RENT, the surprise smash hit musical that premiered in 1996 and went on to become the seventh-longest-running Broadway show in history, will close June 1st, producers have announced. Over the years the show cultivated a fanatical army of young repeat viewers (“Rentheads”) whose ardor has translated into profits of $280 million on Broadway, four Tony awards and a Pulitzer. Productions have been mounted on six continents, while an ill-conceived movie version of the show, filmed in San Francisco, opened in 2005 to widespread derision. And the musical was also famously parodied by the South Park creators in their film Team America, which depicts the faux-hip cast of the Broadway show LEASE belting the show’s climactic chorus, “Everyone has AIDS!”
RENT composer and librettist Jonathan Larson died from an aortic aneurysm at 35 after toiling on the musical for seven years. Larson lived to see RENT, which is loosely adapted from Puccini’s opera “La Bohème, go into rehearsals Off Broadway, only to die on the night of the final dress rehearsal. But RENT quickly became an overnight sensation for its jaunty score and gritty portrait of life in the East Village of the early 90s, right on the cusp of the neighborhood’s devolution into the fratastic brodeo of today.
Producer Jeffrey Seller blames the closure on a drop in ticket sales due to competition from newer youth-centric musicals like Legally Blonde and Spring Awakening. Another factor has to do with the touring version of the show, which has made $330 million and given the rest of America less of a reason to see it when they visit New York. Though with the end nigh, producers can expect one final surge of Rentheads to get them through to June. Will you be joining them?
Photo of Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal by Joan Marcus; video of "Seasons of Love" from the film version
