by Kathy O’Connell, Host of Kids’ Corner, XPN

I came late to the “Rent” party. I knew the story of Jonathan Larson’s tragic death the night of the last dress rehearsal of his show, but I cringe at the words “rock opera,” so I avoided the show. Much as I love Broadway musicals, I hated what they had become in the Andrew Lloyd Weber age. So, when I fell in love with the “Rent” company’s performance of “La Vie Boheme” on the 1997 Tony Awards, I was surprised. It took another 11 years, but I finally discovered the brilliance of “Rent” when I saw the movie. It was like Larson wrote it about my friends and those times. From 1983-1988, I lived in Manhattan’s East Village. A couple of friends lived in a squat. Still more friends were starving artists, as the pool of artistic grants dried up under Reagan. And there was AIDS.

There was a period when life was a circle of visiting sick people and going to that one funeral home on 14th Street where the AIDS funerals were held. We volunteered at radio station WBAI (few got paid) and spent our time there working and creating and fighting the wrongs of the world. My friend John’s 6th-floor walk-up apartment became a salon where musicians, poets, writers, Wall Street types, and radio heads talked about politics and art and injustice. With homeless people everywhere, you couldn’t afford to give to everyone, so you picked one or two “regulars.” My regular was an elderly homeless lady who sat outside the Catholic Worker headquarters with her little dog. When Mark in “Rent” says, “the opposite of war isn’t peace—it’s creation,” it brings back my friends and their quest to fight the social ills of the time through art.

Jonathan Larson captured that time brilliantly. His Alphabet City is the East Village I remember. It was a time of poverty, homelessness, danger, and fear mixed with brilliant creation and the warmth of friends with no money and much love. He brought “rock opera” into a gritty new form that mixed rock, salsa, gospel, hip-hop, and traditional musical storytelling. He captured the wrenching pain of watching people I loved die (”I’ll Cover You” reprise), just as he captured the joy of being artistic, “different,” and together (”La Vie Boheme”). He even celebrated a time when people would be “living with, living with, living with, not dying from disease.” Larson created love songs for all genders (”I’ll Cover You”) and for all points in relationships (”Light My Candle,” “Tango Maureen,” “Without You”). Larson even captured the dreams of getting paid for one’s art (”Santa Fe,” “You’ll See”) and the delicious wackiness of performance artists (”Over the Moon”). Everytime I watch “Rent” or listen to Larson’s songs, I come back to that time in my life. Thank you, Jonathan Larson.

Clip of “La Vie Boheme” from the movie of “Rent”:

Clip of “Seasons of Love/La Vie Boheme” from the 1997 Tony Awards: