<p>My daughter and 99 of her "closest friends" from her [performing arts] high school have reserved a block of seats to see the movie version of Rent on Wednesday. Anyone else counting down the days? My normally fashion-oblivious daughter has even been pawing through her closet, looking for the appropriately Bohemian outfit, and I was even asked to find her spankies to wear under her skirt; apparently, she's preparing for dancing in the aisles that might include lifts (the guy dancers at her school have begged her to take dance because she's so tiny and easy to lift!)</p>
<p>My daughter has also given me "permission" to come along, and I'm sorely tempted just so I can watch the reaction of the adults in the audience when these kids get going. Of course, I may need to go along to give her a ride home if they get kicked out of the theatre!</p>
<p>She's so excited about Rent that she hasn't even mentioned going to see the new Harry Potter movie...</p>
<p>Two of my Ds have already seen it in advance showings and the other two are going to an advance screening on Monday night. I'm waiting til Wednesday. :)</p>
<p>I have to say that I hope your D and her classmates are going to one of those smaller theatres in a cineplex where they'll be by themselves. As big a fan as I am, I don't think that I'd appreciate that if I were there to see the movie!</p>
<p>I resorted to buying advance screening tickets on ebay -- my D CAN'T wait! Apparently, people stood in line for hours at Bloomingdales and are now selling them. My D wouldn't sell hers for a million dollars ... well, maybe for a million. :)</p>
<p>I haven't ever called my kid a RENT HEAD but she has been passionate about this musical since she was very young. She has seen it five times. Back in elementary school, when she did many in depth independent studies, she did one on Jonathan Larsen (who wrote RENT). Last year, for a project for her American Studies class, she did a major paper on comparing Jonathan Larsen's work to Sondheim's. For a presentation, she put on a 45 minute performance of songs of Larsen and Sondheim in couplets relating to themes in their works. She sang and played piano and directed some musical theater friends in her presentation in other songs. She has performed various songs from RENT in cabarets. Also back in elem school, she was in awe of Anthony Rapp and even wrote him some fan letter type thing. </p>
<p>Fast forward to this fall. Anthony Rapp was in a performance at Virgin Records in NYC a few blocks from where she lives at NYU, soon after she arrived in the city. He was in a cast exerpt of his NYMTF show. Afterwards, she was able to talk to Anthony and get her picture taken with him. </p>
<p>Nine days ago, Anthony Rapp put on a Master Class at her dorm at NYU and anyone in the dorm could attend/watch but you could also sign up if you wanted a chance to be coached by Anthony and she did and she was one of those chosen. She sang a song and he coached her on it and that alone was like a dream. This was followed by a Q and A and toward the end, the college students were asking Anthony to sing a song from RENT and by then the pianist had left and so my daughter volunteered to play for him and someone had the vocal score. Anthony talked to her at the piano about the tempo (she says, can you imagine discussing this with Anthony Rapp???) and then he sang Halloween from RENT and she accompanied him on piano. I think she thought she had died and gone to heaven considering all these years she has been into him and RENT. When else could she ever get to do that??? </p>
<p>This Sunday night, her boyfriend's family arranged (not sure how??) for him to take her as a late birthday present (she turned 17 a month ago) to a private screening of RENT which is being hosted by Robert DeNiro and I think some cast members ought to be there, in Tribeca. She is very excited. </p>
<p>And ya know, she did not miss a beat because at 12:30 late last night, this morning, she saw her beloved Harry Potter too :D. She is also a HP fan. </p>
<p>All those years when she was in her RENT phase back in elem school (she used to have phases with various shows/CDs) and I had to listen to RENT over and over in our many long car rides (thankfully I really love it too), and she knew every line of the script....and now she is having these experiences....what a trip.</p>
<p>We're meeting my oldest daughter (a sophomore at Tisch, Strasberg Studio) in Chicago next Wednesday. She actually flies in Tuesday night but is staying with a close friend who attends UIC. I'm nervouse that alll of our Chicago plans are going to be derailed for this movie. We have two other daughters who are 17 and 13 and they all have been counting down the days until the movie's release. We are supposed to shop all day Wednesday and sit under the Christmas tree at the Walnut Room in Marshall Fields (a family tradition for the past 21 years); hopefully our small rural town with two movie screens at one move theatre will have Rent. Our girls will either go as soon as we get home on the train at 9:30 Wednesday night or you can bet they'll be racing to the theatre after Thanksgiving dinner. I know we'll be hearing the music from Rent even more often than we have in the past.</p>
