'Rent' Closing on Broadway

After nearly 12 years on Broadway, the award-winning musical will end its run after its evening performance on June 1, making it the seventh-longest-running Broadway show in history. I saw "Rent" right when I moved to New York in June 1998. Like most plays, I didn't really "get it." (An East Village rock version of Puccini’s opera “La Boheme”? I'm from Michigan. I don't even want to be having this conversation. And I think I swallowed whatever someone in my group handed me.) But walking past the theater every day on my way to work I could see by the legions of fans who wait outside for a glimpse of their favorite stars (and the blood-curdling screams they would emit when they would see one of 'em!) that a lot of people did. Like a lot of things in New York, it wasn't that you went there very often. But it was comforting to just know it was there. "Rent" will be missed. (NYT)