Gettin’ Carried Away

After spending 12 long years on Broadway, Rent left the Nederlander Theater in New York City earlier this past summer. The first time I heard about Rent, I was 13 years old. I was sitting in my family room, semi-watching TV and playing on the computer, when all of a sudden, I hear the words “no day but today” being passionately sung by a small chorus of people. I didn’t see the commercial, but the melody stuck in my head all day. I watched the same channel hour after hour, hoping to catch a glimpse of the commercial I had missed.

I eventually saw the commercial, advertising Rent, the new hit Broadway musical that was going on tour for the first time. I begged my mother to take to see it. However, after doing some research, she found that the content was not very appropriate for a young teenager, so she would not allow me to see the show. I was heartbroken. Little did I know, I would eventually see it more than 10 times.

The first time I ever visited New York, I was told I would be seeing a Broadway play. I was 17 years old, and the year was 2002. Rent had already been playing for 5 years, so I was not sure that would be an option. From the day I learned I was going on the trip, I wished, hoped and prayed that I would be able to see Rent. A month later, my prayers were answered, and I saw the show just before the 4th of July weekend.

Since then, I have seen the musical in both New York City and Chicago. I was also lucky enough to interview one of the stars of the original production and the film adaptation, Anthony Rapp, for my college newspaper (that’s another story I will share in a later post). So when I heard about how the Nederlander was closing its doors to Rent earlier this summer, I was crushed.

Two weeks ago, I was randomly on MySpace when I saw an ad that read “RENT: 4 NIGHTS ONLY!” My jaw dropped! For the first time in Broadway history, a live stage performance of a hit musical was filmed and it was to be released in select movie theaters for four nights only in September. I bought tickets on-line, and on Thursday, September 25, I headed to the Tivoli Theater in Downers Grove.

So what does this tiny excursion have to do with travel? In the end, it all comes down to this: passion, randomness and flexibility.

1. Passion: The lyrics of every single song in Rent mean a lot to me. I had to see the show at least twice a year, I sing one of the songs from the show at Karaoke every week and at some point during every day of my life, I think about the life lessons the show taught me. And because I am so passionate about this play, I was willing to drive a bit of a distance to see it.

2. Randomness: I found out about this one-of-a-kind movie screening because I was randomly looking at someone’s MySpace profile page. You can find out pretty much anything on the Internet. And sometimes, you might not even be looking for something, and you find out something worth your while! It’s kind of like looking for a cheap flight… you’ll always find one when you are not desperately searching for it.

3. Flexibility: I have a pretty flexible work schedule, so right when I found out about this one-time-only showing of Rent, I was able to grab for the “movie” knowing that I had the time to see it. And since it was only playing at select theaters, I also had plenty of time to drive a good 45 minutes to an hour away from home to see it.