So long to "Rent", a Broadway staple and the 7th-longest running show on the Great White Way, which ended its 12 year run this weekend. Having been inspired by Pucini's opera, "La Boheme", and itself having inspired a movie version two years ago, Rent is one of the most important pieces of modern musical theatre today, bringing a very mainstream version of the dramatic arts - the musical - back to its more artistic, experimental, edgy roots. With nary a bad song in the score, memorable and unique characters, each with their own voice, and the normalcy with which gay and straight characters, whites and minorities, the HIV-infected and the healthy, the addicts and the non-addicts, are treated as they come on and off the canvas, is tremendous.
Sentimental without being schmaltzy, Jonathan Larson - who died just before opening night - created a piece of musical theatre, a modern theatrical masterpiece, which will endure beyond just the cult hit many fancy it to be. It will always live on in touring versions and hopefully a revival on Broadway. My congratulations to everyone involved with the production the last twelve years on a memorable and fantastic run. "No day but today!"
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