#broadways

I am so lucky we're best friends for a multiplicity of reasons! But we must always remember that I am a dirty theatre kid and went through a PRONOUNCED rent phase at like 13/14, I know all the lyrics, I would wake up and put the rent dvd in my little portable dvd player and watch the first couple scenes before i went to school, it is my mother's favorite musical of all time (MoR continues to be absolutely impossible to predict) like. I have seen things bro.

The recent burst is 1) because it's Christmas adjacent so I can listen to the soundtrack while getting in a seasonal vibe. Oh and also. It gets dark at like 4 I need some comfort food

But 2) for all its faults, it's also just this fascinating piece of cultural and theatre history. Like Jonathan Larson dies the day of the first off Broadway preview.... the show isn't finished? Or at least not polished? A show can change so much in previews? Workshops? Come on! And I think you can really tell that there are pieces of the show that don't connect; the homeless aspect completely disappears after act 1, the tone whips wildly from scene to scene, act 2 by and large has less good songs even for a second act, things like Mark's line "I'm the one of us to survive" seems to be tied to the point in the script where Joanne and Maureen are also HIV positive but thats not the case in the "finished" version and TELLINGLY THE LAST SONG IN THE SHOW IS SO BAD something that you'd think they'd fix after they had seen it staged, but he never gets a chance. Like I could go on!

And it's so interesting because the number one show that rent gets compared to is Hair; countercultural shows that fundamentally changed broadway. But Hair is famous for being a very different kind of show- it continues to maintain its hippy ethos by having open, changing direction, the songs are changed or reranged. The plot of Hair is minimal because it's about the feelings and the more open they can be with the audience, the more effective Hair can be.

Rent, meanwhile. Despite the obvious problems that rent has, Larson's death meant that the entire production was frozen in amber. Any alterations to the original direction have been met with heavy fan and critical negativity. And I mean, I'm a phantom fan, I'm a cats fan, I like a replica. But with rent,,,, the show doesn't feel done!! And there are big problems that feel like someone with a keen eye could just. Fix. a lot of them but they never will.

This is added to the fact that Rent essentially modeled theatre Fandom for the next 30 years at minimum. Oh also it somehow won the pulitzer. Like it's fascinating.

The absolute chaotic energy the musical theatre fandom emits