Jonathan Larson

Jonathan Larson: Rent

Rent is an American Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical, with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson. It opened in New York City in February 1996, at the New York Theatre Workshop before moving to Broadway. Based on Giacomo Puccini's opera 'La Boheme', the musical centres on a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive in New York's Alphabet City in the last days of the Bohemian East Village, under the shadow of AIDS. Rent was one of the first Broadway musicals to clearly feature gay, bisexual, lesbian, and transgender characters. It is also noted for its ethnically diverse cast, which includes many racial minorities in its ensemble and leading roles. Rent is considered revolutionary for bringing controversial topics and counterculture to a traditionally conservative medium, and is credited with increasing the popularity of musical theater in the younger generation.