “Will I” on a cassette tape — as well as via recollections from friends, family, performers and the show’s director, Michael Greif.The names involved were impressive enough to light up a marquee: the original cast members Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Adam Pascal and Daphne Rubin-Vega, as well as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Annaleigh Ashford, Neil Patrick Harris, Ben Platt, Anaïs Mitchell, Telly Leung and so many more.Some teared up recalling Larson’s exuberance and talents, and described the burden of carrying on with a show whose success he would never see. Of course, this is part of the tragedy of “Rent.”The saying goes that for every death in the world there’s a birth. And as “Rent” was born and grew, so did the careers of the cast members, many of whom were unknowns at the time. Anthony Rapp described working at Starbucks and auditioning with an R.E.M. song, while Idina Menzel, before jumping over the moon or defying gravity, had made a living as a bar mitzvah singer.Fredi Walker-Browne, who played Joanne in the original production, described hearing the lyric to her song “Take Me or Leave Me” for the first time.Credit…via New York Theater WorkshopThe night was also about how Larson’s work helped open people up to themselves. Fredi Walker-Browne, the original Joanne, spoke about first hearing “Take Me or Leave Me,” which Larson wrote for her and Menzel, and feeling that he laced her personality into the lyrics: “I look before I leap/I like margins and discipline/I make lists in my sleep.”Others, like Lux, hailed the show for portraying queerness and drag at a time when many productions didn’t.Winners of Jonathan Larson Grants, awarded to promising early-career musical theater artists, spoke to his legacy. And theater notables who weren’t in “Rent” at its beginnings took on pieces of the score in their own styles. Christopher Jackson’s hymnlike “One Song Glory,” Eva Noblezada’s coquettish “Out Tonight” and Billy Porter’s explosively baroque “I’ll Cover You” were standouts.Among the performers inspired by “Rent” was Billy Porter, who sang “I’ll Cover You.”Credit…via New York Theater WorkshopIf Larson’s death is one side of some karmic exchange, another side is the audiences who used — and continue to use — “Rent” to excavate some hidden part of themselves, and to inspire their own art.So much of this last year has been marked by things unmade: the people unmade by a pandemic, the innocent Black lives unmade by brutality, the planet unmade by a changing climate. My own tiny bubble of a life has gotten smaller, without the chance to see some of my closest friends and where the outside world seems newly and inexplicably dangerous.And yet in recalling the making (and remaking) of “Rent,” the event helped quiet the grief that creeps up on me every day. In the chat box next to the stream, which reached over 6,000 viewers, “Rent” fans confessed to crying; a final group rendition of “Seasons of Love” seemed to push many beyond comforting.It took me a few viewings before I could watch “Rent” without bursting into head-aching, snot-falling ugly crying, but eventually the show became my joy, my comfort. As much as Roger and Mark, a songwriter and filmmaker, hoped to make something of themselves through their art, so did I make myself — in whatever facile way — through “Rent,” using it to shape myself as an artist and an outcast and a New Yorker.At the end of “Rent,” Angel has died but the rest of the bohemians live, and Mark has finally finished his movie. You can read the signature lyric “No day but today” as fatalistic, as the characters’ existential cry, as Larson’s prescience about his sudden death.But I’ve always read “No day but today” — which gets woven into “Seasons of Love” in the show’s finale, and was this event’s final heart-rending hurrah — as a promise: Today I wake up to a new version of myself. I will be magnificent. I account for the losses of yesterday, but today? Today is alive. There’s no tragedy in that.25 Years of Rent: Measured in LoveThrough March 6; nytw.orgAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Birth of ‘Rent,’ Its Creator’s Death and the 25 Years Since

