If you go
› What: “Rent.”› When: 8 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, March 8-9.› Where: Tivoli Theatre, 709 Broad St.› Admission: $37, $52, $67 and $77, plus fees.› Phone: 423-757-5580.› Website: www.tivolichattanooga.com.
"Five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes
Five hundred, twenty-five thousand moments so dear..."
Few lyrics ever become so synonymous with one musical as have those opening lines to "Seasons of Love" from "Rent."
The haunting song encapsulates the musical's message as it asks how to measure the value of a year in a person's life, concluding the answer is "measure in love."
"Rent" follows that life-affirming theme through the story of struggling artists and their entwined experiences over four seasons in one year. Love found, lives lost and love rediscovered form the plot of "Rent," the rock musical loosely based on Puccini's opera "La Boheme." The 20th anniversary tour of "Rent" stops Wednesday and Thursday, March 8-9, for performances at the Tivoli Theatre.
"Rent" was written in the early '90s by a then-little-known composer named Jonathan Larson. It won a Pulitzer Prize off-Broadway before it opened on Broadway in 1996. The success of the show led to several national tours before the musical was adapted into a 2005 movie.
The musical follows seven young adults living in New York City's East Village. The principals are Mimi, an HIV-positive exotic dancer, and Roger Davis, a songwriter who is also HIV-positive, played by Skyler Volpe and Kaleb Wells, respectively. Danny Harris Kornfeld plays Mark Cohen, Roger's roommate who is an independent filmmaker. David Merina plays the iconic role of Angel, the drag queen percussionist with AIDS.
Puccini's lead character dies from tuberculosis in his opera. Larson chose AIDS as "Rent's" health epidemic, which in the early 1990s was peaking. Four of the seven principals in "Rent" either have been diagnosed with AIDS or are HIV-positive, and one of them will succumb to the disease.
Still, the musical's dynamic music and well-developed characterizations combine for a message of hope and celebration of friendship. Up to the final moments before the closing curtain, "Rent" reminds its audiences to live every day to its fullest and measure their seasons of life with the only thing that truly matters: love.