Found this on Twitter last night - a really lovely oral history of Rent - can't believe it's 20 years old!!

http://www.vulture.com/2016/04/rent-oral-history-c-v-r.html

helsinkibaby , you were the first person I thought of when I read this!

Rent to open Off Broadway - from the NY Times

As helsinkibaby has already posted, myself and herself spent last night on a very lovely trip down Memory Lane courtesy of the Olympia Theatre, where we watched the closing night of DCU DramaSoc's production of Rent. (The reason I say Memory Lane is because in the summer of 2000, when the Dublin production of Rent was on in that venue, we spent an AWFUL lot of time there!!)

For an amatuer production, this was really really good! The cast were all extremely talented - the guy they had playing Angel was brilliant, their Collins the same. The girls who played Mimi, Maureen and Joanne were all brilliant - the girl who played Maureen had the whole threatre mooing right along with her!!! Mark was just a clone of Anthony Rapp (and when you looked at his headshot in the program, they look nothing alike so fair play to him on that - though he is apparently a huge fan of the show!!)

As for the Roger..... oy. OY. He can sing, and play the guitar. But if he's relying on acting as his paper bag exit strategy, he is in trouble.

And I've just copped that I forgot to mention their Benny, who we just loved and thought was fabulous!! Fairly sure the program said this was the first production he's been involved in, so I was quite impressed with him. The little scene between him and Collins after the funeral - "I think it's only fair for you to know you just paid for the funeral of the man who killed your dog" / "I know. I always hated that dog" - was just brilliantly executed!!

All in all, a very good night - production values were very high, the staging of Contact was the best I've seen it (lots of purple and red lights and dancers and not a sheet in sight!!) and their La Vie Boheme was just so high octane it was amazing!! (And Mark had obviously studied Anthony Rapp in the film, because he had him down pat!!)

Speaking of the film, I think I must now go and drag out the DVD's......