I took a lot of liberties with how RENT was created. I hope you will all forgive me.
RENT belongs to the angel known as Jonathan Larson. I hope he will forgive me, and I hope he's having fun singing Seasons of Love to God and His Angels.
"A Year in a Life." by Sailor Ryoko
Everyone onstage looked into the front row and sang the last part of the song. "No day but today." The stage went black, and the curtain closed. The audience burst into applause, and rose to it's feet as one when the grand drape opened again, and the cast made their bows.
I was sitting in the front row, and couldn't help but cry. After such a long run, RENT, my production, was finally closing.
At least my friends had finally gotten the chance to see it. They were sitting with me up front. Maureen was at the end, with Roger and Mimi between her and Joanne, they were at outs again. Collins was next with the only empty seat in the house between him and me. We saved you a seat Angel, so you could see how you really touched us.
Before I knew it, we were all back at the loft, Maureen and Joanne back together. Maureen cried that the show had touched her, and she wanted to try again. "I hate mess but I love you." Joanne shrugged.
Everyone laughed.
"That was a good show Mark." Roger said to me. "I wish I'd seen it sooner, then I could see it again."
"At least you saw it." I told him. "I want to thank all of you for your help. You helped write the basic story, and all I did was co-direct."
"I wish Jonathan could have seen it though." Mimi said. Everyone murmured agreament, and lapsed into silence, each wraped in our own thoughts.
I couldn't help but remember how we had started the play. Jonathan came to me one night. I had met him a few times in the park with my camera, and we had become friends.
"Mark, I want to write something for Broadway."
"What kind of thing?" I asked.
"A musical that can show people what real life is like. Show them the poorer side of town, but also make them realize that you have to live life for today."
"How do you propose to do that?"
"How about a biography of you? How do you live with friends dying of AIDS and still pull through?"
I sat in silence, thinking. "Angel." I finally said. "Angel taught us all. It shouldn't be my biography, but a year out of my life, and my friends. The year that we gained and lost Angel, and the year that we all changed for the better. How about that?"
"Yes! And we could get your friends to write their stories about that year, and incorporate them into one big script! It's perfect!"
"You and Roger could work on the songs, and I'll help direct."
"Do you think we can talk to them now?"
"Roger and Mimi are out on the town, but I know where we can get Collins."
Jonathan and I went out that night, we found Collins, and asked him to write his story, and parts of Angel's, if he thought he could. I was a little worried that Collins wouldn't want to delve into Angel's memory so soon, but he was more than happy to help us. He said that if the memory of Angel could help other people live their lives fully, he would gladly do it. And he can through. I only hope we did Angel justice in the play.
The next person we talked to was Maureen, who was naturally all too happy to get her story in there. Joanne also agreed. She loved the idea. Even Benny agreed to add a few things when we talked to him.
We had to leave Roger and Mimi until the next night, but when we got to them, they were thrilled.
"A musical, about all of us?" Mimi said. She held onto Roger's hand. "I'll write whatever you want me too."
"We just need your memories of that year." I told her. "What happened to you when we weren't around, what you went through. You too Roger."
"I have a song that you might want to use." He said slowly. "It's called One Song: Glory. It's about a musician who wants to write one great song before he dies."
"That would be a perfect Roger song." I said. "And do you think that we could use Your Eyes as well? Especially if we have The second Christmas Eve."
"Of course."
Roger gave us his songs, and a notebook of that year. The others came through as well, and I added my piece. We had seven versions of that year, and Jonathan and I had to compile them into one.
We started by writing them all on the computer, first we would type up one story totally. Then we would add the next one. Often, the events would overlap, so we needed to only get the thoughts down. Then we cut down the year into perticular events that we thought were most important. After that, we spent months writing it all into script form.
Meanwhile, Roger was writing some solo songs, and a few group ones. He was compleatly involved, but Mimi said she had never seen him happier than when he had a project to do.
Finally, after years of compiling, writting, casting, rehersals, we finally went live.
And we lost Jonathan.
The musical that he had labored and loved was a hit, and loved by audiences. He took our story, and gave it to the world as a message of hope and love. I hope that people who have seen our play are touched by it. No matter what they do though, this play will somehow change them, even if they don't realize it. You can't meet people like Angel and Jonathan, and not have your life changed. Ours was, and hopefully, through our lives someone had realized how true the words are when they sang, "No day but today."