PRETEEN GIRLS CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF 'RENT'
1151847180 - North Jersey Media Group Inc.
It was a what's-going-on-here moment. Belatedly clicking in to the buzz, I discovered my 11-year-old daughter, Talia, and her friends had become passionate devotees of "Rent," a Broadway show none of them had seen.
It was a what's-going-on-here moment.
Belatedly clicking in to the buzz, I discovered my 11-year-old daughter, Talia, and her friends had become passionate devotees of "Rent," a Broadway show none of them had seen.
Most had become acquainted with the musical from the film version, which opened last November (and was not exactly a hit).
One girl said she'd seen the movie four times, another claimed to have listened to the album 42 times, and a third had trekked to the Nederlander Theatre on the show's 10th anniversary in April and waited outside the stage door to get autographs from returning original-cast members.
When I took Talia and several members of her circle to see the show, mouths moved silently, "singing" the lyrics along with the performers.
It's impossible to know how widespread this preteen devotion is, but Laura Matalon, the show's marketing director, said her 10-year-old daughter and her daughter's friends were similarly taken with "Rent."
"All the kids know the songs," said Matalon, who is based in Chicago.
Just as "Wicked" became an unexpected magnet for young girls excited by its theme of female empowerment, "Rent" seems to have struck a chord, although it's harder to decipher why that is. (Boys don't seem to have embraced the show in the same way.)
My debriefing of my theater companions generally brought shrugs and variations on, "I don't know why; I just like it," suggesting they either a) didn't understand or couldn't articulate their feelings; or, more likely, b) weren't about to share their emotions with a nosy grown-up.
Matalon said the film, which came out on DVD in February, gave a boost not only to the Broadway production but to road tours of "Rent," as well.
"It's been the most exciting year," she said, also crediting the movie for turning kids on to the show.
From its opening on April 29, 1996, "Rent" has had an appeal for youthful theater-goers, people in their 20s and early 30s.
Basing his pop-rock musical on "La Bohème," with its young, poor, tragically destined lovers, Jonathan Larson reset the story in the East Village in the late 1980s. The characters, in a rainbow of skin colors, include a straight couple, a gay male couple and a lesbian pair, all united in friendship and standing together against the Establishment, even as they struggle with poverty and AIDS. The show's unquestioning romantic idealism hit the bull's-eye for young people looking for affirmation, not irony.
Matalon said the initial marketing of the show, which was a major event when it opened, was aimed at traditional, older ticket-buyers, but the target audience has gotten younger and younger as the years have gone on.
She suggested that, with the passage of time – the East Village has become gentrified and AIDS, at least in the United States, is no longer commonly regarded as a death sentence -- the musical has become a kind of period piece.
"It's a very, very moving show, and the music is compelling," said Matalon. "But I don't think it's as threatening as it once seemed. Youngsters know all about these things now; it's become safer for them."
Putting on my parent-psychologist hat, I detected a connection between the growing reliance of preteens on friendships, as they struggle to be independent of their parents, and the freedom and closeness of the characters in the show.
My daughter pooh-poohed that idea, though.
"I don't think the appeal is the story," she said. "It's the music."
Although more partial to Sondheim than Spears, she said the rock and the pop ballads in "Rent" were somehow different from the usual variety. She ran down the score, explaining that while "Seasons of Love" was the most generally popular song, she and her friends' favorite was "Light My Candle," while they also liked the comic "Over the Moon."
That reminded me that when I first saw the show 10 years ago, the music was also what affected me most.
Back then, "Rent" was inextricably tied to the tragic story of its creator. Larson had died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm in January 1996 at the age of 35, the night before the show was to begin off-Broadway previews. Its enthusiastic reception, then and when it moved to Broadway three months later, was colored by the terrible irony of Larson dying as he was about to achieve the success he'd struggled toward for years, often while living in conditions as primitive as his "Rent" characters'.
The show's flood of songs, with their urgency, passion, hope, heartbreak and love, seemed to be Larson pouring out everything that was inside him.
