In 1996, the Rock musical, Rent, came to the Nederlander Theater on Broadway. It was based off the tragic opera, La Bohème, which is a tragic love story between Rodolfo and Mimi. It has become one of the successful musicals. It centers around the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Rent deals with a lot of controversial topics such as the LGBT community and a drug addict. Tragically, Johnathon Larson, the composer of the musical, died the day before the first preview, but his legacy lives on in the musical.
It has been debated whether or not Rent has aged well or not. I fell in love with Rent September of 2012 by songs alone. In my opinion, Rent has aged well. Just because the HIV/AIDS epidemic is long gone, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t aged well. Don’t forget, last year, we started being in the middle of a pandemic—so it does connect to that. Its message of living in the moment and living life in love is still relevant. Same with the other controversial topics. As a matter of fact, I actually can relate to the characters of Rent- yes, I don’t have HIV, but have Epilepsy. True, not the same thing, but the struggles are similar- as in the stresses, the anxiety, and the fear. I can understand what they are going through.

Just like Les Mis, I am an emotional wreck in Rent. Rent actually led me to wanting to see La Bohème. I originally started with seeing the Met’s live stream of the opera in cinemas- and eventually saw the opera in person. La Bohème was the final show I saw in 2020- it was through Opera Carolina.