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Birth of ‘Rent,’ Its Creator’s Death and the 25 Years SinceWith a virtual performance marking the Broadway musical’s anniversary, original cast and creative team members talk about losing Jonathan Larson and carrying on his legacy.Jonathan Larson, left, who wrote the music, lyrics and book of “Rent,” with the play’s director, Michael Greif, in 1996.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesFeb. 25, 2021Updated 3:04 p.m. ETWhat’s 525,600 times 25?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. Jonathan Larson’s rock-infused reboot of “La Bohème” had already generated positive chatter during its Off Broadway rehearsals at New York Theater Workshop. But then came full-throated shouts of disbelief and anguish on Jan. 25, 1996, when, hours after the final dress rehearsal, Larson was found dead in his apartment from an aortic aneurysm. He was 35 years old.His shocking death came right before the start of previews, when a creative team typically makes changes based on audience reactions. After briefly considering whether to bring in a script doctor, the team decided instead to streamline Larson’s music and lyrics as needed.The move paid off. 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.Members of the original Broadway cast in “25 Years of Rent: Measured in Love,” which will stream on Tuesday.Credit…via New York Theater WorkshopOn Tuesday, New York Theater Workshop will use its annual fund-raising gala to commemorate the show’s silver anniversary with “25 Years of Rent: Measured in Love.” The largely prerecorded virtual performance, available to stream through March 6, will feature most of the original cast, who still communicate regularly in a group chat, along with high-profile “Rent”-heads like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Platt, Billy Porter and Ali Stroker.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. Here are the lightly edited excerpts.‘We had to do it for Jonathan’NANCY KASSAK DIEKMANN, former managing director of New York Theater Workshop: Jonathan had the kind of health insurance where he could only go to the emergency room, and he had already been once. They told him it was food poisoning or something, and they sent him home. On the day of the final dress rehearsal, he wasn’t feeling well, and he called to say he was going to take a nap. I said to him, “Jon, why don’t you let me make you an appointment and pay for you to see my doctor?” I always wonder what would have happened if he had gone.JAMES C. NICOLA, artistic director of New York Theater Workshop: Everyone felt a degree of ownership and responsibility to do their absolute best on his behalf. It ceased being a job and became a calling.Anthony Rapp, left, and Adam Pascal in rehearsal at the New York Theater Workshop in 1996.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesANTHONY RAPP, who played Mark: From that last dress rehearsal until mid-July, no one missed a performance. It seemed impossible. No one could. I don’t say that to brag. I just think it showed our level of commitment. We had to do it for Jonathan.MICHAEL GREIF, director: One terrible advantage of being in your mid-30s working on “Rent” was that you had a decade of experience of loss. Jonathan’s death made him part of the community he was honoring.ADAM PASCAL, who played Roger: People are often surprised to hear this, but I only knew Jonathan for about four weeks. I was cast in December, and he died in January. I grieved the loss on behalf of his family, who we got to know afterward. But I personally miss him the way the public misses him. I miss the music that never got written.‘We did a lot of cutting’NICOLA: Four of us met the day after Jonathan died — me, Michael Greif, Tim Weil and Lynn Thomson [the dramaturge]. And one thing that came up was, “Should we bring in another composer/writer to finish the job? Is that the choice that has integrity?” But we quickly decided against it.TIM WEIL, musical supervisor: Our idea was, “Let’s do what Jonathan wanted us to do,” even if we couldn’t know exactly what that was.GREIF: We did a lot of cutting. We cut things that we felt Jonathan would agree to or even advocate cutting.RAPP: I think Jonathan was raring to go for the preview process. It would have been very discombobulating and weird for morale to have a foreigner — I mean that artistically, not xenophobically — come in at that point.DIEKMANN: Tim had to step up on the musical side, and he did. He and Michael knew what Jonathan wanted — because, God knows, he was there all the time.WEIL: I still continue to make little bitty changes for new productions, since it has always been tailored to specific performers. I think I’m the only one who has that kind of license.