RENT w/ Adam Elsberry

Summary

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Broadway Breakdown – RENT w/ Adam Elsberry

Host: Matt Koplik
Guest: Adam Elsberry
Date: November 3, 2022

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Overview

This episode dives headfirst into the legendary rock musical RENT, tracing its explosive Off-Broadway roots, its rapid ascension to cultural phenomenon, and the tangled legacy that followed. Theatre super-nerd Matt Koplik is joined by returning “gunkle of the pod” Adam Elsberry for a candid, hilarious, and critical dissection: from the show's development hell and Jonathan Larson’s tragic death, to RENT’s seismic impact on Broadway fandom, teen theater kids, and how we think about art, poverty, and chosen family. Unflinching in opinion, the conversation celebrates RENT’s historic highs—and isn’t shy about examining its flaws, its faded cool factor, and why everyone is so damn complicated about it now.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal and Cultural Histories with RENT

• Adam’s Introduction
  • Witnessed RENT’s rise as a high school freshman: "We went from not having Rent to Rent being fucking everywhere.” (07:07)
  • First saw the national tour in 1997 at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theater, cast album memorized before ever seeing it.
• Matt’s Story
  • Was aware of RENT by age six; not allowed to see it at first due to parental disapproval.
  • Eventually caved, got the cast recording, became obsessed as a young theater kid: "If you are around 13, 14...it’s gonna have a positive impact…and then as you get older, your relationship to it kind of changes." (15:10)
• Impact on 90s/2000s Youth
  • The fandom rivaled later Hamilton-level hysteria, especially among theater kids.
  • RENT’s marketing plan: keep it in the culture daily, never let it be (publicly) about Larson’s tragic death.

2. The Complicated Love–Hate Legacy of RENT

• Instagram Poll Results
  • 45% “love it, won’t apologize”
  • 34% “my feelings are complicated”
  • 13% “like the music, dislike the characters” (15:55)
  • Matt: "For a show that was so beloved...the taste for it has soured a bit. Even those who love it—not everyone loves it still. Or if they do, it’s a love that is spiky."
• Why Is Everyone Complicated About RENT Now?
  • The show is both raw and “rough;” its magic often comes from the music and emotional sweep, even when the writing is wildly uneven.
  • Adult theater fans often become more critical: “You have two people here who like this show and understand what’s effective about it, while also wanting to very honestly talk about all the things about it that are roof.” (27:40)

3. Breaking Down the Plot

• RENT summarized: Young artists, East Village, Christmas Eve, 1990s, AIDS epidemic, drugs, struggling with art and relationships (17:14–22:01).
• Characters:
  • Roger & Mark: Roommates, broke, chasing creative dreams (and women).
  • Mimi: Dancer with HIV, original “manic pixie dream girl” vibes.
  • Angel & Collins: AIDS-positive “ideal” couple—deeper gender/identity questions now than in the '90s.
  • Maureen & Joanne: Off-and-on lesbian power pair.
  • Benny: Villainized ex-roommate turned Landlord—on re-examination, maybe the only responsible adult in sight.
• Act 1: “How everybody meets. How many gets together.”
• Act 2: “...over the rest of the year. The fallings in and out of love.”
• On the “chosen family” theme: They’re only truly a “family” for about 10 months. The intensity is real but also romanticized by both fandom and show itself.

4. Iconic Numbers, Lyric Moments, Questionable Storytelling

• Best Songwriting:
  • “Light My Candle” – “...a perfect musical theater scene.” (31:11)
  • “Another Day” – A go-to for both, even if the dynamics are murky.
  • "Life Support" – Noted for genuine empathy drawn from real AIDS support groups; addresses the grimmer realities (41:35–44:59).
• On “La Vie Bohème”
  • Ultimate Act One closer. “It energizes and builds in a way that is infectious.”
  • Crams in “every word in the dictionary”—a library of 90s bohemia and references.
• Contact?
  • Questioning why “Contact” (the stage's surreal sex-death ballet) remains so confusing on stage even if it works on the cast recording. “Staging...not great...it’s a cluster.” (153:00–153:39)
• Notable Line-Deliveries – Adored for their quirks (ex: “Not my attitude” — Taye Diggs) and oddities (“America...Prairie Dogs!” – Adam Pascal, 151:14–152:34).

5. The Development Hell, Tragedy & “Pulitzer Bump”

• Jonathan Larson did not die of AIDS (35:09).
  • Died of an untreated heart condition the night of the first public preview; misdiagnosed by hospitals.
• Conception:
  • Original concept by Billy Aronson, inspired by La Bohème; Lorison brought on to realize it musically.
  • Show structurally “a hot mess” for years. Only with dramaturg Lynn Thompson and relentless feedback did it find dramatic cohesion.
• Opening and Aftermath:
  • First preview performed as a sit-down reading in Larson’s honor; cast “couldn’t stay seated, it just happened.”
  • The show exploded in the press due to both its quality and the drama of Larson’s death—which the producers deliberately tried not to exploit in the marketing.

