Rent

Rent is based on Puccini's La Boheme about a bunch of starving artists living in New York. It is written by Jonathan Larson, who passed away before opening night. It's theme is " No Day But Today". When I was 17, the summer after we graduated, Rent came to town. We dubbed ourselves Rentheads. Any chance we got, we would pack a bag and camp outside of the Vogue Theatre on Granville Street for the day. We did this in order to get front row tickets to the musical that preached Bohemia. The point of the tickets were to demonstrate that you didn't have to be rich to go to the theatre. We met lots of great people, none of which I can remember now. I remember we met a woman that was standing in line so her daughter could go to the show. When the ticket box opened, she explained to all of us that she was only buying one ticket because she couldn't afford another. Everyone pitched in to buy her a ticket. We called her Rent Mom.