Rent Timeline
1896: Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Bohème premiers at the Teatro Regio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_boh%C3%A8me#/media/File:Boheme-poster1.jpg
1960: American composer and playwright Jonathan Larson is born on February 4, 1960, in White Plains, New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Larson#/media/File:Jonathan_Larson. jpg
1969: The Stonewall riots occur in New York’s Greenwich Village.
1973: The APA removes homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders.
1981: Jonathan Larson co-wrote his first musical, Sacrimmoralinority, with David Glenn Armstrong. It was staged at Adelphi University.
1981: The first official reporting of what will become known as the AIDS epidemic is published by the MMWR.
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1982: Jonathan Larson graduates and retitles his first musical Saved! – An Immoral Musical on the Moral Majority. It played for four weeks at Rusty’s Storefront Blitz and won both authors a writing award from ASCAP.
1988: Billy Aronson wanted to create a musical based on Puccini’s La Bohème.
1989: Jonathan Larson begins collaborating with Aronson and a few songs are composed. Larson suggests setting the play “amid poverty, homelessness, spunky gay life, drag queens and punk” in Manhattan. The show’s title is conceptualized.
1989: Larson’s futuristic musical, Superbia, is staged at the Village Gate, but it is not fully produced.
1991: Larson asks Aronson if he can use his original concept and make it his own. An agreement is made that if Rent went too Broadway, Aronson would share in the proceeds.
1991: Larson completes his work titled tick, tick… BOOM! It is a response to the disappointment caused by Superbia.
1992: Larson approaches James Nicola, artistic director of New York Theater Workshop, with a tape and copy of Rent’s script.
http://www.nytw.org/images/Nicola.jpg
1993: Rent has its first staged reading in the NYTW, but it still has many structural problems including length and an overly complex plot.
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1994: The version of Rent presented at the NYTW featured many songs that never made it to the final version.
1996: Jonathan Larson dies from an undiagnosed aortic aneurysm the morning of Rent’s first preview performance off-Broadway. Rent went on to quickly gain popularity and earn rave reviews. It was extremely successful during its off-Broadway run, selling out all its shows at the 150-New York Theater Workshop. This popularity led to Rent being staged at Broadway’s Nederlander Theater on April 29, 1996. Rent went on to earn Larson a Pulitzer prize in drama.
2006: The original Broadway cast reunited for a one-night performance of the musical at the Nederlander Theater. This performance raised over $2,000,000.
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Works Cited
“A Timeline of AIDS.” AIDS.gov. n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Gussow, Mel. “Jonathan Larson, 35, Composer of Rock Opera and Musicals”. The New York Times. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
“Jonathan Larson Biography (1960-1996).” Film Reference. 2015. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Jones, Kenneth. “Rent’s 10th Anniversary Celebration Will Reunite Past Bohemians, for Three Good Causes”. Playbill, Inc. Print.
“Larson Jonathan (1960-1996).” glbtq, Inc. 2012. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Larson, Jonathan; Interviews and text: McDonnell, Evelyn, with Silberger, Katherine (1997). Rent (“Leap of Faith”). New York, New York: HarperEntertainment / HarperCollins. pp. 18–37.
— “Glory.” pp. 54-64.
“The American Gay Rights Movement: ATimeline.” Information Please. Pearson Education. 2014. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
“tick, tick… BOOM!” Lortel Archives. 2002. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
Tommasini, Anthony. “Theather; The Seven-Year Odyssey that Led to ‘Rent’.” The New York Times. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Created By: Ivan Beltran
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