6. Cultural Impact, Fandom, and the Rise & Crash of “Rentheads”

• Birth of Fandom Culture
  • RENT’s rush ticket/lottery policy and the “Renthead” phenomenon: kids camping out all night for $20-$25 front row seats, later devolving into message board wars and stanning replacement cast members.
  • Broadway message boards, LiveJournals, “my favorite Maureen is the real Maureen” drama—RENT’s rabid fandom rebooted how Broadway interacts with its audience, for better and worse.
  • The “ownership” complex: “It was as if the show belonged to them, and anyone on stage was a visitor in their world” (104:28–105:57).
• Toxic Fandom
  • Shoshana Bean got booed by fans when replacing Idina Menzel.
  • The show’s rawness, coolness, and outsider bonafides fostered a jealousy-tinged “cult” fervor that, in time, even put off original fans.
• Critiques of Poverty Porn & Romanticized Struggle
  • “Characters in poverty by their own choice,” as opposed to the systemically poor or truly disenfranchised.
  • Real homeless characters are sidelined or lampooned, undermining the show's anti-establishment stance.
  • Harshest critique: “Don’t act like you’re a martyr for doing so” (116:57), especially in a show with such a privileged notion of “struggle.”
  • “The people who beat up Collins, you wanna know what they’re doing? Paying their rent.” (168:57)

7. Casting, Replacement Drama, and Aftermath

• Original Cast–Lightning in a Bottle:
  • Cast in their early 20s, many with no formal theater training.
  • Their “real,” unfiltered voices (and idiosyncrasies) became essential to the show’s appeal.
• Replacement Cycles:
  • Eventually, the grunge “real people” were replaced by musical theater actors for vocal and logistical consistency (e.g. Sutton Foster auditioned for Maureen).
  • First big replacement: Sherri Renee Scott’s Maureen—met with resistance both from the company and the infamous first-row “Renthead” booing brigade (104:28–105:57).
• What Became of the Cast?
  • Only a few segued to major careers right away (Jesse L. Martin to L&O, Daphne Rubin-Vega to film).
  • Idina Menzel found stardom only after several hits (Wicked, Frozen).
  • “When they finally embrace[d] that they’re a Broadway person...they carve out their niche.” (97:57)

8. Broadway, Movie, & TV: Attempted “Returns” and Their Problems

• The Movie
  • Most original cast, but too old, too pretty, too sanitized. “Everyone’s way too pretty. Everything was safer to look at.” (124:41–126:09)
  • Major issues: Laxed stakes, setting spread out over days, spoken dialogue in place of lyrics.
  • Fandom’s verdict: Lukewarm, at best—unlike the show, the film bombed at the box office.
• Off-Broadway Revival & TV Live Version
  • Attempts to bring RENT back flop hard in the culture: "Every time they try to bring it back, there’s disdain." (182:43)
  • “Rent has only really been a success in America,” unlike, say, Hamilton.

9. Why RENT Still Matters — and the Stigma It Helped Address

• Hopefulness Over Despair
  • Unlike La Bohème, RENT forces hope into its finale, no matter how illogical (“How do we know that [Mimi] didn’t die 10 minutes later?” – Adam, 161:08).
• AIDS, Generational Shifts, and Medical Progress
  • Important closing PSA: “If you’re with somebody who is undetectable [HIV], they are also untransmissible.” (188:06–191:07)
  • Emphasis on ongoing education, ending stigma around HIV/AIDS.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What makes event theater EVENT THEATER…is simplicity.” – Matt (11:03)
• “My feelings on it are complicated.” – Adam (16:18)
• “Because the music is good, because you’re on along for the ride, you don’t really think about [plot holes] at the time. But when you’re analyzing it…” – Matt (26:46)
• “Everyone in RENT is in poverty by their own choice.” – Lindsay Ellis, paraphrased (45:05)
• “It’s almost as if the idea was brought to him…he wrote this scene and presented it…If this is all I were given, I would give you $100,000 right now to keep going.” – Matt on ‘Light My Candle’ (31:11)
• “You have to collaborate and you have to bend sometimes. Because also, sometimes the other people have the better idea. And you won’t know till you try it.” – Sondheim advice to Larson, retold by Matt (75:20)

On Toxic Fandom:

• “It was as if the show belonged to them, and anyone on stage was a visitor in their world.” (104:28)
• “Too many people had taken ownership of it in a way that I didn’t like.” – Adam on why RENT fandom soured him (132:02)

On Why RENT Can’t Come Back:

• “Every time they try to bring it back, there’s disdain. Whenever it’s referenced, it’s never done lovingly.” – Matt (183:10)

On the Broader Meaning:

• “You’re never old enough to know everything. Keep on learning, keep on reading… And then once you have the information, pass it on.” – Matt, capping off the episode (190:56)

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• 00:02–07:10: Introductions, reviews, housekeeping, how Adam & Matt first encountered RENT
• 15:10: Discussion of generational relationships to RENT, poll results on feelings
• 17:14–22:04: Summarizing RENT’s plot, character breakdowns
• 27:40: How loving RENT can get “complicated” for adult fans
• 31:11: Best songs/scene discussion (Light My Candle, Another Day)
• 35:09–37:48: Myths about Jonathan Larson’s life and death, the show's real origins
• 41:35–44:59: Life Support, AIDS support group insight
• 54:40: Least and most favorite RENT characters—problematic faves
• 68:22–73:00: Benny’s character, lost opportunities for nuance; timeline of original cast
• 96:08–97:13: Idina Menzel’s “three juggernauts” before true stardom
• 104:28–106:31: Rush ticket culture, rise of Renthead fandom, replacement cast drama
• 116:57: The show’s flawed depiction of poverty and struggle
• 132:02: Adam on why fandom pushed him away
• 153:00–153:49: “Contact” and the Broadway musical’s unease with explicit sexuality
• 161:08: Dark joke about Mimi “dying again” at the finale—RENT's forced hope
• 168:57: Who’s really paying their rent
• 188:06–191:07: Adam’s PSA: Modern HIV facts, fighting stigma

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Final Thoughts & Recurring Themes

• RENT is loved and loathed in equal measure for its emotional directness, its defiant hope, and its sometimes clueless role as a snapshot of a very specific moment and audience.
• Its innovations in casting, subject matter, and marketing remade Broadway forever—and also spawned its own breed of obsessive, territorial fandom.
• As a work, it survives as a period piece: still effective, still problematic, never less than complicated.
• At its best, RENT taught a generation of theatergoers not to wait, not to “lose their shot,” and—crucially—that a song, a community, and art itself could change everything, even if reality was a lot less simple.

