100 Fun Facts About Rent

Which earlier Jonathan Larson musical, about a composer turning 30, became a 2021 Netflix film starring Andrew Garfield?

Tick, Tick... Boom! began as a one-man show that Larson performed himself; only after his death was it reworked for three actors and staged off-Broadway.

Rent is loosely based on which 1896 opera?

La bohème's tuberculosis became HIV/AIDS in Rent, and its Paris garret of the 1830s became a New York loft around 1990.

In which Manhattan neighborhood is Rent set?

The East Village was Larson's idea: his collaborator first pictured the story among yuppies on the Upper West Side, and Larson pushed it downtown.

Which playwright had the original idea for Rent in 1988 and worked with Larson on its first three songs?

Billy Aronson agreed in 1991 to let Larson carry on alone, asking only for a credit, 'original concept and additional lyrics', and a share if the show was ever produced.

Where did Jonathan Larson wait tables for almost ten years while writing Rent?

The Moondance Diner, in SoHo, kept him on for nine and a half years; he quit only three months before he died, and the diner itself was later trucked to Wyoming.

Which Rent duet do Maureen and Joanne sing as their relationship falls apart in Act II?

Take Me or Leave Me erupts mid-rehearsal; its opening boast, about people staring as Maureen walks down the street, echoes Musetta's waltz in the opera.

Where off-Broadway did Rent begin performances in January 1996?

New York Theatre Workshop became the scene of an impromptu memorial on the day Larson died: friends spoke, then the cast sang through the whole score in his honour.

What killed Jonathan Larson the night before Rent's first preview in 1996?

An aortic dissection, likely caused by undiagnosed Marfan syndrome, killed him at 35; two hospitals had sent him home that week, one of them blaming food poisoning.

Hours before he died, Jonathan Larson gave an interview about Rent to a critic from which newspaper?

The New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini interviewed him after the final dress rehearsal on 24 January; Larson went home and died before morning, so the piece ran only after his death.

Where on Broadway did Rent move in April 1996?

The Nederlander Theatre was chosen for its run-down block, which suited the show; the house was even redecorated to look like a downtown club, with fake graffiti outside.

Besides its Tonys, which other major honour did Rent receive in 1996?

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was announced in April 1996, less than three months after Larson died, so the composer who had waited tables for nearly a decade never saw his show honoured.

Rent's creative team won Best Book and which other Tony Award in 1996?

Best Original Score went to Larson, as did Best Book, both posthumously; the direction, choreography and lighting awards all went to Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk.

Which original Rent cast member won the 1996 Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical as Angel?

Wilson Jermaine Heredia was the only one of Rent's four nominated actors to win, and went on to play the role again in London and in the 2005 film.

What is Mark Cohen's occupation in Rent?

Documentary filmmaker Mark narrates the show from behind his camera; he stands in for Marcello, who in the opera is a painter.

In Rent, Roger's girlfriend April takes her own life after learning what?

That she was HIV-positive was news for Roger too: her note told him he was infected as well, and he has barely left the loft since.

In Rent, Tom Collins teaches which subject at New York University?

Computer-age philosophy is what he teaches after MIT expelled him for his 'theory of actual reality'; his students, he complains, would sooner watch television.

In Rent's 'Today 4 U', how does Angel say she earned a thousand dollars?

Drumming until a dog died was a paid job: a sleepless neighbour hired her to make an Akita bark itself to death, and the dog turns out to be Evita, pet of Benny's wife.

In Rent, Benny wants to clear the homeless from the lot next door to build what?

A cyber arts studio is Benny's pitch to his old roommates: stop Maureen's protest against the eviction and they can live rent-free.

Maureen's protest piece in Rent, which ends with the crowd mooing along, riffs on which nursery rhyme?

Hey Diddle Diddle supplies the cow, the fiddling cat and the dish and spoon of 'Over the Moon', in which a cow named Elsie tells Maureen the only way out is up.

In Rent, where does Collins dream of escaping to open a restaurant?

Santa Fe stays a dream for Collins, but Roger really goes: in Act II he sells his guitar, buys a car and drives there, only to come back for Mimi.

The riot that ends Rent's first act echoes a real 1988 clash over a curfew in which New York park?

Tompkins Square Park was where Larson first wanted the story set; the 1988 clash there over a new 1 a.m. curfew gave him his Act I ending.

Rent's Act II opener 'Seasons of Love' is also known by which figure from its first line?