<p>I'm sooooo excited to see our daughter!!! She hasn't been home since August 3rd, 2005; the longest time any of us have been apart. She still is loving school, though, and definitely loving her apartment in the East Village</p>
<p>Hi Kristin, nice to see you, you haven't been around much! :) One thing you might want to do is check with your local theatre and see if they're selling advance tickets. Most of the theatres which will be showing Rent have been doing that for about a week or two now. That way you can be sure your Ds will get in! As I mentioned above, by Monday all 4 of my Ds will have seen advance screenings (they're so impatient!) but my youngest two are going on Wednesday with a small group of friends and two family friends who were in the Canadian cast of Rent. They were worried that they wouldn't all be able to get in on the first day so I went and purchased tickets for them, with no problem getting them. So that's always an option! I'm very much looking forward to this movie, although also a little nervous about the changes which have been made. I imagine all of the CC kids here are excited about it. It's a stage show which has probably been seen by more young people than any other, and I know it's responsible for opening up Broadway shows and theatre, in general, to a whole new generation. I'm almost a little embarrassed to admit that I myself have seen it more than a couple of dozen times. I kid and say that it was accompanying my Ds or to see the friends who were in the show, but honestly, it's one of my favorite shows of the hundreds I've seen. Can't wait til Wednesday! :)</p>
<p>I am so excited!! I might try to go wensday afre school but Im not sure how well that will work. Though on Wensday we do get out at 12 48 . I really want to go with the guy I like but I thnk hes going to westchester so I might just drag some people. Omg Susan how did your D. manage that?? For those of you who have seen it what did you think? Ive heard the first 20 min. esp Rent dont really translate well into screen but then it gets much better.</p>
<p>DG, I honestly do not know exactly how she got these other than her boyfriend's grandmother who lives in a different location, was able to get them tickets or invitations to this private screening hosted by DeNiro. How she got them, I don't know, but I recall her excitement a month ago when she was told of this gift. </p>
<p>Hope you get to see it. I'll have it to see it when it comes here (not that we have any movies in our town but we drive a lot).</p>
<p>My daughter is out shopping (with her MT crazy boyfriend) for the cat ears (like Maureen) she plans on wearing at the first showing. When she gets home she is finishing the knitting on his Mark Cohen style striped scarf. She already has the gift wrap in Rent-like colors of oranges, golds, greens and black!</p>
<p>defyingGravity, I haven't seen it yet myself but my two Ds who have already seen it, enjoyed it. Although it's difficult if you're familiar with the show to see things changed, I think the opportunity to see so many of the OBC perform was worth it. Three of my Ds saw the OBC on Broadway but they were pretty young and have seen it so many times since then, that those original performances have faded in their memories. :) It's too bad that Daphne and Fredi weren't cast but what can you do. What I do think is a shame is that they didn't take advantage of some of the other hundreds of actors who have been in the show over the years, even in cameos, but that was done only in a couple of instances. In any case, it will be fun to see and it also will likely give the Broadway show a boost in ticket sales which is always a good thing!</p>
<p>D is flipping out because we will be in a small mountain town for Thanksgiving and she can't bear to wait until we get home to see it. We will be with the owner of her dance studio and her family[also BIG MT fans] so we may just have to drive out of the mountains until we come to a big enough city to see it. LOL! The things we do for these kids [altho I admit, I'm anxious to see it too]. :)</p>
<p>I have 2 free passes to a screening Mon. - my D gets home from college Tues. night - I'm almost afraid to tell her, for fear she'd cut her last day of classes! Me - not a huge fan.... and all the students I know have a rehearsal - which I cannot encourage them to miss!</p>
<p>Just want to join in the chorus of people who have kids seeing the RENT movie this week. My D's arts high school is hosting the premiere here in Baltimore as a benefit for their renovation/expansion project, and my D and a friend of hers (who also goes to the school, but as a vocalist) are going. Tracie Thoms, one of the school's alums, will be there, as will Rosario Dawson and Anthony Rapp. Ms. Thoms seems devoted to the school: she also flew back from filming the movie last spring to help host the school's 25th anniversary celebration gala, which was held at the big professional theatre here.
I am a big fan of Jesse L. Martin and am counting the days until <em>I</em> can go see it, though I will have to wait until it is shown in the regular theaters at the regular price.