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Next episode tease: The order is chaos, but upcoming topics may include A Chorus Line, Next to Normal, Once on This Island, For Colored Girls, The Golden Apple, and others.

Contact:
Host: @mattkoplik | Guest: @adamaels on Instagram
Podcast home: Broadway Breakdown

Transcript

[Adam Elsbury]

December 24th, 9:00pm Eastern Standard Time. From here on in, I shoot without a script.

[Matt Koplik]

See if anything comes of it instead.

[Adam Elsbury]

Of my old shit.

[Matt Koplik]

First shot.

[Adam Elsbury]

Roger tuning the Fender guitar.

[Matt Koplik]

He hasn't played in a year. This won't tune. So we hear he's just coming back from half a year of withdrawal. Are you talking to me?

[Adam Elsbury]

Not at all.

[Matt Koplik]

Are you ready? Hello, all theater lovers, both out in crowd and on the DL. Welcome back to Broadway Breakdown. It's been so long. How you doing? How you been? A podcast discussing the history and legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called the Big Move, and it is covering shows that were so successful Off Broadway, they just had to transfer to the Great White Way and try their luck there. They're like, there. I should rewrite that. Fuck it. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And with me today is Gunkle of the pod, Adam Ulsberry. Hello. Hi, Adam.

[Adam Elsbury]

Now, I don't remember what you said in your intro, but it made me maybe think of Caroline or change. And I wanted to say, it's warmish for October.

[Matt Koplik]

Sure, it's warmish for October. Maybe the way I said, try the luck of Leia. They're their luck there. So, first of all, guys, some housekeeping. Since you last heard from me, Broadway Breakdown has been picked up by the Broadway Podcast Network. What does that mean exactly? Technically speaking, I get paid, but only if there are ads. So you're gonna hear some ads getting chopped in here from time to time. Can't tell you when. They gave me instructions and I promptly forgot them, but I will read them once I edit this episode, so. So apologies if any sentence just gets cut off and there's an ad read. We're also going super out of order for this series because in truth, it doesn't really matter. We're not covering the career of a specific writer. And, I mean, we could maybe start with one of the earliest shows that transferred from Off Broadway to Broadway, which is the Golden Apple. But it's been real tough getting someone to say yes to that.

[Adam Elsbury]

And chronology out the window.

[Matt Koplik]

Chronology out the window. So I'm releasing episodes based off of how soon I can get people to record, so it's all over the place. But by the time this episode comes out, I will have on my Instagram the list of every show we're gonna cover. So you can go back to that and check off when we do, when we cover one of those episodes, before we talk about the episode. Sorry, the show that we're covering, I also want to read out two iTunes reviews we got.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, we're doing it at the beginning now.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, one of them. There's a reason, and it's because of one of them. So first I'll get out of the. Not get out of the way. It's a lovely review.

[Adam Elsbury]

Cue the light in the Piazza Overture. Thank you, Adam.

[Matt Koplik]

Five stars. And that's literally the title as well. Five stars. This podcast has the most opinionated gay I've ever heard, and he's wrong about everything. And that's a quote from Matt Koplik. Apparently I said that in an episode about yourself. About myself. I think I. I think I said. I think what I said was, I don't care what you write so long like you could write. This podcast has no opinion gay, and he's wrong about everything. So they quoted me, and then their quote is, you give me everything I crave from Wikipedia, but I just can't scratch that itch. So I. Yes, it's. This podcast has. Has the most opinionated gay I've heard. Ever heard. And he's wrong about everything. Matt Koplik, you give me everything I crave from Wikipedia, but it's just can't scratch that itch me. That's the review.

[Adam Elsbury]

Amazing.

[Matt Koplik]

Amazing. Next one. This is why I wanted to do this now. So the first this. This person had written the review a while ago, and then they edited it, and then they edited it again. So I'm gonna read both headlines, but read the most recent updated review. Land of the Piazza Overshirt Music. The first headline, five stars, by the way, is Sally Murphy would approve.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, yeah, Is it Sally Murphy?

[Matt Koplik]

I wish. I wish it was Sally Murphy.

[Adam Elsbury]

Can you imagine if Sally Murphy's just like third person reviewing Sally Murphy would approve.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, I met Sally Murphy. And then the most recent update, JusticeForSmile. So this person's really trying to flatter me.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, I see. Well, good. Good job, whoever you are.

[Matt Koplik]

You know me well. Okay, continuing on. Five stars. I'm 13 years old, living in Alaska. I started listening to this pod about five months ago. I downloaded the ones about the shows that I know and love, and now I listen to at least of one podcast per day. I would really love for Matt to make episodes about Dear Evan Hansen. Tick, tick, Boom. Wicked. The Music man and the Lightning Thief. And in an earlier one, they had said rent. Oh, yes, they also said rent. So they took that one out, but now they're saying rent. I know that I'm really young and I don't know as much about theater as John and Matt. John's not on the pod anymore, so don't worry about it. I'm also to pretend that I get all of your theater references, but I'm working on it. Please make episodes weekly again. I really miss listening to them. Well, guess what, Jackson. We are covering Rent. We are back. And don't you worry your pretty little head about not getting all the references. You're 13 years old. You're doing just great, kid.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, my God, Jackson, you sweet thing.