525,600 Minutes is the length of a common year; the cast step out of the story and line up across the stage to ask how you measure one, and answer: in love.

What is the name of the group for people living with HIV that Tom Collins attends in Rent?

Life Support gives the show one of its quietest moments: a member asks whether he will lose his dignity, and the question grows into the round 'Will I?', sung by the whole company.

In Rent, which sleazy tabloid TV show keeps phoning Mark with a job offer?

Buzzline's producer Alexi Darling courts him across two voicemail songs; he finally takes the job, hates it, and walks away to finish his own work.

In Rent, where does Mimi work as a dancer?

The Cat Scratch Club is where Roger thinks he has seen her before; her counterpart in the opera is a seamstress.

Which song does Roger finally finish and sing to the dying Mimi in Rent's finale?

Your Eyes takes him the whole year to write, and it borrows from Musetta's waltz, the very tune Mark teases him for playing whenever he picks up his guitar.

In Rent's finale, Mimi revives after a vision of whom tells her to turn back?

Angel, who died earlier in the act, meets her in the white light and sends her back to Roger; in the opera, Mimì simply dies.

Who originated the role of Maureen Johnson in Rent on Broadway?

Idina Menzel was a wedding and bar mitzvah singer with no professional stage credits when she was cast; the role brought her a Tony nomination.

Which original Rent cast member played the landlord Benny and later married the show's first Maureen?

Taye Diggs left for Hollywood within two years, making his film debut in How Stella Got Her Groove Back; the marriage lasted from 2003 to 2014.

Which original Rent star played Tom Collins before spending nine seasons as Detective Ed Green on Law & Order?

Jesse L. Martin had once waited tables alongside Larson, and took a break from the police drama in 2005 to play Collins again on film.

Who originated the role of Roger Davis in Rent, earning a 1996 Tony nomination?

Adam Pascal was a rock singer who had never acted on stage; he auditioned after a school friend mentioned the show, and the part became his theatre debut.

Which former child star made his musical theatre debut as Mark Cohen on Rent's 1997 'Benny Tour'?

Neil Patrick Harris came back to the show as a director in 2010, staging three nights of Rent at the Hollywood Bowl.

Devoted Rent fans who camped outside the theatre for cheap seats became known by what name?

RENT-heads made the $20 same-day tickets so popular that the producers had to replace the overnight queue with a lottery.

Which prized seats did Rent's producers sell for just $20 on the day of each show?

The first two rows went for $20 so that young fans could afford to come; other Broadway shows copied the idea, and rush and lottery seats are now routine.

How was Rent's final Broadway performance, in September 2008, preserved for posterity?

As a film shown in cinemas: Sony recorded the closing performances in high definition and released Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway weeks after the 5,123rd and last show.

Roughly how much did the original Broadway production gross?

A 2006 one-night original-cast reunion alone raised over $2 million for charity.

Who directed the 2005 film adaptation of Rent?

Chris Columbus kept six of the eight original Broadway leads, a decade after they created the roles, although a pop-star cast had been discussed for the film.

Who played Joanne in the 2005 Rent film, one of only two leads not played by a Broadway original?

Tracie Thoms was cast after Fredi Walker, the first Joanne, asked the filmmakers to keep the character Black; Thoms then joined the Broadway company for its closing weeks in 2008.

Who played Mimi in the 2005 Rent film, replacing the pregnant Daphne Rubin-Vega?

Rosario Dawson's own childhood fit the story: her family moved into an empty Manhattan building and made a home there when she was small.

Which pop star was once discussed for a pop-cast film of Rent, before the 2005 movie used the Broadway originals?

Justin Timberlake's name was floated, along with Christina Aguilera's, for a pop-star version; the film that got made kept six of the eight Broadway leads instead.

Roughly how much did the 2005 film gross worldwide, against a $40M budget?

It stayed in the box office top ten for three weeks but never covered its costs.

Why did Fox's Rent: Live in January 2019 end up airing mostly a dress-rehearsal recording?

Its Roger broke his foot: Brennin Hunt was hurt near the end of Saturday's dress rehearsal, so Fox aired that taping and only the final scene was performed live around him.

Which member of Hamilton's creative team cites Rent as a main inspiration and name-checks Larson on 'Wrote My Way Out'?

Lin-Manuel Miranda has called his first sight of Rent an 'a-ha' moment, a show that made people think 'I can do that'; on the Hamilton Mixtape track he raps about Larson's rent cheque.

