San Antonio 2000 Article 2 (Rent... worldwide)

"Rent" Strikes Chord Worldwide

by Deborah Martin
San Antonio.com
August 17, 2000

The show: 'Rent' is about a group of close friends struggling to keep up with the rent and other bills while they try to make it as artists. Some also are dealing with AIDS.

The score: The music includes showstoppers such as the opening number, 'Rent'; 'La Vie Boheme,' a rousing salute to the bohemian life; and 'Cover Me,' a haunting love song.

The story behind the show: One of the things that got the show a ton of national attention at the beginning was the death of Jonathan Larson, who wrote it, right before the premiere. That loss always colors the show for producer Jeffrey Seller.

'For me, the experience is always laced with my memories of Jonathan and my mourning of his loss. Fortunately, most people don't have to deal with it. At this point, most people don't know that story and just take the show for what it is, and that's a good thing.'

From the moment he saw an early draft of "Rent," producer Jeffrey Seller knew that Jonathan Larson, who wrote the rock 'n' roll musical, was onto something special.

Larson's show is about a group of poor artists who support one another through a rough holiday season. They struggle to keep up with the bills while also maintaining the purity of their artistic visions; several also are fighting AIDS.

"I really felt that Jonathan Larson was an artist for my generation. I finally thought I was experiencing a theater artist show who was speaking about issues that were relevant to me, creating characters I felt I might know and might want to be friends with. He was doing it in a musical voice that made the hair on my arms stand up; it made me feel something," Seller said.

Even so, he figured the show would play off-Broadway for a while, then be consigned to theater history.

Instead, the show struck a chord with audiences almost immediately. Four years after its first performances, it's still running on Broadway and has spawned two touring troupes. It has played all over the world, sometimes translated into other languages, sometimes done in English.

"We just played two weeks in Tokyo," Seller said. "They had already done the show in the Japanese language on two different occasions, but they wanted to do it again so that audiences could see what it's like in English. (Fans) went crazy; it was like major movie stars had come to Tokyo. (The cast was) mobbed in one restaurant so often that the manager eventually said, 'The "Rent" cast can't come here anymore because they create havoc.'

"Everyone relates to the show. We're all trying to fall in love, all trying to realize our dreams without cynicism, without selling out."

The show spoke to Cary Shields, a struggling musician who saw the show on Broadway a few years ago. Until he saw it, he had no designs at all on an acting career, but was so taken with the story that he ended up auditioning for and winning parts in both a Canadian tour and the current U.S. tour, which stops in San Antonio this week.

He's contracted with the show through the end of November. He's not sure whether he'll stick with it or not — he's been with "Rent" for more than two years, which is long enough to know that it's better to leave "while you still love the show. Some people will stay on and think that it's such a great job, they'd be foolish to leave, but then they stop believing the message, and becomes a disservice to people offstage and onstage."

If he does leave at the end of his contract, he's not sure if he'll ever audition for another musical.

"With 'Rent,' it's such a phenomenon that it would be hard for me to go on and do 'Brigadoon,'" he said. "I grew up listening to the Who, though, so if there was ever a first-rate 'Tommy' tour, I'd definitely audition for it. And now that there's a slew of people writing the next 'Rent,' if the next 'Rent' needs some rough-looking guy like me, I'd want to do it."

At this point, "Rent" shows no sight of slowing down. Tours have been booked through 2002.

Even if interest dies off a bit at that point, the show will go on at some level, he said.

"That's the great thing about great musicals. After you play them on Broadway, they go to colleges and high schools and community theaters and stock theater. With movies, we ingest them and then we throw them away. Every so often, there's a movie that stays with us, but that doesn't happen often. A (live) show lives on in the life of our culture."