[Matt Koplik]

You sweet thing.

[Adam Elsbury]

That is. That is so. I'm sorry.

[Matt Koplik]

That's.

[Adam Elsbury]

That's rude of me. When I was 13, I hated when people called me cute. But that was. It was a very, very sweet review. So. And that's.

[Matt Koplik]

I love it, Jackson. You're two different headlines alone. Sally Murphy would approve. JusticeForSmile. I already like you. I don't like children. I famously don't like Gen Z. I find them very annoying and loud. But I like you. I think you're fun. I liked your review. Thank you very much. We will not be covering every show you listed, but we will be covering Rent. We will be covering. Dear Evan Hansen. We will not be covering Tick Tick Boom as it did not transfer. Wicked did not come from Off Broadway. And Lightning Thief. No. I only have so much time in my life, but thank you very much, and I hope you like this episode, because what should we covering today, Adam?

[Adam Elsbury]

Rent.

[Matt Koplik]

Rent, Rent, Rent, Rent. When I get a pig. Rent. Very exciting. And I think. I don't know if we're. I don't know how today is going to go. I really don't.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's up in the air.

[Matt Koplik]

It is up in the air.

[Adam Elsbury]

Because I think my response when you said this when you. When you asked me to come and do this episode was, yes. But then I also said, I wonder how many people I'm going to anger when we have the conversation about this show.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, let's also be very clear. My first thing to you was, here are all the shows I'm covering. Let me know which ones you like. Just know I'm also sticking you wherever I want you. You didn't get it. You didn't get it. Safe.

[Adam Elsbury]

And honestly, just spoiler alert. The show that I really wanted to do, Matt, is not covering, which is Spelling Bee.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I know. That might be a bonus one there. That was a really tough one to gut. There were. There were a couple that I was clinging to for dear life, and the series as it is, it's gonna get me all the way, I think, to May starting in.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Koplik]

Starting in November.

[Adam Elsbury]

So hopefully I get to come back for more than one. But even if. But, but if you do an extension for the Patreon, you just. You just plug Spelling bee right on in there. And I've got the history ready to go.

[Matt Koplik]

I've been so bad about the Patreon, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna keep it back up again very, very soon.

[Adam Elsbury]

But, yeah, we're talking about Rent, baby.

[Matt Koplik]

Talking about Rent Ad. What is your history with Rent?

[Adam Elsbury]

Good question.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't.

[Adam Elsbury]

I don't remember what my first exposure to Rent was. I was. I can tell you, I was in high school, and Rent came out. I was a freshman in high school, and it was like. It was just kind of everywhere all of a sudden. I think I was probably on a. On a. On TV somewhere. It might have been good old Rosie o'. Donnell. Yes, the woman who covered everything. Yeah, it might have been Rosie o', Donnell, but it might have been, like, on an MTV News. I couldn't tell you. But I just know that, like, we went from not having Rent to Rent being fucking everywhere. Yeah, like, everywhere.

[Matt Koplik]

And that was on purpose from the producing team. I was reading Michael Riedel's Singular Sensation, which is his sequel to Razzle Dazzle. And you do have to take both of those books with a grain of salt because he only interviews a handful of people per show, so he does not get all the facts because, you know, memories get fuzzy over time. But he does a mostly good job, and he does it. And he does a really good job of painting a lovely picture. But with Rent, as they were transferring from Off Broadway to Broadway, their goal in terms of marketing was never let a single day go by without Rent being mentioned somewhere in the papers or on tv. And never. And never having it being about the fact that Jonathan Larson died. Always just about it being. It's the show, it's the show. It's the show. Because his death is what. Spoiler alert. His death is what got the show national attention when it was off Broadway. But then the reviews made it even bigger and after. And then, like, all the celebrities showing up. So it just became a movement in a moment very, very quickly. When did you first see Rant?

[Adam Elsbury]

First time I saw Rent was national tour in 97. I can. Oh, wait. I can probably tell you the exact date as I brought with me my Rent book and my Playbill from when I saw Rent at The Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco with Daphne Rubin Vega and in the Ensemble. Karen Olivo was in it.

[Matt Koplik]

Ko, I don't.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, right, yes, I'm sorry. Ko is.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, Karen Olivo at the time, as she.

[Adam Elsbury]

They are officially going by now. Jeez, I can't find my ticket stub. I could have sworn I had it. Anyway, it was probably spring of 97, I think, so that was my first time seeing it live.

[Matt Koplik]

Did it convert you? Were you a rent head at the time? Well, I had.

[Adam Elsbury]

I knew rent before I'd seen it. Like, at that point the cast album had been out because it came out really soon after they opened on Broadway, I think.

[Matt Koplik]

I mean, Pedal to the Metal does not begin to describe how they push this in.

[Adam Elsbury]

So like. So at the time I was doing. I was, you know, a kid doing local theater and I think I was. I don't remember what show I was doing at the time, but like, it was just one of those shows that, like, everybody that was aware of any type of theater knew of. And so, you know, anybody who especially usually I was the youngest person in a lot of things that I did. So all of like the. The 20 something, late teenager people in whatever show I was in were like, obsessed.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

So it got passed to me very quickly. And yeah, I just remember at the time, like, thinking that it looked very like edgy and cool and. And I don't. This isn't. At the time, I'm saying dangerous, it seemed. And yeah, I just. It was one of those things where I immediately was like, what is this? I need to listen to it, I need to see it.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, they.

[Adam Elsbury]

Whoever was doing the job did their job where I was like, must.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, must.

