Austin Art Student Elissa LaFleur Sheppard Wins Broadway.com/JetBlue Rent Contest

Over 70 heartfelt, funny and downright silly videos were submitted this month as part of Broadway.com's Ultimate Rent Fan Contest. After the competitors were narrowed down to just ten, the finalists' films were viewed by original show stars Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp and Daphne Rubin-Vega Watch the Video!, and after much deliberation the judges have spoken: Elissa LaFleur Sheppard of Austin, Texas is Broadway.com's Ultimate Rent Fan.

"I almost peed my pants!" the 21-year-old art student said of her reaction to the news that she won a weekend in New York City to see Rent's final performance on September 7, with airfare provided by JetBlue and a hotel room at Hilton NY. "Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I can't even explain how amazing it feels."

Sheppard won over the judges with her candid tribute to how Rent has affected her life, including how the show's music and message helped her survive the loss of her mother, Mary Jo, to cancer in 2005, and the painful diagnosis of her brother's terminal brain cancer. A young bohemian and student who makes ends meet working two jobs as a part-time photo lab tech and a "book defroster" in the archives of her college's library while still pursuing her art, Sheppard was also inspired by the life of fellow struggling artist and Rent composer Jonathan Larson.

"Just the idea that the original cast members [watched] my video means more to me than I can ever express," she explains. "To have the chance to make someone feel something the [same] way Jonathan Larson has for me is incredible."

A Texas native who has never been to New York or seen a Broadway show, Sheppard was introduced to Rent by a friend in eighth grade. Once she heard Rent's lyrics and music, the pair played the original cast album relentlessly. Sheppard says that despite her Rent devotion, she was hesitant when the film version was released. "I didn't want to see the movie because I wanted to see the show first!" she recalls. But so far away from Broadway, Sheppard wondered when the next chance to see Rent in action would come along. "I went opening night," she admits. "I probably saw it ten times in the theater!"

Sheppard's video also shared a personal tradition inspired by Rent: her Angel necklaces. Tiny pendants inscribed with the phrase "Our guardian angel, protect us" on the front and her initials on the back, Sheppard gives the necklaces to those closest to her during their darkest hours; her mother was buried wearing hers. "[My mother] gave the first one to me, and now I give them to other people to remind the people I care about most that, no matter what happens, 'we're okay.' I haven't taken mine off in… since I don't know when!"

It was a close finish in the contest between Sheppard and fellow finalist Will Dreher of Clairton, PA. Like Sheppard, Dreher, who is HIV+, has never had the chance to see Rent live on Broadway but was touched by its message, and has lived his life with the show's values in mind. "They are the people that Jonathan wanted the story to be about and for," original star Rapp said during judging of Sheppard and Dreher. Former co-star Adam Pascal agreed, and has donated his own final performance ticket to Dreher so that he may attend on September 7.

Now a photographer double-majoring in photography and art history at the University of North Texas with dreams of becoming an art curator, Sheppard is excitedly planning her first trip to New York City for Rent's starry closing night. "I still can't believe it," she exclaims. "Even when I'm actually there I'm going to have to ask people to pinch me. And I don't know what to wear!"

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