Rent Director Michael Greif on Remembering Jonathan Larson and Coming Home to Off-Broadway

About the Author:
With both Rent and Next to Normal on his resume, director Michael Greif has the rare distinction of having helmed not one, but two Pulitzer Prize-winning musicals. Even though Rent (which also won the 1996 Tony Award) only closed up shop on the Rialto in 2008, Greif’s history with the show makes its brand new off-Broadway revival a special event in its own right. Greif worked closely with Jonathan Larson until the composer's tragic death of an aortic aneurysm the day before Rent was to start previews off-Broadway in 1996, so no one understands the beloved musical more than he does. Below, Greif lets Broadway.com in on his reasons for re-imagining Rent, introducing its message to a new generation of musical theater lovers and honoring Larson’s memory.



Rent was born off-Broadway. It was conceived off-Broadway for an off-Broadway house, so when the show moved to the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway in 1996, it was fantastic that so many more people could see it, but in some ways I never had the chance to reconceive it for that new environment. When [producer] Jeffrey Seller said he was interested in reviving it, I was very excited about being able to reexamine it and tell the story in some different ways. It’s been a pleasure to conceive this new production very specifically for its new home at New World Stages.

Textually we’re very close to where we’ve always been, but physically we’re quite different. The set is different, the choreography is different and a lot of the staging is different because the space is different. As a director, I’m very interested in how to depict events, and I’m very happy that I have some tools I didn’t have before. When we put this up the first time at New York Theater Workshop, partly for economic reasons and partly for aesthetic reasons we really were interested in (to take one of Jonathan’s lyrics quite literally) making something out of nothing. We had basic units and basic tables, and we made them turn into a lot of things. I’m hoping that we’re still being transformational and poetic in the way we use things, but we simply have more to use this time around, which is very exciting.

I see Rent very much as a period piece now. We set it in 1991, and we’ve spent a lot of time in rehearsal speaking to that time period because I think the characters' psychologies are very wrapped up in that particular moment in New York, especially in regards to an HIV diagnosis. What it meant to be HIV positive in the late '80s and early '90s is a very different thing than in the mid-1990s, when certain medications started having an affect on people’s ability to live longer.

Rent has always engaged audiences by telling an urgent story. We involve the audience in these young people's struggles and take their life choices seriously, so people are moved by the way they overcome those struggles and the way they care for one another—all told with Jonathan’s spectacular music. We set out to make a musical that would dignify the kinds of people he was writing about and portray them honestly and vividly. We were doing it in the East Village, and trying very hard to be true to who we thought those characters were, so while it was groundbreaking in a lot of ways, I never thought it shocking. The issues of tolerance that the play handles so beautifully weren’t the original intent, but I’m thrilled that they’re the happy by-product of its very wide appeal and that we will be introducing them to a new generation of young people.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to direct the play on Broadway, internationally and on many tours, so sadly I know what it feels like to work with just Jonathan’s inspiration and his memory. While rehearsing with a new group of actors and grappling with the material in a new way, the memories of him and his participation are especially vivid. I’ve heard wonderful stories from the cast about the first time they saw Rent and what it had meant to them. It’s during those times that I miss Jonathan most, because he doesn’t have the opportunity to hear what an incredible inspiration he was to so many theater artists who are working today. There are lots of great stories and quotes from Jonathan predicting Rent’s enormous success. He always knew. The stories are sweet and they’re funny, but I think we all love them because in some ways it allows him to enjoy some of this with us.