Louisville Magazine
July 16, 1998

Jonathan Larson dreamed of invigorating the Broadway musical to catch the interest of a new generation of theatergoers. So he took the plot of the opera La Boheme and updated the story, setting it in Greenwich Village and substituting the AIDS epidemic for La Boheme's tuberculosis plague. From this was born RENT, the final show in the Broadway Series season at the Kentucky Center for the Arts.

Despite RENT's serious subject matter, its upbeat musical score and humorous and poignant characters create a celebration of life on the stage. This is especially ironic, considering that Larson died suddenly on the eve of the first preview of the show and never got to see RENT's meteoric success, which included four Tony awards and a Pulitzer Prize.

In honor of Larson's desire to make theater accessible to everyone, RENT's producers dictated that seats in the first two rows at each performance would be sold two hours prior to curtain for only $20. So when the KCA hosts RENT on July 14-26, a limited number of cash-only, $20 tickets will be sold for each performance, allowing financially-challenged RENT-heads (as they are called in New York City) to take part in the first of a new generation of Broadway musicals. Regular tickets are available at any Ticketmaster outlet or by calling 361-3100.