RENT

I started to love musicals in junior high. I was in band and a few times a year our director would make us sit through musicals on progress report day, so I was exposed to movies like The King and I, The Sound of Music and The Music Man.

Well, actually, my love for musical movies started when I was five years old. Grease was my absolute favorite movie. Even my imaginary friend was named Sandy.

But when I saw my high school’s performance of Little Shop of Horrors in 10th grade, I fell in love with watching them live, on stage. I couldn’t believe my classmates could pull that off. My high school sweetheart was into theater (band geek + drama kid = match made in high school heaven), and I loved to watch him and help out with production. If I could sing, I would have been up there too. I got my sister into musicals and we would see a few shows locally and downtown Seattle each year. And for the past few years I’ve had season tickets to The 5th Avenue Theater and The Paramount Theater here in Seattle. I’ve also seen a few plays on Broadway and London’s West End.

I’ve probably seen close to fifty musicals, but my all time favorite is RENT. I’ve seen it four times. I have DVDs of the movie and of the last live performance on Broadway. I have the movie soundtrack and the original cast recording. I have three books based on the play, including the actual script. Yes, I love it.

My husband and I are very different. He loves the outdoors. He camps, hikes, snowboards, kick boxes and owns and gym and teaches MMA. I like tv, movies, music, musicals, concerts, and other performances. He likes to get out there. I like to sit back and be entertained. But opposites really do attract and we try to share our activities with each other. He promises to go to one musical per year with me and we’ve been able to see some that he actually loved, like Avenue Q, Rock of Ages and Spamalot.

He’s even gone with me to see RENT one time. He knows some words to the songs. He knows all the characters. He’s sat through the movies with me a few times. He doesn’t hate it, but it’s not his favorite thing either. When I heard RENT was ending it’s run on Broadway, I rushed to get tickets to see it one last time. And I figured that was it (until it’s revived in fifteen years, then I’ll take my kids). But then I heard that Neil Patrick Harris (who played Mark in a national tour) was directing a special three night only production of RENT at the Hollywood Bowl this summer.

I got excited then quickly put it out of my head. We are in the process of buying a house and we promised we’d take a year off from vacationing. But then I had an amazing idea: I could go with my sister. That way we’d only have to pay for half of a vacation. She turned me down because she has vacation plans with her boyfriend. After planning, budgeting, scheduling my parents to baby-sit and getting CHEAP quotes for hotel and flights (gotta love credit card points), I convinced Jacob that we deserved a long weekend in LA, since we haven’t had a vacation since October. He wasn’t thrilled about the RENT part, but I sold him with the Universal Studios part. Man, he must love me. So in August, I’m off to see RENT at the Hollywood Bowl with my dear husband.