After 5,140 performances over the course of 12 years, the groundbreaking Broadway rock-musical “Rent” took its final curtain call on Sunday.
In 1996, “Rent” quickly went from a small off-Broadway theater to the Great White Way, where today it’s the seventh longest-running show in Broadway history. From its humble roots, there was little to suggest the worldwide smash it would become.
Loosely based on Puccini’s opera, “La Bohème,” “Rent” is about young artists struggling to get by, living in New York City’s once-grungy East Village in the mid-1980s. Its characters are gay, straight, cross-dressers and strippers who are facing hardships like AIDS, drug addiction and homelessness.
“We all love, we all lose people, we all struggle with identity,” said Gwen Stewart, an original “Rent” Broadway cast member who has returned to the cast for the show’s closing.
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