[Adam Elsbury]

Must know, must see, must hear.

[Matt Koplik]

And it's always. Simplicity tends to be the thing that makes event theater. Event theater, you know what I mean? Like, especially when you look at the posters or the way that marketing happens. So they talked about this in Singular Sensation as well. When they were transferring from Off Broadway to Broadway, they went, you know, how do we market this? Like, what's the poster going to be? So they did a full page out in the Times that was just the title Rent. And they did it in sort of stencil and. And then typewriter Y type of like tickets and just, you know, that was it.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And for a while. Yep. Adam has his book on Rent and that. That image was. Sort of followed it everywhere and there were no. They didn't really market it with images from the show. They didn't. They didn't I don't know. Even if they did commercials that early that showed much of the show, they would perform on Rosie or on the Tonys, but they didn't really. I don't know, they didn't. They didn't do, like, super in depth.

[Adam Elsbury]

They did Seasons of Love on every network television show.

[Matt Koplik]

And they also. I mean, they did the, like, R B cover of Seasons of Love for the cast albums. All, like.

[Adam Elsbury]

They were really Stevie Wonder.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, yeah. They were really pushing to make that, like, the song, which I guess it did, because everyone knows it. Yeah, Yeah. I don't know. But it also. Eventually, you kind of go through food poisoning with that kind of stuff, you know, and eventually that's the easiest song.

[Adam Elsbury]

To make the spoof. Yeah. No, but so my first exposure to it prior to seeing it was definitely cast recording, which was. I mean, this is for anybody who's on the younger end of things who wasn't around when Rent first came out. Like, this was Hamilton level cuckoo. Like, it was really. I guess. I guess Hamilton spread stretched a little bit wider, but especially if you were, like, into theater and you were younger, like, this was. It was everywhere and, like. And you just couldn't really escape it. And everybody in it just was sort of, like, immediately iconic.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Well, so there are. Sorry, I didn't mean to giggle, but it's so funny. Anytime I read an oral history or whatever about any show on Broadway that has had success before Hamilton, they always describe themselves as like, we were the Hamilton of the time.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

So like the Angels in America, oral history. The world only spins forward. They talk about being like, we were the Hamilton of the time. And in a way, Angels was for a play, you know, it was national news. It was everywhere. But I think Rent is the only show of that decade there. I would say there are three musicals, three American musicals of the last 40 years that really kind of shared similar DNA, and it's chorus Line, Rent and Hamilton of their origins of the buzz coming from off Broadway to Broadway, their role in the pop culture zeitgeist, and on top of that, sort of the aftermath of those shows, as well as the legacy of their casts of their original companies.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yep.

[Matt Koplik]

And we'll get into that as well when we sort of talk about the show itself and what happens afterwards. But, yeah, it was everywhere, to the point that I was very sensual, six years old, and I was very aware of the show, even not knowing what it was about because, like, I remember seeing posters for it everywhere. And then by the time I think I was 10? Yeah, I was 10. And I very much knew about it and always wanted to see it. My parents wouldn't let me. They had seen it when it first came out. They were not fans. So not only did they not think I was ready for it, they were like, we don't want to see it again. Sure. And so I think when I was 11 or 12, I finally was given the cast recording because too many people in my theater circles knew it so well. And I was like, I can't be on the outside of this forever. I have to learn. And, you know, when you're a theater kid, if you get. It depends on what age as a theater kid, you are introduced to Rent, because you have to. If you are around 13, 14, I'd say, like, anything younger than 19, let's just say anything younger than 19, you are. It's gonna ma. It's gonna have a positive impact on you, and it's going to consume you for a little bit. And then as you get older, your relationship to it kind of changes.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

And in fact, Adam Oldsberry, Gunkle of the Pod, you know this because we follow each other on Instagram, but as I was preparing for this episode, I did a poll of the people who follow me on Instagram, and I said, what is your current. What are your current feelings about Rent? And the options were, love it, won't apologize. No, ma'. Am. Never got the appeal. My feelings on it are complicated and like the music, dislike the characters. Now, we had over 400 votes, which, I do not have to tell you guys, is the most I've ever gotten on a poll.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's pretty amazing.

[Matt Koplik]

It is pretty amazing. I am not, you know, Kim Kardashian, thank God, But I don't have hundreds of millions of followers. I've got a sensible 2700, I think. 181 people. 45% of the vote said, love it. 34. 8% of the vote said no. 135. 34% of the vote said complicated.

[Adam Elsbury]

I was one of those people. Spoiler alert.

[Matt Koplik]

If I could vote on my own poll, it would have been the same. 51 votes, 13% of the vote said, like the music, just like the characters. So the majority of the votes were love it, but it's not an overwhelming majority. 45%. That's not more. It's less than half. Yeah, yeah. If we were to, you know, combine, like, the music, dislike the characters with Complicated, that would technically have won 47% of the vote. Yeah. So it's. It's interesting For a show that was so beloved and so immediately considered, this is important. This is impactful. This is a change. And everyone just sort of agreed, like, okay, even if you don't like it, you have to agree it's important. It. The taste for it has soured a bit. And even those who love it. Not everyone loves it still. Or if they do, it's a love that is spiky. And we'll get into all that as well. Yeah, we'll get to it.

[Adam Elsbury]

Great.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, let's do it. So, Adam, what is rinta about?

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, man.

[Matt Koplik]

How long you got?

[Adam Elsbury]

I know, it's. The plot is actually relatively simple. Well, first off, it's. It's loosely based on Puccini's La Boheme.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Adam Elsbury]

And it's about a group of young artists living in the East Village in the early 90s, some of. Some of them struggling with AIDS, the rest of them all just struggling.

