Melissa "Starr" Hernandez held up her sign, hoping her luck
would change.
After setting her alarm clock for 5 a.m. Sunday to be first in line for
discounted "rush" tickets to Rent at the Broward Center for the
Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, a cold kept Hernandez in bed until
8:30. By the time she reached the theater, 30 people were already in line
-- one too many for Hernandez to get a ticket.
The theater reserves
29 to 30 seats in the first three rows for each show
of Rent and sells them for $20 each, in order to help out students and
others who can't afford the high cost of tickets. Tickets go on sale two
hours before each 2 p.m. matinee and 8 p.m. performance, but people were
lined up as early as 6 a.m. to get the best seats.
The show's creator,
Jonathan Larson, left a request in his will that every
production of Rent should offer discounted tickets, because of his own
struggles with money. Larson died at age 35 of an aortic aneurysm, after
going to several New York hospital emergency rooms, complaining of chest
pains. Each time he was sent home. He did not see a private doctor because
he could not afford health insurance.
The show has been a
hit on Broadway since 1996 and has attracted a cult
following nationwide -- especially with teenagers.
"I need to see
it or I'm going to cry," said Hernandez, 18, a theater major
at Broward Community College who lives in Weston. "I'll sit in the
nosebleed section if I have to, but I really don't want to."
On Sunday, the first
spots in line belonged to Joey Siesholtz, 16, Michelle
Wasserlauf, 15, and Jodi Epstein, 15, sophomores at Michael Krop High
School in North Miami Beach. They arrived at the theater at 6 a.m. after
staying up late listening to the show's soundtrack, which they say they
know by heart. Siesholtz was seeing the show for the fourth time.
The show's Web
site contains a parental advisory note, warning that
Rent addresses adult themes and controversial issues.
"Adults don't
like this show," Epstein said. "They think it's a bad
influence on me. They're too conservative."
"I think it's a
generational thing," Siesholtz said.
But Bob Yarbrough, of
North Miami, who is in his 30s, disagreed. "There are
some people who just have closed minds to some scenarios," he said.
Yarbrough, who got into line at 6:30 a.m. despite a sign warning against
queuing up before 10 a.m., kept a list of the names of the people in line.
He said that last year, when the show was at the Jackie Gleason Theatre in
Miami Beach, there were fights for places in line. The line stayed orderly
Sunday, but there was no shortage of emotion.
Lisa Mizel, 18, was
in line to see the show for the 17th time. Mizel has an
album full of autographs and more than 200 pictures of the show's cast in
her native Toronto. She got in trouble with her parents the one time she
camped out all night in line for tickets, so she arrived at the theater
Sunday at a safe 9 a.m.
As numbers 30 and 31
in line, Mizel and Hernandez were both on the verge of
getting one of the coveted discounted tickets. The next cheapest tickets
available sold for $35, and they were nowhere near the front row.
When the moment of
truth came, Mizel was in, snagging the last two seats
for her and her grandmother. But Hernandez was out. She burst into tears
when she saw there were no more rush tickets.
"I would swim
naked in the Intracoastal for tickets to the show," sobbed
Hernandez. Instead, she only had to sell programs in exchange for what she
called "nosebleed" seats.
Fred Carrier, chief
of operations for the Broward Center for the Performing
Arts, who is in his 60s, watched the crowd in disbelief. He said he
thought the people who get in line at 6 a.m. are "crazy."
"When I was
their age," he said, "I had better things to do."
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