RENT
Kerry's Page · Notes from the Rush Line

Hi. I'm Kerry. I'm 19, I just finished my sophomore year at a college here in Manhattan, and I grew up in San Antonio, where the only musicals I ever saw were the tours that came through and our high school's Bye Bye Birdie (I was Kim, thank you very much). Then I came to New York, and in February somebody handed me a ticket to a show in a tiny theater on East Fourth Street, and now I have seen it six times and I have $40 to my name.

This is my page about RENT. I fly home for the summer tomorrow, so it's the last update for a while. I'll be back in August.

> My Performance Log
> Rush Line Diary, Part 1
> The Cast
> Favorite Songs
> Jonathan Larson
> The Pulitzer
> The Tony Awards
> Coming Soon

MY PERFORMANCE LOG

RUSH LINE DIARY, PART 1

Here's the deal. Full-price tickets cost more than I spend on food in a week and a half. But on the day of every show, the box office sells the first two rows for $20. You can't buy them ahead. You have to be there, in line, on 41st Street, and you can only get a couple, so don't try to buy for your whole hall.

When I first did it in May you could show up in the morning with a book and do fine. Now that it won the Tonys, people are there before the sun comes up, and some of them have been sleeping on the sidewalk. I'm not saying you should do that. I'm saying it happens.

What to bring:

• Something to sit on. A folded-up beach towel at least. The sidewalk is hard and it's also the sidewalk.
• A sweatshirt, even in June. Early morning in the shade of a building is cold.
• Your homework. I wrote half a paper on Sense and Sensibility sitting on 41st Street.
• Quarters for the pay phone, so you can call your roommate and tell her you got seats.
• A deck of cards. The line plays a lot of spit.
• Exact cash. Don't be the person who makes the box office break a hundred.
• Muffins or bagels to share, if you want to be loved.

The people: This is the best part, honestly. The rush line is the friendliest line in New York, and I've stood in the line at the DMV here so I would know. Everybody is there for the same reason. Byron, who's a waiter, has been eleven times and keeps a count on the back of his hand in pen. Toby brings a little radio. Esmeralda has been nine times, can't sing at all, and sings anyway, all of it, both acts, in order. People save each other's places for bathroom trips (the deli on the corner is nice about it if you buy a coffee), and nobody cuts. If somebody tries, the whole line handles it. Politely.

Part 2 will be about the people who come out to talk to the line, the night it rained, and the best ways to get from 41st Street back uptown at midnight. When I get back.

THE CAST

The original company. If you see it, you are seeing these people, and I hope you know how lucky that is.

• Anthony Rapp (Mark) — The filmmaker with the camera and the scarf, who tells you the story. He makes it look easy and it is not.
• Adam Pascal (Roger) — The songwriter who's trying to write one great song before it's too late. That voice. Tony nominee.
• Daphne Rubin-Vega (Mimi) — The dancer from the club downstairs. She owns the stage every second she's on it. Tony nominee.
• Jesse L. Martin (Collins) — The professor. The warmest person in the show. His voice is so low you feel it in your seat.
• Wilson Jermaine Heredia (Angel) — The street drummer, the heart of the whole thing. In heels. He won the Tony!
• Idina Menzel (Maureen) — The performance artist. Her protest number gets the whole audience to join in, and I'm not going to tell you how. Tony nominee.
• Fredi Walker (Joanne) — The lawyer, Maureen's girlfriend, the only one with a real job. Her tango with Anthony is the funniest thing in Act One.
• Taye Diggs (Benny) — The landlord, and everybody's old roommate. You're supposed to hate him. It's hard.

And the ensemble, who play everybody else: the parents on the answering machine, the cops, the people on the street. Watch them. They never stop.

FAVORITE SONGS

Titles only. You'll hear them soon enough, when the album comes out. Go.

• Seasons of Love — They stand in a row across the front of the stage. From Row A it's like being sung to personally.
• La Vie Bohème — The end of Act One. Everybody on tables. I have never wanted to dance in a restaurant so badly.
• Light My Candle — Hence the candles on this page.
• I'll Cover You — The sweetest love song in the show. Then you hear it again later. Bring tissues.
• Santa Fe — Collins's dream about getting out of the city. As a Texan I have some notes on New Mexico, but I love it.
• Take Me or Leave Me — Idina and Fredi going at it. Every single time, the audience goes nuts.
• Without You — I can't talk about this one.
• What You Own — Mark and Roger. Loud and angry and I love it.

JONATHAN LARSON

He wrote all of it: the story, the words, the music. He spent about seven years on it, and for most of those years he was waiting tables at a diner in SoHo on weekends so he could write the rest of the week. It's based on La Bohème, the opera, moved to the East Village, to people like the ones he knew.

On January 25, the day of the very first preview downtown, he died, very suddenly, of an aortic aneurysm that nobody had caught. He was 35. He never saw an audience see it. That night the cast sang the show for his family and friends instead of performing it for the public.

I think about that every time the lights go down. Everybody does, I think. You can feel it in the room. It's not a sad show, though. That's the thing. He made it about living. I'd like to think he knows.

THE PULITZER

On April 9, RENT won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A rock musical about broke kids in the East Village, and it won the Pulitzer. I found out from Tina, who ran into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth waving the paper.

THE TONY AWARDS

Written Monday morning, June 3, on about four hours of sleep.

We watched it in the lounge on our floor, about fifteen of us, everybody who hadn't gone home yet, on a TV with a coat hanger for an antenna. Here's what RENT won last night:

When Wilson won, the lounge screamed so loud the RA came down to see if somebody was hurt. When they read Jonathan's name, both times, it got very quiet in there. A boy from my French class I didn't even know liked musicals held my hand. Then Best Musical, last thing of the night, and we all lost it.

Adam and Daphne and Idina were nominated too, and didn't win, and I am choosing not to discuss it.

The cast performed on the broadcast and I just sat there and thought, I was ten feet from those people nine days ago.

COMING SOON

• The cast album review! It's supposed to come out this summer. I'm going to buy it the day it hits the stores in San Antonio, play it all the way through twice, and write it up song by song.
• Rush Line Diary, Part 2.
• My RENT scrapbook, with my ticket stubs and Playbills, as soon as somebody I know gets a scanner.

Thank you for reading. If you're going, get in line early, share your bagels, and say hi to Byron for me.

You are visitor number

Write to me about RENT:
[email protected]

Last updated Sunday, June 9, 1996