Upon the closing of RENT
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
ed note: I wrote this two days ago but I needed to sit with it for a moment. RENT closed on
Sunday, September 7 after 5,124 performances on Broadway.
I watched RENT for the first time on the Tony Awards in the spring of 1996 - my Junior year of college. I was awe-struck and overwhelmed by the innovation and excitement I was seeing on stage. I knew I was seeing something new, something life changing. I felt like I was going to jump up and start dancing as they performed "La Vie Boheme". I didn't care what or how - I had to get to New York to see the show. And that fall, after I'd already memorized the entire album (and consequently had driven my Senior Year roommates absolutely mad - it was the only thing I listened to. Ever.) one of my best friends and I went to NYC for my 21st birthday to see RENT.
I saw the show at least 7 or 8 times in next 7 years. Sometimes I was madly in love with it and sometimes I was underwhelmed. That's the joy of live theater - you never get the same thing twice. But no matter how much I loved that particular show or not, I always left that theater inspired and fully and completely alive. Like tingling. From head to toe.
8 years after I watched those Tony Awards, I went to work for the men responsible for bringing the show to Broadway. I sat in the audience again during a particularly impressive performance and once again, I was awestruck. I felt the magic of what good theatre does. I felt like absolutely anything was possible. La Vie Boheme.
And last night, as the curtain came down on a show that changed my life in so many more ways than I ever could have possibly imagined, I was not in NYC to witness it or to celebrate it. But I thought about it.
I thought about Seasons of Love and how much I've been reflecting on it lately without even realizing it.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?
So last night, while I couldn't be there in person, I found my spirit soaring to NYC to the Nederlander Theater. And I taped those lyrics to my computer. And I said outloud "You measure in love. Seasons of Love."
That's my mantra these days. Measure in love. Not much else matters. And I find my spirit soaring to NYC more and more. Even if my body is physically in Los Angeles. Just to feel the pulse of the streets and the energy of the people. And the love of the people that I have there. And the familiarity. La Vie Boheme.
There's so much going on right now -some of which I can't post about, some of which I've been choosing not to. So I've been escaping to a story from my past - to write, to have a presence here, because I'm curious to have people read something that I've been working on in addition to my random ramblings and musings and thoughts.
But tonight I had to write. I'm feeling the end of an era. That show rocked my world in a way I didn't even realize at the time. It has become a part of my identity. It's part of how I measure my life. La Vie Boheme.
Posted byMeesh-elle my Belle at 10:01 PM
Labels: homesick, introspection, musings on life, nostalgia, NYC
Wow.
Just ... wow.