TTFN,
Lisa</p>
<p>I'll try to report in after the event, but my D IM'd to tell me she was going a little while ago. I only know she said it was a private dinner hosted by DeNiro at his restaurant, NOBU, in Tribeca, for producers and invited guests (I have no idea how my D's boyfriend got these invites). This is followed by a private screening she said at the Ziegfield Theater. She promised to tell me late tonight about it all. She had to dress up for it. It's a far cry from her life here on a dirt road, LOL. </p>
<p>NotMamaRose, the event hosted by your D's school sounds absolutely wonderful for those lucky kids as well. For theater loving kids, these things are rather heavenly :D</p>
<p>I thought I was an enlightened parent and of course have thoughly enjoyed seeing Rent more than once. But I did make my kids wait until they were 14 until I took them to see it. And we had lots of before and after conversations and they were of course much more savvy than I was at that age. This movie is PG13. I'm not sure I understand how elementary school age kids are into the Rent scene.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how to explain it but my kids were always very into theater from a very young age and just were well versed on all the shows out there, very keenly interested in them and would see whatever we could get them to both regionally and in NYC or other places. I had seen RENT before my kids ever did. But once we were in Boston unexpectedly on our way back from Cape Cod and they wanted to see RENT. I forget their exact ages at the time, perhaps 10 and 12. I think the fact that they were well read and advanced/accelerated learners in terms of their academics and the material they read at their ages, they totally understood the themes of the show. My younger one got so into it and on a trip to NYC, bought the book of RENT with her own money and must have studied every word of it, as well as knew the lyrics of every song (the book has much of the script in it as well). She found Jonathan Larsen to be a creative genious. At that time, my daughter had written two lengthy musical scripts as indep. studies at school (she sometimes had alternate individualized work as an accomodation in school). Then she chose to research Jonathan Larsen and did this 20 page research paper on him when she was 11. So, she just really explored many aspects about the creation of this show and the material in it. She went on to see it several times when it came to Vermont. As I said at age 16, she did an extensive study comparing his work to Sondheim's. </p>
<p>Her passion for theater is beyond performing and watching shows but also in their creation and knowing the body of material out there. She has written a few musicals and loves that creative process and I believe Larsen is an inspiration. I realize the themes in RENT are mature ones but I can't explain it unless you knew this kid but she always was ahead of her age personally, emotionally, socially, academically. She also has always been the type of learner who loves to go in depth in learning about a topic. RENT was just one such example of many indep. studies she has done. She is an early graduate which was all her idea but actually fits in with the whole deal from an early age with her where she never followed a "normal" path in school, even started school early. So, all I can say is that it did NOT seem unusual to me that she'd be so enamored with RENT in elementary school, and actually with Ragtime as well, and even read Doctorow's book at that age, same with (you might die on this one, lol), she read The Vagina Monologues. She got beyond things like American Girl way fast, lol. I'm not saying all this is great or wonderful but only that this is who she is, so it is not unsual to me that my kids were so into RENT when young. And yes, my parents had a kniption when my kids saw Full Monty at about 12 and 14. For me, I did not mind...my kids loved it. While they did enjoy shows like Annie, Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, their tastes went to material not just meant for family audiences. They also loved Hair. My younger D was very into Sweeney Todd around age 11 too. Same with Merrily We Roll Along, another adult themed show, not aimed at family audiences.</p>
<p>My kids also went to theater camps starting at a young age and these camps did not just put on kiddie fare either. They loved it. My D was a Kit Kat girl at age 12 and has been in some shows not typical for teens at your typical high school. None of this bothers me but I can understand how it might not be for others. I just know that they fully "got" RENT from the beginning. Their papers are on sophisticated topics, I guess you could say. It's just the way they are. For me, it feels "normal" but perhaps it isn't?? </p>
<p>happydays, when the show opened my three oldest Ds saw it that year, the youngest was probably about 10. Actually, the two older ones saw it at the NYTW because a friend of the family was involved in it and, if I'm remembering correctly, they saw it there shortly after Jonathan died and prior to it moving to the Nederlander. After having seen it dozens of times over the years, I still don't think that it's inappropriate for kids that age, but it obviously depends on the kid. My Ds were exposed to theatre, which often is a great challenger of ideas, from the time they could sit still long enough to pay attention. They probably saw their first Broadway shows at about age 4. They, like Susan's Ds, have been advanced learners both in and out of school and perhaps have been exposed to things that a lot of kids haven't. </p>
<p>The issues presented in Rent are ones which can be discussed with most kids of that age, in my opinion, even back then! Today's kids who are that age are probably even more savvy than kids were ten years ago. Of course, there are issues which some may find objectionable but, for my own kids at least, they were certainly mature enough to be able to understand and discuss them afterwards in the context of a wonderfully, inspiring love story. Over the years, while at the show (including just last month), I have seen children of that age probably each and every time. On one visit to the Nederlander several years ago, there was a sixth grade class there on a class trip. </p>
<p>Every parent must make the decision as to what they want their kids exposed to but I honestly don't see anything in the show which is too difficult to discuss with kids of that age. Harry Potter is also rated PG-13 and I don't doubt for a moment that the majority of kids who were in the theatres this weekend were younger than that! :)</p>