Things to do / Travel Guide
Address:106 Boylston Street
Boston, Massachusetts
Our Show & Concert Fan Says:
Rent is an award-winning musical that was written as a modern-day, urban adaptation of Puccini's La Bohème. The story begins by introducing poor, young artists who live in New York City's Bohemian Alphabet City who work furiously to pay the rent, to fight for their art, and to survive in a time and place plagued by the AIDS epidemic. The show is riddled by uncertainty, struggle, and endurance. The characters are real, multi-faceted characters who exhibit moments of strength and weakness, failures and triumphs.
Jonathan Larson worked on the script, music, and lyrics of Rent for many years, starting in 1989. He wrote hundreds of songs before settling on the 42 songs that now make up his final masterpiece. Larson died suddenly the night before the first performance of his show. He had lived in Greenwich Village, just down the street from where his fictional friends also struggled for survival. Rent premiered in 1996, exactly 100 years after Puccini's opera's opening in 1896.
If you don't know the songs from Rent yet, then it's time you go out and buy the soundtrack so you can learn the words to such songs as "Rent", "Seasons of Love", "Light My Candle", "Take Me or Leave Me", and "La Vie Bohème", among many other rock compilations that you'll love.
Rent has been nominated for many Tony Awards and has won for Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score, and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Rent is currently being performed at the Colonial Theatre in Boston. The Colonial Theatre, located in Boston's theater district, is the oldest continually operating theater in the city. Ben-Hur was its first performance, dating back to 1900! The theater is generally used for pre-Broadway sneak previews, but is also (as in the case of Rent) a place for post-Broadway shows as well. Famous shows that have made their way to the Colonial stage include Carousel, Annie Get your Gun, The Diary of Anne Frank, Seussical The Musical, High Fidelity, Avenue Q, The Producers, and Les Miserables. The theater is huge and is well equipped to host large scale productions – Ben-Hur had eight live horses up on this monster stage, and that was over 100 years ago!
The Colonial Theatre is located at 106 Boylston Street in Boston, Massachusetts. Showtimes are Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00pm.