Rent is a rock opera, which follows the story of seven friends living a poverty stricken life in New York city. The story follows, Mark, as he attempts to create a documentary on the lives of his friends and accurately capture the Bohemian life. Within the year of filming, his friends deal with love, loss, and AIDS.

          Rent is the eleventh-longest-running show on Broadway. During its run, it had 5,123 performances before closing on September 7, 2008. In 1996, the production earned four Tony Awards, which included Best Musical. That same year, the show also won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.                

          One of my favorite things about this musical is the contrast in how each charter deals with their Illnesses. It is revealed, that Collins and Angel have AIDS, whereas Mimi and Roger have HIV.

  After finding out he had HIV from a letter sent from his Ex, Roger begins to isolate himself from his friends. He also begins to become moody, angry and unmotivated to spend time with his loved ones. His friends plead with him to go to “help meetings” or even just go out eat with his friends. But he doesn’t see the point.

           Roger spends all his time in his apartment trying to write one hit song. He reveals that he dreams of leaving behind one great song. He feels like he didn’t do anything worthwhile in his life, and I think that adds into his depression. It also plays into his obsession with writing his song, he wants to achieve something great before he dies.

          Collins and Angel are two gay lovers, who met at the beginning of the show. The two find support, comfort and love in one another. They go to counseling sessions together and financially help one another. Colin and Angel are willing to go out and enjoy life, but also they do what they can to slow it down.

Angel and Colin put their love into words in the song, “I`ll Cover You”. The lyrics express how the two of them truly value each other, while also acknowledging the fact that they won’t get the chance to be with one another for very long. I think its brilliant how the composer was able to do that. 

           Lastly there is, Mimi. She is an erotic dancer, who lives life wild and free. She struggles with an addiction to heroin and enjoys getting attention from men. She enters the story when her power goes out and she ask Rogers his help to light a candle. The song “Light my Candle” is interesting to me, because it seems to have a double meaning. The first one being the obvious her literally wanting him to light her actual candle and the other way to interrupt the song is her wanting him to ignite the passion inside her. If you watch the clip from the movie, the moments the candle literally goes out is when they are talking about their “baggage”, his ex and her drug addiction. But the candle stays lit when they look into each other’s eyes or joking with each other.

Rent`s central message is to live life to its fullest and enjoy your life in the moment. Many of the characters in this musical are infected with HIV or AIDs, which of course means they have a short time left on the earth. By the end they learn the importance of love and valuing each day.

  The Last Five Years is an astonishing off-Broadway musical, that has been performed across the united states and internationally. Yet, this show is often unknown by even the biggest theater fans, due to its lack of ability to make it onto Broadway or even a London stage. Yet as I watched the show I was very intrigued and drawn to the story.
            The musical tells the story of a five-year marriage, of aspiring actress Cathy Hiatt and novelist Jamie Weller stein. The musical alternates perspectives, by having Jamie and Cathy take turns telling their version of their marriage, through monologue typed solos.
            The most interesting aspect of this show is that Cathy tells her side of the story in reverse chronological order (telling her narrative by starting at the end of their marriage and going backwards until she gets to when they met.), whereas Jamie tells his narrative in the order it chronologically happened.

          This show is based off of the failed marriage of Jason Robert Brown, who wrote the music, lyrics and book for the show. Due to this factor the songs has such raw emotion and passionate lyrics, that make you feel like you are in the minds of the characters.

I liked that the composer didn’t take this opportunity to make himself seem like he was “in the right” in their marriage issues. He used this platform to tell the story as it happened, showing both him and Cathy, with all their faults and charms. I was amazed at how well he captured Cathy`s pain throw-out the piece. It made me wonder why he didn’t see what he was doing to her during those years, until it was over.

        I liked that the composer didn’t take this opportunity to make himself seem like he was “in the right” in their marriage issues. He used this platform to tell the story as it happened, showing both him and Cathy, with all their faults and charms. I was amazed at how well he captured Cathy`s pain throw-out the piece. It made me wonder why he didn’t see what he was doing to her during those years, until it was over.

In 2015, Anna Kendrick (Becca from the Pitch Perfect films) and Jeremy Jordan (Jack Kelly from Disney`s Broadway adaptation of Newsies), starred in a movie version of the musical.
        The movie changed two major things from the stage production, but these changes I think made the movie extremely more interesting and more than the stage production.
In the stage production the two main characters do not sing together or even acknowledge the other one’s presents (expect for when their stories intertwine and they sing about the wedding proposal and the wedding day.) this is one of the things they changed in the movie, which I felt was a smart idea. It brought life to the musical and helped the viewers to be able to picture the moments they sung about. Whereas watching the two characters sing alone on stage, with only a couch and a door, was extremely dull! This factor, in the stage production, made it harder to pay attention to the lyrics, which were very important to the musical. The lyrics clued you into the time changes as well as the story line.
           In the stage production the show consisted of only two actors. The movie added background dancers and other extras in both the musical numbers and nonmusical scenes. This also helped the musical to become more exciting, in the same way adding the interactions did.

            Hamilton: the musical tells the story of Alexander Hamilton`s life. Through, mostly rapped, songs the listeners learn of Hamilton’s extraordinary life, including both his triumphs and misfortunes.
            To be honest I was extremely disappointed in its creating of setting on the stage. Many musicals have exceled at having the audience feel as if they are transported to another time or place. Though out the musical numbers the set was the same just a staircase and every now and then they would bring out a prop. It made the musical become a bit boring to watch. Also I think If I hadn’t listened to the soundtrack first, and understood the lyrics, I would have had a hard time understanding where or when they were in time.
            I have seen many musicals within my 23 years and in other musical I have seen outstanding examples of creating the environment of the scene on stage with very little props. For example, in Anastasia, one of the main sets was built to look like a ballroom the floor was made to look tiled and large windows that surrounded the back of the stage as well as the sides. They use this same set a few times throughout the musical but change it slightly using lighting, adding different backgrounds (behind the windows), and by adding props. This something very simple, that could have been easily used in Hamilton. Overall, I felt for the money they are charging they would have put more effort in their stage presence.

            Okay now that I said that, let me get into what I loved about Hamilton. The music is literally one of my favorite musical soundtracks to this day. Lin Manuel Miranda, the composer and creator of this musical, amazingly combines techniques of hip hop artist and famous musical theater composers. The songs are able to make you feel every emotion and its astonishing. Songs like “Cabinet battle #1” and “Cabinet Battle #2” compare rap battles to the way the founding fathers argued with one another over policies. Which I found both brilliant and hilarious! Another smart move by the composer was making his songs not only fit within the musical, but also be relatable to America in its current state. The song, “The Story of Tonight” makes my heart skips a beat every time I hear it! This song reminds me that people will always fight for our rights and that our freedom will not be compromised. Here is my favorite lyric from the song, “raise a glass to freedom, something they can never take away…no matter what they tell you. Raise a glass to the four of us, tomorrow there will be more us, telling the story of tonight.”. On the other end, they had songs that made you cry. “Its Quiet Uptown” briefly but efficiently describes the Hamilton family`s struggle to deal with, Phillip Hamilton`s death.

           I also felt the oddity of having black and Latino performers rap as the founding fathers added to the appeal of the show. It made it unique and I honestly don’t think it would have gotten the same attention if it was white man playing these roles.

The below video takes place back when Hamilton was just an idea in Lin Manuel`s head. This was the first version of the opening number of the musical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8_ARd4oKiI