by Lynn Taylor Rick
Rapid City Journal
November 16, 2000

In the four years since "Rent" first stormed the New York theater world, audiences in Rapid City have had to be satisfied with reading about the stunningly popular show and listening to the musical CD.

Not any longer.

"Rent," the touring production, lifts its curtain for three shows Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 21-22, at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.

And "Rent" producer Kevin McCollum promises it will be just as spectacular as the Broadway production.

"Everything down to the back wall of the set is a mirror (of the original)," he says. "It's going to knock your socks off."

Based loosely on "La Boheme," "Rent" borrows names and overall subject matter from the opera. But while "La Boheme" is based among the artists of Paris during the plague of tuberculosis, "Rent" fast forwards to the gritty East Village of New York City during the modern-day scourge of AIDS.

The show's narrator, Mark, is a filmmaker who shares an industrial loft with Roger, a musician grieving the suicide of his girlfriend, who killed herself upon learning she had AIDS.

Mark, too, is grieving the break-up of his relationship with Maureen, an ambitious performance artist who has left him for another woman.

The men's neighbor, an exotic dancer named Mimi, finds herself helplessly attracted to Roger. Despite Roger's attempts to push her away, the two troubled souls enter into an emotional relationship which eventually leads to the discovery that each is living with HIV.

There's also Collins, a computer-age philosopher with HIV, and his lover, Angel, a street musician also living with HIV.

The show celebrates the resiliency of the artists, who long to make an impact in their crafts while struggling to fend off the virus that grips their community. It's also a love story, about people who attempt to find happiness together no matter the odds. And it's a story of caring -- a caring that binds the group of friends together.

Peppered with such hits as "Seasons of Love," "I'll Cover You" and "One Song Glory," "Rent," which opened at the New York Theater Workshop, became an instant success. Called the "Hair" of the '90s, many critics considered it to be a turning point in musical theater.

The musical won a Pulitzer Prize for drama, four Tony Awards for best musical, best score, best book and best featured actor; a New York Drama Critics Circle Award and six Drama Desk Awards, as well as many others.

Despite its somewhat raw subject matter, "Rent" will speak to people of all ages and people living in all parts of the country, promises McCollum. "Grandparents were 25 when 'Hair' opened," he says. They understand.

The legendary tale behind "Rent" has garnered as much attention as the rock musical itself.

It all starts with a guy named Jonathan Larson, an eager song writer/performer who considered himself the savior of American musical theater.

For years, Larson drudged through day jobs as a waiter while writing and creating his "rock musicals." "Rent" actually evolved from a conversation between Larson and another playwright. The two men imagined a modern-day take on the Puccini opera "La Boheme."

When their visions couldn't be melded -- Larson wanted to set it in the East Village, his friend disagreed -- Larson asked permission to go it alone.

McCollum remembers seeing "Rent" in a "read through" format in November of 1994. Larson had already been working on the show for five years.

"The first 20 minutes, I didn't quite understand what was going on," McCollum says. But 35 minutes into the show, the cast performed "Will You Light My Candle" and McCollum says it all came together.

"I turned to Jeffery (Seller, a fellow producer) and said, 'That is one of the best pieces of musical theater ever written.'"

The two producers signed Larson at intermission, without even seeing the second act.

For the next two years, Larson continued to work with directors and producers, re-writing and changing the show. McCollum says that by the end of 1995, he began to truly see its potential. "I was telling people it was going to be huge," he says. "The story was so epic."

He was right.

"Rent" opened in January 1996 to staggering success.

The 180-seat New York Theater Workshop theater filled every night, often with celebrity audiences. "We were asking Steven Spielberg, 'Could you come back another night. It was intense,'" remembers McCollum.

Larson, the ambitious playwright with endless optimism and confidence, had finally proven himself.

But Larson never got to see it. A day prior to the show's opening, Larson returned home after a dress rehearsal and died from an aortic aneurysm.

"I still don't quite comprehend it," says McCollum. "It's one of the reasons we work so hard on it."

The show moved to Broadway just months after its opening.

Although many predicted the show would rejuvenate Broadway's interest in musical theater, that's not necessarily the case, says McCollum.

"I don't think people realize how difficult it is to make a rent," he says. The years of work invested by Larson and others tell that story.

There aren't a lot of people willing to take risks on new writers. That's another reminder of the tragedy of Larson's death, says McCollum.

Had he lived, Larson would have continued to create original works for the theater, says McCollum. For that reason, the success of "Rent" has been utterly bittersweet.

"I would give it all away if Jonathan were here to write more songs," says McCollum.