I'm sure that connection doesn't reflect the feelings of today's kids, many of whom probably have never heard of Larson. But that they, too, respond to the score suggests the enduring power of the songs he wrote for "Rent."
It was a what's-going-on-here moment.
Belatedly clicking in to the buzz, I discovered my 11-year-old daughter, Talia, and her friends had become passionate devotees of "Rent," a Broadway show none of them had seen.
Most had become acquainted with the musical from the film version, which opened last November (and was not exactly a hit).
One girl said she'd seen the movie four times, another claimed to have listened to the album 42 times, and a third had trekked to the Nederlander Theatre on the show's 10th anniversary in April and waited outside the stage door to get autographs from returning original-cast members.
When I took Talia and several members of her circle to see the show, mouths moved silently, "singing" the lyrics along with the performers.
It's impossible to know how widespread this preteen devotion is, but Laura Matalon, the show's marketing director, said her 10-year-old daughter and her daughter's friends were similarly taken with "Rent."
"All the kids know the songs," said Matalon, who is based in Chicago.
Just as "Wicked" became an unexpected magnet for young girls excited by its theme of female empowerment, "Rent" seems to have struck a chord, although it's harder to decipher why that is. (Boys don't seem to have embraced the show in the same way.)
My debriefing of my theater companions generally brought shrugs and variations on, "I don't know why; I just like it," suggesting they either a) didn't understand or couldn't articulate their feelings; or, more likely, b) weren't about to share their emotions with a nosy grown-up.
Matalon said the film, which came out on DVD in February, gave a boost not only to the Broadway production but to road tours of "Rent," as well.
"It's been the most exciting year," she said, also crediting the movie for turning kids on to the show.
From its opening on April 29, 1996, "Rent" has had an appeal for youthful theater-goers, people in their 20s and early 30s.
Basing his pop-rock musical on "La Bohème," with its young, poor, tragically destined lovers, Jonathan Larson reset the story in the East Village in the late 1980s. The characters, in a rainbow of skin colors, include a straight couple, a gay male couple and a lesbian pair, all united in friendship and standing together against the Establishment, even as they struggle with poverty and AIDS. The show's unquestioning romantic idealism hit the bull's-eye for young people looking for affirmation, not irony.
Matalon said the initial marketing of the show, which was a major event when it opened, was aimed at traditional, older ticket-buyers, but the target audience has gotten younger and younger as the years have gone on.
She suggested that, with the passage of time – the East Village has become gentrified and AIDS, at least in the United States, is no longer commonly regarded as a death sentence -- the musical has become a kind of period piece.
"It's a very, very moving show, and the music is compelling," said Matalon. "But I don't think it's as threatening as it once seemed. Youngsters know all about these things now; it's become safer for them."
Putting on my parent-psychologist hat, I detected a connection between the growing reliance of preteens on friendships, as they struggle to be independent of their parents, and the freedom and closeness of the characters in the show.
My daughter pooh-poohed that idea, though.
"I don't think the appeal is the story," she said. "It's the music."
Although more partial to Sondheim than Spears, she said the rock and the pop ballads in "Rent" were somehow different from the usual variety. She ran down the score, explaining that while "Seasons of Love" was the most generally popular song, she and her friends' favorite was "Light My Candle," while they also liked the comic "Over the Moon."
That reminded me that when I first saw the show 10 years ago, the music was also what affected me most.
Back then, "Rent" was inextricably tied to the tragic story of its creator. Larson had died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm in January 1996 at the age of 35, the night before the show was to begin off-Broadway previews. Its enthusiastic reception, then and when it moved to Broadway three months later, was colored by the terrible irony of Larson dying as he was about to achieve the success he'd struggled toward for years, often while living in conditions as primitive as his "Rent" characters'.
The show's flood of songs, with their urgency, passion, hope, heartbreak and love, seemed to be Larson pouring out everything that was inside him.
I'm sure that connection doesn't reflect the feelings of today's kids, many of whom probably have never heard of Larson. But that they, too, respond to the score suggests the enduring power of the songs he wrote for "Rent."