[Matt Koplik]

Struggling with sucking so hard.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. And Act 1 centers around all the action happening on Christmas Eve, essentially over.

[Matt Koplik]

The course of three hours, I think. Yeah. It's. Yeah. It's short.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. Nine to midnight.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Craziness. So.

[Adam Elsbury]

So act one is. We centers mostly on Mark and Roger, who are roommates who live in. In a loft that they are. That their friend is. Their friend's family has gained the possession of through his wife's father who has a ton of money. And let's see.

[Matt Koplik]

The.

[Adam Elsbury]

Matt left the room for a second, so I'm. I'm needing his. His.

[Matt Koplik]

I left the room to get our food. I know our food arrived.

[Adam Elsbury]

I know, but I got nervous. Anyway. But their friend. Their friend Benny's wife now has control of the building and they're. Benny is trying to basically tear down the building and the lot next door to.

[Matt Koplik]

He's not. He's not tearing down the building. He's going to repurpose the building.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, sorry to. To renovate the building and Purch Store to create a. Basically a big artist space.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. It's not the worst idea in the world.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's not a terrible situation. So he's. And. And in doing so, the two of them are squatting. They're. They. They're totally broke. Yes. And. And so. And. And Mark's ex girlfriend Maureen, who has recently left him to date a woman, Joanne, is holding a. Well, an unintentional riot in the locked space.

[Matt Koplik]

It's a protest performance piece for the homeless.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Every time I hear.

[Adam Elsbury]

Raise money.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, also, I would. I also love it because it reminds me of Jenna Maroney in 30 Rock.

[Adam Elsbury]

It really is kind of.

[Matt Koplik]

Jenna. It's the vagina day. It's a day where women who, for some reason. Female celebrities who for some reason or another, were never asked to perform in the Vagina Monologues, perform monologues about their vagina for the homeless. Oh, to raise money for them? No, just for them. And it's them perform. It's Joey Behar talking about her vagina to homeless people. And that's pretty much what Maureen is doing. Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

So I don't know. I mean. Anyway, their upstairs neighbor, next door neighbor Mimi, who is a young drug addict, sort of bothers Roger. Yeah, I'm really butchering this.

[Matt Koplik]

It's fine.

[Adam Elsbury]

The whole point of Act 1, ultimately, is that there are relationships that are falling apart.

[Matt Koplik]

Like how everybody gets together.

[Adam Elsbury]

Everybody gets together. In Act 1, Roger and Mimi both have AIDS and realize that they are both suffering from aids. And that is one of their major connectors, besides being very sexually attracted to one.

[Matt Koplik]

Did you talk about Roger's past?

[Adam Elsbury]

Roger's. Roger's ex girlfriend discovered that she had had AIDS and. Or at least hiv, and passed it onto Roger in a note that she left as a. In her suicide note.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. Essentially, Roger and his ex girlfriend, his old girlfriend April, who are drug addicts, they had contracted aids. Whoever passed on to whoever. Don't know. But April got the news and killed herself. Because in the early 90s, AIDS was not necessarily a death sentence anymore, but especially if you had no health care, if you had no money.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Definitely was. And so she killed herself. And that sent Roger to rehab to get clean and somehow has AZT with no money. I don't know how that happens.

[Adam Elsbury]

He and Mimi both.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, Mimi at least has a job. Mimi. That's true. That's true. Mimi works at the Catch Scratch Club.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, that's where she works. She dances, I guess.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, I guess. Well, I guess Roger's mom or dad paid for. That's the other. We'll talk about that as well with Ryan, is that these characters, for the most part, have connections with their family that are not poor.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes. Throughout the show, there are phone calls that come from parents who all seem, number one, concerned about their kids who they're not hearing. Hearing from.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And providing shit for them. Mark's mom sends him a hot plate.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right. From Scarsdale.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Happy New Year from Scarsdale.

[Adam Elsbury]

Why does she wish him Happy New Year on? Oh, no, that's Act Two. Sorry.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

I don't know why I was combining it with her Act One phone call, but yes.

[Matt Koplik]

So, yeah, act one is just how everybody meets. How many gets together. Yeah. And then Act 2 is over the course of the rest of the year.

[Adam Elsbury]

And the fallings, in and out of love, basically.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Maureen and Joanne break up and get together.

[Adam Elsbury]

I didn't bring up angel and Collins. Angel is a. A drag queen. I guess if the story were done now, technically she'd probably be trans, but at the time, she's presented as a male. Someone who lives as male but is a drag queen.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. They. They have cast angel with trans performers now, which is. Yes, I. That. That sort of thing about Angel. And again, it's something we'll talk about when we talk about the writing and sort of one of the notes. It's not a plot hole. It's just something that I don't think was ever really considered by Larson when writing. It is. What is it that angel identifies as? Is Angel a man who likes to dress up in drag? Is angel non binary angel gender fluid? And of course, a lot in the 90s, not all these terms were necessarily known.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

But it is important to figure out.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. And within the show itself, they just sort of refer to her as a drag queen.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. There's one moment they. They play around with Angel's pronouns as well. Like, Angel's pronouns go from, well, Mark.

[Adam Elsbury]

Mark. Mark corrects himself in his eulogy.

[Matt Koplik]

Spoiler alert.

[Adam Elsbury]

Calls himself dies. And calls. Refers to angel first as him, and then corrects himself and says her.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. But then when Collins gets thrown out, talks, refers angel as a boy, and, you know, Angel's death won't be in vain. And Roger goes, his death is in vain. Right, sorry. I love my Adam Pascal impression, but, yes, angel dies and then, sorry, Trigger.

