Love for ‘Rent’ runs deep

Are you a “Rent”-head?

They exist, in surprising quantities.

” ‘Rent’-heads are big-time ‘Rent’ fans, and they often sit in the front row,” said Jennifer Colby Talton, who plays Mimi in the national tour of the Broadway show.

“They are very vocal, which is awesome. These are people who know everything about the show.”

Some of them are local people who attend all of the shows they can in their region. Others, however, take it further.

“Some of them fly out to different shows,” said Talton. “I know a bunch of people are flying out to Albuquerque to see the last show before it ends for the summer.”

And some, no doubt, will be in attendance in Spokane when the national tour arrives on Monday and Tuesday.

Clearly, “Rent” is a show that inspires an immense amount of youthful passion, mainly because it is about youthful passion.

“The mantra of the show – ‘no day but today’ – appeals to a lot of people,” said Talton. “We say that so many times in the show. You never know when you might have your last day.”

The show is 11 years old, having opened off-Broadway in 1996. Its popularity was given a boost by the release of the 2005 film version.

Talton, 24, said that young people, especially, tend to connect with the show.

“A lot of high school students are finding ‘Rent’ appealing right now,” she said. “You’re figuring out who you are and who you want to be the rest of your life.”

As the “Rent” publicity material puts it, the show is “about being young, learning to survive, falling in love, finding your voice and living for today.”

By the way, the prime seats in the first few rows are reserved as $20 tickets, available two hours before the show at the box office only. This is due to the wishes of the show’s creator, Jonathan Larson, who wanted young, cash-strapped people to be able to see it at a discount.

“Rent,” based loosely on Puccini’s “La Boheme,” is about a community of young artists, musicians and squatters (people living illegally in abandoned buildings) in New York’s East Village.

The show’s themes include heroin addiction, AIDS and homosexuality. Like “La Boheme,” the storylines are romantic and ultimately tragic.

The story of “Rent” is tragic in itself. Larson struggled for years to bring this project to fruition. Then, on Jan. 25, 1996, hours before the final off-Broadway dress rehearsal, he died of heart problems believed to have been brought on by Marfan Syndrome. He was 35.

Yet he couldn’t ask for a better legacy. “Rent” is still playing on Broadway, and has become the seventh-longest-running show in Broadway history.

Meanwhile, the show’s big number, “Seasons of Love,” has become a pop staple.

“Everybody wants to hear ‘Seasons of Love,’ ” said Talton.

Her favorite number, however, is “Out Tonight.” And that’s despite the fact that she is up on a kind of scaffolding while singing it.

“For me, that number is where I’m playing completely opposite to myself, dancing up on bar, which is something I would never do on my own,” she said.

That, in fact, is part of the appeal of the character to Talton.

“I find a lot of her characteristics in myself, but there are a lot of things that Mimi lives by that I don’t live by,” she said. “She lives each day as her last; I like to plan for the future.”

This also explains part of “Rent’s” core appeal. It depicts a dangerous life, yet one filled with an exhilarating freedom.

We can’t all be modern-day Bohemians, but we can live the life vicariously for a couple of giddy hours.