In 2014, Rent was billed as the first Broadway musical staged in which country since the Cold War soured relations?

Cuba's production was directed in Havana by Andy Señor Jr., a former Rent cast member whose parents were Cuban exiles; he had twelve weeks to rehearse local actors, and filmed the journey.

Which Puccini aria did Larson draw on melodically for Rent's song 'Light My Candle'?

Musetta's Waltz from La bohème is quoted outright elsewhere in the score.

In Rent, beepers go off during the Act I party to remind characters to take which drug?

AZT was the first drug used against HIV, and the beepers time each dose; four of the friends at the table stop to swallow their pills.

Which director staged Rent's original Broadway production and later Next to Normal and Dear Evan Hansen?

Michael Greif was also running La Jolla Playhouse in California at the time, which is why Rent's second national tour opened in San Diego rather than Los Angeles.

At which West End theatre did Rent have its UK premiere in 1998?

Shaftesbury Theatre audiences saw four of the Broadway originals, who crossed the Atlantic to open the London run; it lasted about eighteen months.

Which Motown legend sings on a remixed 'Seasons of Love' included on Rent's 1996 cast album?

Stevie Wonder takes the lines usually sung by the two soloists and adds his harmonica, on a studio remake that closes the double album.

Which phrase, repeated through Rent and sung in its final moments, became the show's motto?

No day but today is first sung in Act I by people living with HIV and returns as the last words of the finale, a creed for friends who may not have long.

Rent's original Maureen later won a Tony for originating which lead role in Wicked?

Elphaba, the misunderstood Wicked Witch of the West, brought her the 2004 Tony for Best Leading Actress. Rent had been her first professional theatre job, and it earned her a nomination too.

Which sitcom's staff serenaded their departing boss with a rewritten version of Rent's Seasons of Love?

The Office gave Michael Scott the send-off in Michael's Last Dundies, with Andy leading the staff in new words to the tune. It was one of Steve Carell's final episodes as the boss.

Which Spice Girl took over as Mimi in Rent on Broadway in the spring of 2004?

Melanie Brown, Scary Spice, stepped into the role in April 2004. She went straight from the show back into the studio and released her next songs through an independent label.

Which Spider-Man actor earned an Oscar nomination playing Rent creator Jonathan Larson in Tick, Tick... Boom!?

Andrew Garfield won a Golden Globe for the part. The 2021 film grew out of a one-man rock monologue that Larson performed himself, years before Rent reached the stage.

Which 2004 comedy has a hero who stars in Lease, a Broadway musical spoofing Rent?

Team America: World Police is the puppet satire from the makers of South Park. Its hero Gary Johnston is the star of Lease until a counterterrorism squad recruits him for his acting skills.

The actor who originated Mark Cohen in Rent played Commander Paul Stamets in which science-fiction franchise?

Star Trek: Discovery made Stamets the first openly gay character in one of the franchise's television series. It was also the actor's first regular TV role, some twenty years after Rent opened.

Rent puts the AIDS epidemic in the place of which disease that haunts the Puccini opera behind the story?

Tuberculosis kills the seamstress heroine of the 1896 opera. Her counterpart in Rent lives with HIV, collapses in the last scene and then wakes up again.

Glee opened a 2013 tribute episode with Rent's Seasons of Love to honour which late cast member?

Cory Monteith died in July 2013. In the episode The Quarterback, glee club members past and present sing the Rent anthem at the funeral of his character, Finn Hudson.

Which NSYNC singer made his Broadway debut in 2002 as Mark Cohen in Rent?

Joey Fatone picked up Mark's camera in the year NSYNC went on indefinite hiatus. The same year he played Cousin Angelo in the hit comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Which High School Musical star played Mimi at the Hollywood Bowl and Maureen in Fox's Rent: Live?

Vanessa Hudgens took the two roles nine years apart. In 2021 she joined a third Jonathan Larson project, the film of his earlier musical Tick, Tick... Boom!

On which night of the year does Rent open, with Mark and Roger freezing in an unheated loft?

Christmas Eve returns for the finale, exactly one year on. The friends gather in the same loft, and the power fails on them all over again.

Which Broadway composer mentored Jonathan Larson and talked him out of acting before he wrote Rent?

Stephen Sondheim persuaded Larson to compose rather than act, then read his work and sent criticism by letter for years. The two last spoke two months before Larson died.

Rent moves the story of Puccini's 1896 opera to Manhattan from which European city?