‘Everything was just coming at us’WILSON JERMAINE HEREDIA, who played Angel: Everything was just coming at us, and there was a part of me that was on automatic pilot. The only thing that felt safe and constant was going back on that stage every night. The most stable thing was that it was happening to all of us.DAPHNE RUBIN-VEGA, who played Mimi: Today is 12 weeks out from a partial knee replacement for me. And part of me is like, “How did I get here?” But I know exactly how I got here: by playing Mimi eight times a week.RAPP: I have weird little nagging injuries that still bother me from carrying around that video camera for two hours straight.Daphne Rubin-Vega, who played Mimi in the original cast, with Adam Pascal, who played Rodger. Credit…via New York Theater Workshop‘Representation really matters’GREIF: The idealism and openheartedness of the piece, which I was very wary of at the time and found myself guarding against, has had a profound impact on very, very young people. I’m talking 12- and 13-year-olds. And in many ways, “Rent” opened the door to the possibility of the musicals I went on to direct, musicals like “Next to Normal” and “Dear Evan Hansen.”RUBIN-VEGA: Representation really matters, and it was important for a woman who looks like me to be thrust into that ingénue role.PASCAL: It is something that I’m clearly forever connected to. And it is something that is still literally paying the rent. Do you know about Cameo? Earlier today, I did five Cameos where I sang “Rent” songs.NICOLA: I am just now able to hear these songs without any baggage or context — just hear them as musical theater songs. And I’m thinking, “These are really good songs.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Theater to Stream: Revisiting ‘Rent’ and ‘Angels in America’

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTheater to Stream: Revisiting ‘Rent’ and ‘Angels in America’Presentations include the 30th anniversary of George C. Wolfe’s “The Colored Museum”; Andréa Burns in “Bad Dates”; and a solo show by Riz Ahmed.From left, Adam Pascal, Daphne Rubin-Vega and Anthony Rapp in “Rent,” whose anniversary is being celebrated with a reunion presented by New York Theater Workshop.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesFeb. 17, 2021A pair of game-changing shows are celebrating big anniversaries, so now is a good time to revisit them and their legacies.George C. Wolfe’s “The Colored Museum,” an anthology of sketches about Black culture (called exhibits), felt like a bolt of lighting when it premiered in 1986. At its heart, as Frank Rich said in his New York Times review, was the question “How do American Black men and women at once honor and escape the legacy of suffering that is the baggage of their past?”From left, Reggie Montgomery, Vickilyn Reynolds, Tommy Hollis and Suzzanne Douglas in the streaming production of “The Colored Museum,” filmed in 1991.Credit…Nancy LevineThanks to Crossroads Theater Company — where the show originated before moving to the Public Theater, and which is streaming the “Great Performances” capture from 1991 — we can confirm that while a few details have aged, “The Colored Museum” retains much of its satirical charge.It’s fascinating, now, to see how playlets in the show — such as “Git on Board” (about welcoming guests on a “celebrity slaveship”) and “The Last Mama-on-the-Couch Play” (a blistering take on “A Raisin in the Sun” — have influenced contemporary works like Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s “An Octoroon” and Jordan E. Cooper’s “Ain’t No Mo.’” Through Feb. 28; crossroadstheatrecompany.comWhen Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” opened at New York Theater Workshop in 1996, its young, often queer and racially diverse characters felt new in musicals; it also dealt with the HIV/AIDS crisis, one of the biggest issues of the day. The show immediately found a passionate audience, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and transferred to Broadway, where it remained for over 12 years. Hindsight makes it clear that “Rent” has endured because a fairly conventional heart beats under its edgy demeanor, and that this “rock” musical is built out of zhuzhed-up show tunes; those are solid bones.New York Theater Workshop is revisiting the phenomenon with the tribute “25 Years of Rent: Measured in Love,” in which Eva Noblezada, Ben Platt, Billy Porter and Ali Stroker join original cast members, including Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp and Daphne Rubin-Vega. March 2-6; nytw.orgNathan Lane in the National Theater’s production of “Angels in America” on Broadway.