![]() ![]() Jonathan Larson focused on composing Rent in the early 1990s, waiting tables at the Moondance Diner to support himself. Aronson and Larson made an agreement that if the show went to Broadway, Aronson would share in the proceeds and be given credit for "original concept & additional lyrics". Larson had ambitious expectations for Rent his ultimate dream was to write a rock opera "to bring musical theater to the MTV generation". In 1991, he asked Aronson if he could use Aronson's original concept and make Rent his own. He also came up with the show's ultimate title (a decision that Aronson was unhappy with, at least until Larson pointed out that "rent" also means torn apart). Larson suggested setting the play "amid poverty, homelessness, spunky gay life, drag queens and punk" in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, which happened to be down the street from his Greenwich Village apartment. In 1988, playwright Billy Aronson wanted to create "a musical based on Puccini's La Bohème, in which the luscious splendor of Puccini's world would be replaced with the coarseness and noise of modern New York." In 1989, Jonathan Larson, a 29-year-old composer, began collaborating with Aronson on this project, and the two composed together "Santa Fe", "Splatter" (later re-worked into the song "Rent"), and "I Should Tell You". In 2005, it was adapted into a motion picture featuring six of the eight principal cast members from the 1996 stage premiere. The success of the show led to several national tours and numerous foreign productions. The production grossed over $280 million. The Broadway production closed on September 7, 2008, after 12 years, making it one of the longest-running shows on Broadway. On Broadway, Rent gained critical acclaim and won several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Musical. The musical moved to Broadway's larger Nederlander Theatre on April 29, 1996. The musical was first seen in 1993 in a workshop production at New York Theatre Workshop, the off-Broadway theatre which was also where the musical officially premiered on Januthe show's creator, Jonathan Larson, died suddenly of an aortic dissection, believed to have been caused by undiagnosed Marfan syndrome, the night before. Loosely based on the 1896 opera La bohème by Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica, and Giuseppe Giacosa, which in turn is based on the 1851 novel Scenes of Bohemian Life by Henri Murger, it tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in Lower Manhattan's East Village, in the thriving days of the bohemian culture of Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Rent is a rock musical with music, lyrics, and book by Jonathan Larson. Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics.Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical.Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |