I think it's lovely how people all seem to thank Jonathan at the end. If he could see that...I think it would really mean something, among all the throes of RENTheadism. It's a beautiful thing to do.
The first time I experienced RENT, I didn't even know it was a musical. My thanks will forever go out to Mrs. Tilghman, who inspired in me a passion for Broadway that will forever run deep in me.
My first encounter of RENT was sitting in my school's chorus room, doing my homework. I was in 6th grade… The babies of our middle school. A couple of seventh graders were gathered around the piano, singing a song that sounded so pretty that I wanted to learn the words.
I was captivated by the melody, by the way the song seemed to tell a story. By the time the bell rang, I walked out of the chorus room with three beautiful words ringing throughout my core.
Seasons of love…
I wanted to learn the rest of this song, so I started staying for Chorus extra help, though I didn't need it at all. By the next week, my brother, who was in the 7th grade chorus learning the song, was joking around that I knew the song better than he did.
Little did I know that that would be the beginning of the rift between us known as RENT.
That's the just the beginning of my experience with Rent.
My second encounter, I still had no clue of RENT. My chorus teacher had gotten me hooked on Wicked, and my best friend mentioned something about Elphaba also playing some Maureen person in a movie known as RENT.
The movie had recently come out on DVD, and it was also on the on-demand menu for IO. I had watched the preview, and recognized the song I knew so well from sixth grade. I had asked my mom if I could watch the movie, and she said I couldn't because it was really adult.
Of course, being a rebellious little preteen, this tripled my interest in seeing RENT. I kept bugging my mom until she caved in. That night, me, my mom, my brother, and my seven year old sister sat in our basement around the TV. And so we saw RENT.
It was quite an eye opener for me, being the naïve little seventh grader I was. I didn't even know what gay meant… Though I barely understood a third of the things they were talking about, I fell in love with the characters, the music, and the message, because no day but today I could understand.
I eventually found out what everything meant, either by asking my mom or going on Wikipedia… I was a bit shocked, but never disapproving. RENT taught me about the world, and about living each moment as your last. Because of the huge impact RENT had on me, four words will forever ring in my ears.
Thank you Jonathan Larson.
By Erika akak Birdhearted