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesCatching up with British productionsThe National Theater’s streaming arm, National Theater at Home, has just made available its acclaimed production of “Angels in America,” which stars Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane and Denise Gough Some of us in the United States were lucky enough to see it when the production traveled from London to Broadway three years ago. Perhaps even more exciting, then, is the opportunity to discover older shows that didn’t come to New York, like “Antigone” starring Christopher Eccleston and Jodie Whittaker; “Medea,” with a pre-“I May Destroy You” Michaela Coel as the nurse; and Lucy Kirkwood’s “Mosquitoes,” in which Olivia Colman and Olivia Williams play sisters. ntathome.comAndréa Burns in Theresa Rebeck’s “Bad Dates.”Credit…via George Street Playhouse‘Bad Dates’A good rule of thumb: Whenever the wonderful Andréa Burns (“In the Heights,” “On Your Feet!”) pops up in something, just check it out. In this case it’s Theresa Rebeck’s one-woman play “Bad Dates,” presented by the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey, which should provide good opportunities for Burns to flex her considerable comic muscles as a divorced woman looking for love. Feb. 23-March 14; georgestreetplayhouse.orgMichael Guagno stars in the Kafka-inspired “Letter to My Father.”Credit…Eileen Meny‘Letter to My Father’In 1919, a 36-year-old Franz Kafka penned, but did not send, a long missive to his father, Hermann. The text (published in English as “Letter to His Father”) was an impassioned of indictment of a domestic tyrant, the now-grown son still possessed by fear, his wounds still fresh. The M-34 company, captures the live show with multiple cameras, offering various perspectives to the audience. The show is directed by James Rutherford, and performed by Michael Guagno. Feb. 19-March 28; m-34.orgRiz Ahmed in his solo show “The Long Goodbye.”Credit…Kelly Mason‘The Long Goodbye’The British actor Riz Ahmed, whose performance in “Sound of Metal” recently earned him a Golden Globe nomination, is also a rapper. A solo show expanding on themes explored on his album of the same name, “The Long Goodbye” was livestreamed in December and is now available on demand from the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Manchester International Festival, which jointly commissioned it. Recording himself on a cellphone, the charismatic Ahmed prowls the empty Great American Music Hall in San Francisco while blending hip-hop and spoken word, autobiographical accounts and pointed insights. Through March 1; bam.orgTelling someone else’s storyTwo of the most storied performers you could dream of seeing are appearing in a solo biographical shows they also wrote. First, Lillias White, a Tony Award winner for “The Life,” pays tribute to the jazz great Sarah Vaughan in “Divine Sass” (Feb. 18-20). Then André De Shields, who stole the show every night in “Hadestown,” portrays an abolitionist and social reformer in “Frederick Douglass: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory” (Feb. 26-28). Both will be presented on Flushing Town Hall’s virtual stage, flushingtownhall.orgWendell Pierce, left, and Charlie Robinson in “Some Old Black Man.”Credit…Doug Coombe‘Some Old Black Man’One of the greatest actors of his generation, Wendell Pierce (“The Wire,” “Treme”) is fiercely committed to theater. In 2018, he starred in the James Anthony Tyler two-hander “Some Old Black Man” in New York; last fall, he quarantined in Ann Arbor, Mich., to participate in a virtual, fully staged version of that play for the University of Michigan’s University Musical Society. Pierce plays a middle-aged college professor who reconnects with his father (Charlie Robinson) as the two men confront their experiences with racism. March 1-12; ums.org‘The Past Is the Past’Manhattan Theater Club revisits some of its past productions in Curtain Call, a new reading series. Ron Cephas Jones — a captivating stage actor despite being most famous for the series “This Is Us” — and Jovan Adepo (“Watchmen”) lead Richard Wesley’s “The Past Is the Past.” The New York Times called the play “a poignant evocation of families and generations in conflict” when the company presented it in 1975, a year after its premiere at the Billie Holiday Theater in Brooklyn (Feb. 18-28). Head over to Manhattan Theater Club’s YouTube channel to watch the playwright John Patrick Shanley and Timothée Chalamet discuss the 2016 production of “Prodigal Son” — with generous excerpts from the show, which just predated Chalamet’s stardom. manhattantheatreclub.com‘48Hours in … El Bronx’For this year’s digital edition of Harlem9 and Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater’s “48Hours in …” festival, the playwrights Julissa Contreras, Nelson Diaz-Marcano, Alisha Espinosa, Andres Osorio, Alejandra Ramos Riera and Andrew Rincon looked to the work of photographers from the South Bronx collective Seis del Sur to create six 10-minute plays. Feb. 18-22; harlem9.veeps.comAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Ways to Enjoy Theater Virtually

