by Anne Marie Welsh
Union Tribune
March 12, 2000

"Rent" has a long-term lease on the worldwide imagination. Jonathan Larson's pop-rock musical, based on "La Boheme" and the real lives of bohemian artists in downtown New York's Alphabet City, has played 11 countries in nearly as many languages. Four years after moving from the off-Broadway New York Theatre Workshop to Broadway, the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner is still pulling in half-a-million dollars a week at the Nederlander Theatre.

Directed by then-La Jolla Playhouse head Michael Greif, "Rent" launched its first national tour at the Playhouse in July 1997. Enormously popular and twice extended, the musical pulled the La Jolla institution out of a long-standing debt. Greif's five-year tenure at the Playhouse ended in October; the lucrative musical means he can free-lance on creative projects and live comfortably in New York with his lover and near his two children and family.

The national touring company of "Rent" opens a weeklong run at the Civic Theatre, beginning Tuesday. Greif spoke the other day about the musical's appeal, about its genesis, and about his friend Larson's death, at 35, from an aortic aneurysm the night before the final dress rehearsal in 1996.

Have you seen the tour company that's coming to San Diego?

Greif: "This is the tour that began in La Jolla, but there is not one person left from that cast. I just saw this group in Wallingford, Conn. (with Saycon Sengbloh as Mimi and Cary Shields as Roger). The Mimi and Roger we saw in La Jolla were with it for a long time. Some stay like that. Byron Utley, who was with the original downtown company (at New York Theatre Workshop, before Broadway) is still with it. He's Mr. Jefferson, the guy who sings 'Christmas Bells Are Ringing.' He's always had a lot of maturity and weight."

What about those "Rent"-heads, the ones who follow the show around and chat about it day and night on the Web?

"I don't know a lot about them. I see how the show consistently attracts someone who's feeling out of sorts or alienated -- (who see it) to gain a little strength or comfort from just the generosity of the play. I don't spend any time with them on the Internet. I would imagine that parents would feel relieved and comforted that this is a kid's obsession.

"Occasionally (in a tour city), there's an angry editorial about the show promoting promiscuous sex, or other ridiculous claims. I think it's about friends providing stability, a way of showing how people can comfort one another in times of need."

When did you first become aware of Larson's "Rent" project?

"I first read it in 1994. Gary Wollberg (a La Jolla Playhouse board member and past board president) reminded me not so long ago that when we were speaking about the job at La Jolla, I told him about the workshop coming up. I spent a lot of time with Jim (Nicola, head of New York Theatre Workshop) and Jonathan on the script. It underwent some considerable changes; that workshop was a five-week rehearsal. Dramaturg Lynn Thomson joined the team along with Jim and I as someone who contributed. (Thomson later sued for a co-author share of the profits -- a whopping 16 percent -- but lost.)

"Jonathan came out to San Diego in January and February of 1995. We had script meetings there walking along the beach. ... Throughout '95, we were in good contact. That fall, after my first season (as artistic director at La Jolla Playhouse), I went back to New York to begin work on the newest script. We also did some substantial work on that script. Lynn was an active part of all of the development through Jonathan's death and after he died, as we prepared for the Broadway opening, (musical director and arranger) Tim Weil became a collaborator (and) made a remarkable contribution."

Did you have any inkling that Jonathan was ill?

"It took us all completely by surprise. The first notion of anything being wrong occurred during a tech rehearsal. We were rehearsing onstage, (the song) 'What You Own.' The stage manager interrupted us with a rather urgent tone, instead of demanding that we needed another 10-minute break. I ran to the back of the house. Jon was on the ground trying to calm himself. Clearly something had happened. The medics came and took him to a nearby emergency room. We began rehearsing again half-heartedly. We found out after not too much time that he had food poisoning. . . . We spoke on the phone. He said he was more tired than he thought he'd be. We assumed he had recovered from food poisoning and it had taken its toll.

"The only time he missed rehearsal was when he was writing. We were unhappy with the song for Maureen and Joanne (a wacky lesbian performance artist and her latest lover), 'What You Own.' We went into rehearsal knowing they'd have a second-act number. Its place in the structure was secure. At the time, Jonathan's (creative) power was increasing. . . .

"I was staging 'Goodbye Love,' one of the richest sections of the musical, and he was at home writing 'Take Me or Leave Me.' He was calling in with these great pieces of 'Take Me or Leave Me.' At the end of two days, he came in with this great song. He seemed rather normal. We were slogging through tech (lighting and sound checks). We knew we had two days of this, then we would have the dress. The next day he wasn't there again. We all decided he must have the flu because he was running a fever. He actually did go to the emergency room for the second time."

Did he have a roommate or close friend looking after him then?

"His living situation was not unlike that of the characters in the play -- a big apartment with a lot of little rooms and a lot of different people lived in them at different times. Some were closer than others."

What happened next?

"When he came in again, he looked bad. Fluish. He came and we took some pictures. We had an interview with The New York Times. Then he watched a rehearsal, had a separate (media) interview, and he joined us at the end for the note section (when the director gives feedback). We explained where we were and what we hoped to accomplish and what we needed to get straightened out. He was always concerned that we make the words intelligible.

"We planned a meeting for 9 o'clock the next morning. On my way to our usual meeting place I saw Lynn and Jim, who looked ashen. They told me that Jonathan had died during the night.

"It just makes you appreciate all those moments that we did have. You think over the last moment and last conversation. It's all on that level. You go over that last conversation.

Are you familiar with the other charges besides Thomson's against the show, that Larson's book borrowed from an earlier novel about gay artists -- some of them HIV-positive -- living downtown?

"I know the woman who wrote that (earlier) book. We're not friends. We're not enemies. We're acquaintances. We don't speak regularly. I don't believe I've read the source material she quoted. But I hear from others that everything is OK with her.

"One of the things I'm very proud about is how well "Rent" depicts gay people. Jonathan was very good about finding the universal in the specific."

What about the casting?

"The original process of casting was great. We really were trying to meet remarkable and idiosyncratic and interesting people. Jim Nicola and Jonathan and Tim Weil and I wanted the texture and the authenticity of the piece to be carried by the company. We looked for people who had some spiritual kinship to the characters or the life in the play. We went a different way than with the usual musical-theater performers.

"We were looking for a group that was a little more idiosyncratic, and more rough around the edges. We're still looking for those, although with the demands of touring and without me working constantly, it turned out that some people we thought were diamonds-in-the-rough stayed in the rough.

"A lot of care and attention was given to that original group. And they lived through so much together. All through the amazing success of 'Rent' was this horrible tragedy of Jonathan's death."

How involved are you with various international stagings now?

"What I'm often not involved in is the developing or training. The last full rehearsal period I did was in London. I have done shorter trips. I had a wonderful month in Australia. I spent 10 days with the company that opened in Milan. Now when we select a cast, we look for stability and skills in a way that we didn't need to depend on so much in the beginning. I like dispelling that myth about the show that the cast was inexperienced. They were experienced and skillful, just different, interesting and unique, and so many of them have become such good actors with careers now."

What are you working on now?

"The Public will eventually do a revision of 'Dogeaters' (Jessica Hagedorn's adaptation of her novel of the Philippines, which premiered two summers ago at the Playhouse). I'm working on 'Cavedweller,' an adaptation of Dorothy Allison's novel, with interest from both the Playhouse, I'm happy to say, and the New York Theatre Workshop."

And your private life?

"The children are great. My personal life is wonderful. I get to spend more time with them, and to really get settled in these past couple of months. I'm reacquainting myself with old friends and the scene here. I'm getting to know a lot of young writers."