[Adam Elsbury]

Warning, everybody, it's dinner time and we're eating. I will not eat directly in the microphone. I'll try not to make lots of noise.

[Matt Koplik]

This is, I think, the third episode of Broadway Breakdown where there's been eating during the episode.

[Adam Elsbury]

Okay, well, I'm just learning.

[Matt Koplik]

Listen, it's. It's. Just because I've been picked up by a network doesn't mean I'm any less sloppy. I am still a messy, messy bitch, y'. All. Well, yeah. The only other major plot point is. Oh, I don't know if other men discussed Mimi. We find out used to have a thing with Benny. They kind of get back together after Roger breaks up with her. Mimi relapses because she was trying to get clean, but she relapses, goes back on heroine, is slowly Dying. Roger goes away, comes back, and Mimi almost dies in his arms. But she pulls away from the white light because angel was there and she looked good. And she said, turn around, girlfriend, and listen to that boy's song. And they all go, oh, what a wonderful moment. And then Mark plays the footage he shot all over the year, because this entire time, Mark's been making his movie while Roger's been trying to make his song. Roger's song ends up being called you'd Eyes, and it's fine. And then Mark shows his movie, which is just a collection of clips over, which is. Listen, emotionally, it does get me when you watch it, but when you look at it objectively, you're like, you didn't make a movie. You made a sizzle reel of your friends.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, I think that's a great point to make about the show. Just going into it, there's a lot of stuff on paper that you just go, really? But, like, somehow in the moment, in context, it's like you're moved, you. You're crying. What? Like, it really does. It is a very effective show, regardless of its flaws.

[Matt Koplik]

That's the magic of musical theater.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Because musical theater. I think Lindsay Ellis said it. And we'll get to Lindsay Ellis.

[Adam Elsbury]

I rewatched that the other night.

[Matt Koplik]

As did I. I think she's very astute. I think she's sometimes a little unfair, but she makes a lot of very good points. Point is, Lindsay Ellis said, and I think her movie, musical video musicals are something that your head doesn't understand, but your heart does. And it's not that you have to. It's not necessarily that you have to turn off your head, because there are some amazing musicals that really do the work for you and figure it all out. And again, it's another reason why, like, while Rent has so much greatness about it, it is also very rough because there are some things that I just don't think Larson thought about. And I'll talk and that. I don't think that's hyperbole. We'll talk about this as I discuss with Adam and you guys sort of the trajectory of this show, how it kind of came to be, and the bumps that it had along the way. But there are certain plot things that make no sense. There are character traits that come out of nowhere, and there are things that are just sort of out of left field that you know, because the music is good, because you're on along for the Ride, you don't really think about at the time. But when you're Analyzing it.

[Adam Elsbury]

And.

[Matt Koplik]

And, you know, not all theater is necessarily meant to be analyzed, but really good works can hold up under scrutiny. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, one of my favorite musicals is Les Miserables. That is a show where it's not so much that it falls apart under scrutiny, but rather the. Like. It's not in the details of Les Mis. It's in the grand, bold brushstrokes, you know, and Rent is sort of the same thing. The difference is that they're also, you know, they're all both about shows. They're shows about people who are struggling and dying. But Rent is, as a time that we have a little more context for a little more historical context. And I don't think that Les Mis is trying to necessarily glamorize poverty in the way that Rent is. And. Well, and you have two people here who like this show and understand what's effective about it, while also wanting to very honestly talk about all the things about it that are roof.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. So I sort of said this to Matt before. I. I have a lot of feelings about this show, but it doesn't mean that I don't like this show. So I. Because I said the listeners are really gonna hate me after we talk about this, at least. I'm sorry. At least the listeners who are big fans of this show. But I hope everybody who's listening to this knows that deep down, I. I literally just re. Watched the. The bootleg of the original Broadway cast on YouTube two days ago. And did I cry multiple times? Yes, I did.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, also, that original cast.

[Adam Elsbury]

There's also magic in that original cast.

[Matt Koplik]

And things changed over time because of how production decided to start directing actors.

[Adam Elsbury]

Some of them for the worse.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. Well, so there's a moment, for example, at Angel's funeral. So, like, one of the jokes of Maureen and Joanne is how hot and cold they run. Right? Like, they're always off and on.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And they're at the time of Angel's funeral. They are off, Right. And they get back.

[Adam Elsbury]

They come together right afterward.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. After the.

[Adam Elsbury]

During goodbye, love.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. After the fight happens. Right. And I can't believe this is goodbye. And Maureen and Joanne have the moment, like, I missed you so much. And they kiss, and Maureen says, ow. What is it? It's nothing. You bit my tongue. No, I didn't. You did. It's bleeding. Like, show me. Oh, she doesn't believe me. And the way that it's directed now, if you watch En Espinoza and Tracy Thoms in the video of the final performance, And I also remember it from when I saw the show. It's done for comedy. They start yelling each other, and then they see everybody's looking at them like, are you fucking serious? And then they hug it out. And, like, it's played for laughs. The original production, if you watch Adina and Freddie, it's Freddie Walker, right?