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeMake: BirriaExplore: ‘Bridgerton’ StyleParent: With ImprovRead: Joyce Carol OatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRevel in the Power of TheaterMissing live performances during the pandemic? Get your theater fix with a handful of online stellar productions (new and old).The Tony winner André De Shields will deliver a one-man performance in “Frederick Douglass: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory,” on Feb. 26.Credit…Lia ChangFeb. 13, 2021In another time, the highly anticipated spring season of Broadway would be beginning. Performers would be dropping their scripts, fans would be planning their show schedules and reviewers would be sharpening their pencils. Sadly, Broadway and many theaters around the world are in the longest pause in history, but an effort to keep the industry alive has major stars taking to the virtual stage and much-lauded past productions available for streaming. These productions can’t compare with the energy of a full theater, but what they make up in accessibility is something that can’t be underestimated. The theater community is experiencing a devastating loss right now, but its ability to innovate, invent and continue to create joy gives great hope for what will return.‘Medea’The startling exclusion of Michaela Coel’s “I May Destroy You” from the Golden Globe nominations has only drawn more attention to the once-in-a-generation talent of the performer, director and writer. Among the current streaming offerings of the National Theater in London is its 2014 production of “Medea,” which stars Coel as the nurse to Helen McCrory’s title character in the celebrated story of a wife’s revenge on her straying husband. The production also features an intense score from Will Gregory and Alison Goldfrapp, the pairing behind the musical duo Goldfrapp. Available to stream for three days for $9.99. ntathome.com/products/medea‘25 Years of Rent: Measured in Love’ If your kids think “Hamilton” was the first musical to transcend the genre, introduce them to the 1996 cult success that ran for over a decade. New York Theater Workshop’s annual gala will celebrate the 25th anniversary of “Rent” with a virtual concert that brings together an impressive assemblage of the show’s original cast, including Idina Menzel, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Jesse L. Martin and Anthony Rapp. They’ll be joined by an all-star lineup of “Rent” fans including Neil Patrick Harris, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Billy Porter and Jeremy O. Harris. The program will also honor the “Rent” creator Jonathan Larson, who died at 35 on the morning of the show’s first performance. March 2, 8 p.m. Eastern, and available to stream until March 6. Tickets begin at $25. nytw.org/‘Elaine Stritch at Liberty’The streaming service BroadwayHD has hundreds of live performances (available for a monthly fee of $9 or $100 for the year). But a particular gem in the mix is Elaine Stritch’s raucous 2001 autobiographical show, which combines stories about her unique life with some of her most adored songs, most notably “The Ladies Who Lunch” from “Company.” This bio show, which was filmed at London’s Old Vic in 2002, recounts her Broadway victories, as well as her struggle with alcoholism and her many rocky romances. broadwayhd.com/movies/AW2GxBd-px3F9_4Aqe1K‘Frederick Douglass: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory’As part of Black History Trilogy, a series of virtual productions from Flushing Town Hall, in Queens, the 2019 Tony winner André De Shields will portray Frederick Douglass in a stirring one-man performance. The transcendent “Hadestown” star also wrote the show, which explores the achievements and ingenuity of the abolitionist leader, as well as the darkness and horror that he experienced. The program comes after Flushing Town Hall’s “Divine Sass: A Tribute to the Music, Life and Legacy of Sarah Vaughan” from Lillias White on Feb. 18. All performances are free. February 26, 7 p.m., flushingtownhall.org/black-history-trilogy-iii‘An Evening with Ali Stroker from Enlow Recital Hall’Ali Stroker, who dazzled in her performance in the 2019 revival of “Oklahoma!,” winning a best featured actress Tony for the role of Ado Annie, will appear on the stage of Kean University, in New Jersey, for a night filled with classics from the Great American Songbook. Stroker, the first person who uses a wheelchair to win a Tony, will sing favorites from Stephen Sondheim, Carole King, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lin-Manuel Miranda during the livestreamed event. February 27 at 7:30. Tickets $25, kean.universitytickets.comAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More