Paris of the 1800s is home to the opera's poor young artists. Larson gave their New York counterparts an illegal wood-burning stove, a detail taken from his own apartment.

Joanne Jefferson, the woman Maureen leaves Mark for in Rent, works in which profession?

Lawyer is how Joanne earns a living, in public-interest law. She was educated in the Ivy League, and one of her powerful parents is up for confirmation as a judge.

Reviewers hailed Rent as the 1990s answer to which rock musical of the 1960s?

Hair spoke to the baby boomers the way critics felt Rent spoke to Generation X. One review called Larson's show a rock opera for its time.

Jonathan Larson said he wrote Rent to bring musical theatre to the generation raised on which TV channel?

MTV was the audience he had in mind for his rock opera. He wrote hundreds of songs over the years and made drastic changes before the show reached its final shape.

Which dance gives its name to the Rent duet where Mark and Joanne compare notes on Maureen?

Tango: Maureen has the ex-boyfriend and the new girlfriend bonding over their shared distrust of her, while he fixes the sound equipment for her protest.

Before becoming their landlord in Rent, Benny Coffin III had which connection to Mark and Roger?

Their roommate once, Benny married into a wealthy property family. As the story opens he demands a year of back rent that he had promised would never be a problem.

Rent's original Roger played Theo, lead singer of the band No Vacancy, in which Jack Black comedy?

School of Rock makes No Vacancy the rivals, who win the Battle of the Bands while the crowd chants for the kids. The actor had played in rock bands with school friends before Rent.

In which Rent duet do Collins and Angel first declare their love, a song reprised at Angel's funeral?

I'll Cover You is sung on the street on the night the two meet. Collins leads the reprise at the funeral, the last of the friends to share a memory.

Which actor originated narrator Mark Cohen in Rent, in a 1994 tryout and then on Broadway?

Anthony Rapp was cast in 1994, and Larson then wrote new songs with his voice in mind. He was still playing Mark on a national tour in 2009.

Rent creator Jonathan Larson's sudden death may have stemmed from which undiagnosed genetic disorder?

Marfan syndrome was never confirmed, but a national foundation publicised the possibility to raise awareness. Two hospitals had sent Larson home that week, blaming stress, food poisoning or a virus.

Which pop star and TV talent-show judge played Maureen in Rent at the Hollywood Bowl in 2010?

Nicole Scherzinger, lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, joined the cast for a three-night run that August. The staging was directed by a former Mark from one of the 1990s tours.

Which future Gaston of Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast played Roger in London's Rent Remixed?

Luke Evans spent most of the 2000s in West End musicals. The short-lived 2007 revival came three years before his film breakthrough in Clash of the Titans.

Rent Remixed, a 2007 London revival, was directed by William Baker, the longtime stylist of which pop star?

Kylie Minogue's concerts were his model, and he said he would approach the musical the way he approached her tours. Reviews were poor, and one national paper gave it a single star.

Which RuPaul's Drag Race favourite played Angel in Fox's 2019 broadcast of Rent: Live?

Valentina came to fame on the ninth season of the contest, having worked as a drag queen for only about ten months before it filmed.

Rent's original Roger went on to originate Radames in Aida, a Broadway musical scored by which pop star?

Elton John wrote the score with lyricist Tim Rice, and the Rent alumnus was in both the opening and the closing casts. His first Maureen later joined him in the show as Amneris.

Before Rent gave her a Broadway debut, the original Maureen spent years singing at which kind of event?

Weddings and bar mitzvahs paid her way from the age of 15. She kept the job all through her drama degree at New York University, which she finished in 1992.

Which Rent song gave the original Mark Cohen the title of his 2006 memoir about the show and his mother?

Without You is a song about losing someone, and the book sets the rise of Rent beside his mother's death from cancer. He spent six years writing it.

Which real Manhattan restaurant, since closed, is where the friends celebrate after Maureen's protest in Rent?

Life Café stood at 10th Street and Avenue B, in the middle of the neighbourhood where Rent is set. Benny turns up at the party there to mock the protest and the friends' way of life.

Which melody from Puccini's opera keeps turning up on Roger's guitar as he struggles to write a song in Rent?

Musetta's Waltz is the tune Mark teases him for echoing, and it returns inside the song he finally finishes for Mimi. In the opera it belongs to the flirt who inspired Maureen.

Songwriter Roger Davis in Rent is modelled on which poet from Puccini's opera about struggling artists?

