Rent

Rent has single-handedly reinvigorated Broadway and taken America by storm. Sweeping all major theater awards, including the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama, as well as four 1996 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score for a Musical, Rent captures the heart and spirit of a generation, refleting it onstage through the emotion of its stirring words and music, and the energy of its young cast. Now, for the first time, Rent comes to life on the page -- through vivid color photographs, the full libretto, and an utterly compelling behind-the-scenes oral history of the show's creation. Here is the exclusive and absolutely complete companion to Rent, told in the voices of the extraordinary talent behind its success: the actors, the director, the producers, and the librettist and composer himself, Jonathan Larson, whose sudden death, on the eve of the first performance, has made Rent's life-affirming message all the more poignant.

Amazon.com Review
This is by far the must-get theater book of the year. With dazzling punk graphics that will quickly win book industry awards, the volume contains the entire libretto of the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning musical about love and loyalty among starving AIDS-stricken artists in New York's East Village. But editors Evelyn McDonnell and Katherine Silberger wisely understand that the story of the show's creation is as compelling as the musical itself--so more than half of this volume is devoted to an oral history of the composer/lyricist/librettist Jonathan Larson, who came to New York hoping to revolutionize musical theater--then died of an aortic aneurysm the night of the show's final preview. It's an event book for an event musical.

I have been a (I guess you'd call it a RENThead for a while now and I'm proud of it. I love the beauty of the music, the acting, the very UNshallow storyline, and ultimately, the experience. I absolutely love Jonathan Larson's exquisite creation and I KNOW you will too! Enjoy!


a RENT fan   November 29, 1999
Carrie (Toledo, Ohio)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful

This is a wonderful book. If you are a fan of books or a fan of RENT, this is a great buy. Glancing through the pages you will remember your experience of seeing the musical. It is easily relived by leafing through this book. A definite must have for the RENT fan. This is a book well worth the money.


As spectacular as RENT itself   August 22, 1998
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

RENT is said to have changed Broadway, and RENT has changed my life. This book captures the essence of the show, with poignant details about its creator (the now-deceased Jonathan Larson), the full liberetto, some of Jonathan's working notes from the play, and comments from Original Broadway Cast mambers and others close to the creation of RENT. The book RENT is absolutely necessary for anyone who saw and loved the show, anyone who wants to more about RENT than is written in the CD booklet. If you haven't seen RENT yet, buy the CD, buy the book and buy tickets to the show! And if you've seen RENT already, go see it again!


A must have for fans of the show and theatre history.   August 12, 1997
Boberick@blackper.com (Blackwood, NJ)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

It is the stuff theatre legends are made of: a struggling composer writes and rewrites a show for years, living on a shoestring in New York City, waiting for the break that will mean his music will be heard around the world. Then, tragically, as his show is about to open off-Broadway, he is struck by an aneuryism and dies. His show goes on to huge acclaim, winning Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, and making stars of its actors. A fictional tale? No. This is the story of the musical "RENT" and its composer Jonathan Larson, who died before he could see the awards his show won or enjoy the fame it brought him. The authors of this book have tried, and succeeded, to make the celebratory book of "RENT" different from any other theatre book. Framing the full libretto (complete with an incredible series of pictures taken during the run of an evening's performance) is the life history of Jonathan Larson and his music, told in the words of his family, friends, and colleagues, ranging from his parents to the cast members to Stephen Sondheim. At the end of the book are pages of bios and pictures of the actors from the original Broadway cast, with comments in their own words about what the show and Jonathan have meant to them. This is at the very least an interesting pictorial and written history of the show that critics have said revitalized Broadway. But for a true fan of the show or of musical theatre, this book is a joyous celebration of a dream that became reality too late for its dreamer but just in time for those who had given up on the great American musical. It is funny, entertaining, sobering, and touching at times, and will not fail to affect any reader with the honest picture it paints