Sunday, April 20, 2008
Remembering Jonathan Larson
THE MUSIC OF JONATHAN LARSON
Tim Weil, Music Director
RENT -- "the first original breakthrough rock musical since Hair."
Larson's phenomenally successful musical RENT (a rock opera inspired by Puccini's La Bohème), which blends pop, dance, salsa, rhythm and blues, gospel, and rock music, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and four Tony Awards. Larson died prematurely before realizing fully his desire to "infuse musical theater with a contemporary, joyful, urban vitality." In celebration of his creative spirit, the Library of Congress brings together Anthony Rapp, who starred in the original production of RENT with Broadway stars Natascia Diaz, Randy Graff, Jeremy Kushnier, Michael McElroy and Gwen Stewart. The concert will be under the musical direction of Tim Weil, the original musical director of Rent. In addition to selections from Rentand other Larson works, the evening includes songs written and performed by three of the songwriters who have received grants from the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation -- Cynthia Hopkins, Joe Iconis, and Steven Lutvak -- established by family and friends to honor his memory.
The Life Cafe
RENT COMES TO LIFE
Today Life Cafe has become the center of pilgrimage for large and small groups of Rentheads, as they’re known, from all over the United States and all over the world. Why do they come? To see the place where Jonathan Larson wrote Rent, to experience the actual place that was featured in the play and movie and to take a trip back in time to have for themselves an “original East Village Experience”, an original Rent Experience!
Jonathan Larson frequented the East Village and he liked hanging out at Life Cafe, sipping coffee while watching, interviewing and writing. He observed the various groups of neighborhood people who regularly met at Life Cafe. Because, after all, there was never enough room in Lower East Side apartments or enough heat, or hot water. And sometimes there was no water at all.
The last scene of act one in Rent takes place in Life Cafe. For Kathy Life, that scene is a direct replica of the motley group of locals sitting together on the antique bench who practically lived at Life Cafe, sipping endless cups of coffee while playing chess and sharing – uninvited or not – their philosophies of life and everything in between. That scene is a moving reminder of those that hung out at Life Cafe but are no longer with us. Most of them are gone from the neighborhood. Some of them have died of AIDS-related causes. Some of those people will always have a vivid place in Kathy Life’s memory. Billy Sleaze, for example. He was a larger-than-life-character, Life’s majordomo, who watched over Life and made sure trouble from the street was kept at bay.
The story of RENT is one of the many stories in and around Life Cafe and our neighborhood.
Since 1996, this powerful musical has been wowing legions of fans on Broadway.
Based on Puccini's famous opera, La Boheme, Rent won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 1996 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book.
Thank you Jonathan Larson!