by Roy Proctor
Times-Dispatch
May 7, 1999

he guy you really want to interview for a story on Broadway's 1996 musical phenomenon -- "Rent" -- isn't available.

Jonathan Larson, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Tony-winning and almost-every-other-award-winning rock opera, died of an aortic aneurysm at age 35 on the eve of his show's first off-Broadway preview.

So what do you do?

You interview someone who knew -- and, as it turns out, almost invariably loved -- Larson instead.

"Jonathan was a passionate artist, an open-hearted, generous individual, a stubborn writer and a good guy," "Rent" co-producer Jeffrey Seller said recently by phone from his New York office as "Rent" continued on its way toward Richmond, where it'll play Tuesday through May 16 at the Landmark Theater.

Seller and Larson met in New York in the early '90s, when both were theatrical nobodies. Seller, 25, was struggling to establish himself as a booking agent. Larson, almost 30, was living in penury in the bohemian East Village as he continued to pursue that big but elusive show-biz break.

"I saw a show of Jonathan's called 'Tick . . . Tick . . . Boom!' off-Broadway," Seller recalled.

"It was all about a guy turning 30 and writing rock musicals no one wants to produce while asking himself, 'Should I continue to write rock musicals, make no money and have a bathtub in the kitchen? Or should I throw it all away and become an advertising copywriter?'

"I felt like Jonathan was telling my story, but he was really telling his own.

"I wrote him a letter the next day and said, 'You're amazing and I want to produce your musicals.'

"He said, 'Please do.' "

Larson remained so poor that, 10 days before he died, he had to sell some books to raise money to see the film "Dead Man Walking." The claw-footed bathtub still sat in the middle of his loft apartment that had a leaking roof.

"Rent" loosely transfers the story of Puccini's "La Boheme" to the struggling artists, the junkies, the drag queens, the homeless, the HIV-infected and all the other mix-and-match people who make the East Village so colorful today.

Theatrically speaking, it tells the story of American society's outsiders at the end of a line that Seller likes to trace from "West Side Story" through "Hair" to "A Chorus Line."

Its passionate rock score, leavened by blues, salsa, pop-balladry and other contemporary musical idioms, helped make it such a resoundingly hot ticket off-Broadway that its transfer to the Great White Way was inevitable.

Larson's death left Seller reeling.

"We had had a dress rehearsal the night before," he recalled, "and I came in the next morning looking forward to the first preview. When my general manager told me he had died, I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. It was like I had entered 'The Twilight Zone.'"

"Rent," however, established Seller as a producer beyond his wildest dreams.

"I never expected it to be that successful," he said. "I was just hoping it would become a modest off-Broadway success and run a year or two. What it's done is allow me to be a full-time producer, to do what I love most: making shows."

In retrospect, however, the success of "Rent" doesn't surprise him.

"It said something people wanted to hear in a language they wanted to hear at the right time," Seller said. "It gave new life to the moribund Broadway musical. The story of the bohemian artist toiling for years on his masterpiece and then dying as a pauper before it opened became inextricably tied up with the myth of the show.

"It's a milestone musical because it's about people who are living and breathing today. People you can know and love. People who wonder, 'How do I pay my rent? How do I be a loving lover and a good friend? How do I realize my dreams in a world that feels like it's ripping apart?'

"And it's communicated with a score that actually makes you feel. You don't just feel it in your head. You feel it in your heart.' "

Seller acknowledges that, while "Rent" brings young people to the theater in uncommonly large numbers, its refusal to flinch, much less apologize, for lifestyles some might find unseemly has turned off some of their elders.

"What Jonathan wanted was to bring Broadway musicals to a younger audience than to an audience his parents' age," he said. "I continue to find and produce theater that breaks the rules and speaks to young people. I'm 34, and I want to do theater for my peers."

. . .

Dwayne Clark, who plays HIV-infected, computer-age philosopher Tom Collins in "Rent," has been with the tour coming here for 19 months.

He's 25.

"This is my first acting gig," Clark, who sang "Stand by Me" so movingly in "Smokey Joe's Cafe" two years ago at the Carpenter Center, said recently by phone from his hotel room in New Orleans.

"This is a much more personal show for me than 'Smokey Joe.' It's an emotional journey.

"I wake up every morning with bags under my eyes because of the emotions I went through the 3½ hours I was at the theater the night before. Two-show days and five-show weekends are especially hard."

Like Seller, Clark recognizes that for all its phenomenal success, "Rent" has its detractors.

"I know some have a negative reaction. People voice their opinions on a "Rent" Web site, and some of the negative reaction has been that the subject matter is just too hard to bear."

But Clark likes to dwell on the positive -- even therapeutic -- effects of "Rent."

"We get letters from young people who are coming out," he said. "They bring their parents to the show, and their parents don't know they're gay or lesbian. 'Rent' helps them approach the subject with the parents. It helps the parent be more sensitive to what their children are going through.

"I got one letter from a girl who saw me in Detroit, and she brought her blind mother with her. She said her mother's reaction was unbelievable to her. Her mother was really moved by the content of the show. Because of her impairment, she listened so intensely. Her mother was really touched."