Theater Arts News / Tuesday, July 10, 2012

More Rent

Original cast member creates musical from memoir

Take The Rapp

By John Rowell

TAKE THE RAPP It’s an unassailable fact that Rent was/is one of the most successful musicals in Off-Broadway history—and, consequently, one of the most successful musicals in Broadway history, too.  So all past and present Rent-ers will be interested to hear about the latest from actor/author Anthony Rapp, the show’s original Mark, who has turned his bestselling book Without You:  A Memoir of Love, Loss and the Musical Rent into a stage performance, with music by Rapp, John Keaney, David Matos and Joe Pisapia, and, naturally, featuring some of Jonathan Larson’s songs from Rent itself.  The show—about Rapp’s struggle to balance the demands of life in the theatre with his responsibility to his family during his mother’s battle with cancer, along with the highs and lows of the troubled and triumphant creation of Rent—has just finished a run at the Modern Theatre in Boston and is now on to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (see below) and London’s Menier Chocolate Factory this summer.  On its way to New York? Stay tuned…. www.withoutyoutheshow.com.