Rodolfo meets the girl from next door when her candle blows out and she asks him to relight it. Rent restages that first meeting in Roger's loft during a power cut.

Lynn Thomson, who sued Jonathan Larson's estate for a share of Rent's royalties, had worked on the show as what?

Dramaturg was her job when the off-Broadway company hired her to help rework the script. She lost a $40 million suit, and a revised claim was settled out of court in 1998.

The last Mimi of Rent's original Broadway run later won a Tony for originating which role in Hamilton?

Angelica Schuyler brought Renée Elise Goldsberry the Tony for Best Featured Actress. Her closing-night Mimi survives on screen, because the final Broadway performance of Rent was filmed.

Which future star of the TV drama Pose played Angel in the 2011 off-Broadway revival of Rent?

MJ Rodriguez, now credited as Michaela Jaé, won the Clive Barnes Award for the performance while still at college. Pose later made her the first transgender woman nominated for a lead-acting Emmy.

Like Mark and Roger in Rent, Jonathan Larson had a broken buzzer and threw what down to callers in the street?

His keys went out of the window after visitors rang from the pay phone across the road. The same apartment had a bathtub in the middle of the kitchen.

Rent's score has five short numbered songs in which anxious parents and a TV producer do what?

Leave voicemails is all they do. Mark's mother is heard in three of the five, and the last one gathers several parents asking where their children have gone.

In Jonathan Larson's early drafts of Rent, narrator Mark Cohen followed which artistic calling?

Painter was Mark's trade at one point, the same as his counterpart in the Puccini opera. Those drafts also gave AIDS to every main character except him.

Which teen drama had Josie and the Pussycats cover Rent's Out Tonight in a 2017 episode?

Riverdale handed Mimi's big solo to its Archie Comics trio, led by Ashleigh Murray as Josie McCoy, during the second season.

In which rock musical does the character Yitzhak wear a Rent T-shirt and dream of playing Angel?

Hedwig and the Angry Inch opened off-Broadway in 1998, two years into Rent's run. The link came full circle in 2015, when Rent's original Benny played Hedwig on Broadway.

Mimi Márquez, Roger's downstairs neighbour in Rent, earns her living in which job?

Exotic dancer is her trade, and she first knocks on Roger's door asking him to light her candle. Her counterpart in the Puccini opera is a seamstress.

Superbia, the musical Jonathan Larson wrote before Rent, began as an adaptation of which author's dystopian novel?

George Orwell's estate refused him the rights to Nineteen Eighty-Four, so Larson reworked the score into a futuristic story of his own. It won awards but never had a full production.

Which Rent producer, who helped invent Broadway's cheap-ticket lottery, later brought Hamilton to the stage?

Jeffrey Seller became a fan after watching Larson perform a rock monologue, then persuaded his partners to take Rent uptown. With Kevin McCollum he also produced Avenue Q and In the Heights.

Which Rodgers and Hammerstein revival matched Rent's haul of wins at the 1996 Tony Awards?

The King and I shared the night's top tally with Rent and the tap show Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. Its prizes included Best Revival and one for Donna Murphy as Anna.

Which novelist argued in her book Stagestruck that Rent took its gay storyline from her novel People in Trouble?

Sarah Schulman never sued. She set out her case in print in 1998 instead, contrasting the musical's picture of AIDS with work made by people living through it, and the book won a Stonewall award.

Rent: School Edition, the version licensed for student casts, leaves out which Act II number?

Contact is a dance number depicting the couples' sex lives. The edition, tried out at a Wisconsin high school in 2006, also softens the language and the displays of affection.

In early drafts of Rent, Maureen's protest performance drew on which figure of Greek tragedy?

Oedipus suited the serious, angry character Maureen was in those drafts. The finished show plays her protest piece as avant-garde and over the top.

Who originated Joanne Jefferson in Rent on Broadway but ruled herself out of the 2005 film as too old?

Fredi Walker stayed close to the show all the same. Years later she spotted a young performer, asked her to read for Angel and helped her land an audition for the 2011 revival.

Which R.E.M. hit did the original Mark Cohen sing at his audition for Rent in 1994?

Losing My Religion won him a callback that September. He later worked the song into the one-man stage show he built from his memoir of the Rent years.

Rent's original Mark Cohen made his screen debut as a teenager in which 1987 comedy set in Chicago?

Adventures in Babysitting came six years after he first worked on Broadway as a child. Its director cast him again 18 years later, in the screen version of Rent.