[Adam Elsbury]

Yep.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. They don't play it for laughs. It's. It's. In a weird way, it actually makes them fall back in love with each other. Because. Because Joanne hears Ow. And she's concerned. And Maureen doesn't want to start a fight, so she's like, it's fine. You bit my tongue. Jo's like, no, I didn't. And then Maureen starts to laugh, like, naturally. This is so you. You wouldn't believe me. She's like, she doesn't believe me. And they become like an old couple that just, like, knows each other's quirks. So it doesn't make them angry with each other. It just endears them even more to each other. It's like, I knew you would react this way. And, like, I love you anyway. It's. It's very sweet. And it keeps those characters from being too broad, which is something that is important because there's a lot of lack of specificity for many of these characters. And you need the details. Oh, boy, do you need the details. How do you document real life when.

[Adam Elsbury]

Real life's getting more like fiction each day?

[Matt Koplik]

Headlines, breadlines blow my mind and now this deadline. Eviction or pay Rent? How do you. What is your go to song in this show? Go to song. And then what you think is objectively a piece that maybe works best in it. I can tell you what I think is the best number in the show.

[Adam Elsbury]

Okay. What do you.

[Matt Koplik]

What's.

[Adam Elsbury]

What's your. What's your best.

[Matt Koplik]

I think. Well, I think the best piece of writing in Rent is Light My Candle. I think that is a perfect musical theater scene. And it's almost as if Jonathan Larson and he did not have the idea to make a modern La Boheme that was someone else. And we'll get again. We'll get into all that. There's no structure as well anymore. We stopped doing structure. So it's all just going to get mixed in together. But it's almost as if the idea was brought to him. He had it, and then looked at the Mimi. What's the name of the. It's like Rudolpho or whatever. Rudolpho. Mimi and Rudolpho in Labo M. And when they meet and he Rewrote it for young artists in the East Village, late 80s, early 90s, and wrote this scene and presented it, like, at a BMI workshop or whatever. Like, I have this idea for a modern lab of women. Like, here's the scene I wrote of, like, Rudolfo and Mimi meeting. And it's you, what you listen to and you watch and you're like, yeah, if this were all I were given, I would give you $100,000 right now to keep going. Because it sounds like it just works so well. And it's a really well structured scene, really well created. Gives them both a lot of action to do. And when you watch the original staging, I don't know what other stagings do, but the original staging, they play with how they both are always blowing out Mimi's candle to get her back in the room. So she blows it out twice on her own, and then he blows it out. I think the third time.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. It's like, it's a bit of a cat and mouse game.

[Matt Koplik]

So when, for example. And it's. If you watch the video of the final performance with Renee Lee Skoldsberry, who's a little too trained for Mimi, and we'll also talk about that with recastings and whatnot. But she does a really good moment with the blowing out of the candle the first time she comes in and he lights the candle for her and he goes, nothing. Your smile reminded me of. I always remind people of. And she's being flirty. She thinks she's going to get this at some point. Who is she? And he goes, she died. Her name was April. And she immediately can tell that the vibe is changing. He's going to start thinking about the ex girlfriend. And. And she immediately blows out the candle, just whips out. She goes, it's out again. Sorry about your friend. And I'm like, that is a baller move. It's just really well done. I think that is the best piece of writing in the show in terms of just, like, ironclad, airtight. There are other things that are maybe more musically adventurous. Like Christmas Bells is musically a really adventurous piece. Yeah. And then I was. I honestly, I think Another Day is the song that I listen to the most. Even though, dramatically speaking, I have issues with it. Sure.

[Adam Elsbury]

I would say so. My go to song is. God, if I could. The number of times that my go to song has changed over the years.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, sure.

[Adam Elsbury]

I would say current is. Is probably. Is probably another day.

[Matt Koplik]

Look at us.

[Adam Elsbury]

That's probably my go to my fate. The one I think is the best. I think. I think. I think Life Support's pretty great. Yeah, there's something. There's something about that scene, because it's one of the few scene songs that exists in the show that I think really does its job and is melodically enjoyable. Gets a lot of information in and really sets a tone for a lot of things.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Moving forward. Yeah, I. But I agree with you on Light My Candle. I think. I think that that scene is. Is great, too.

[Matt Koplik]

So Life Support. That scene was added because. So, as I mentioned, Jonathan Larson did not come up with the idea. So also, a couple things I want to get out of the way so people stop perpetuating myths. Jonathan Larson did not die of aids. Oh, my God.

[Adam Elsbury]

He did not believe. People think that.

[Matt Koplik]

People think Jewish lasers are the reason for California wildfires. And by people, I mean one person. But I can believe anything. It's easier to just think stuff than read, you know? But he did not die of aids. He did not die in opening night, and he did not come up with the idea for Rent. He also did not completely write it on his own. Right, let's get all that out of the way.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

He was a very smart, very talented man who had been struggling for a very long time. He died of a. Essentially a heart aneurysm, I believe.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. Yeah. An aneurysm.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And the. The tragedy of it is that it could have been cured. He was misdiagnosed twice in the week leading up to the first performance of Rent at New York Theater Workshop. And if. And it's a hard thing to catch, especially because he. He. He was young for having it. It's not. It's very rare to have it at 35 on your way to 36, but a simple CAT scan would have shown it, and he would have been given medicine and would have been fine. But it went untreated and he died. And it actually led to an investigation, and then both hospitals that misdiagnosed him had to donate money, I guess, to the fund that Larson's family created for this disease. So that's one thing. The person who came up with the idea for Rent was Billy Aronson. Unclear exactly when this was.89 or 90, I believe, but Billy Aronson was a playwright, and he apparently really loved opera, and he had gone to the Met to see La Boheme. Some of the best ideas for musicals come from writers seeing stuff at the Met. That's how Carrie the musical came to be. Jesus Christ. Yeah. They went to go see Lulu, I believe it was called. And they forgot who the composer of that is. But they walked out and, like, if that composer were alive today, he'd do Carrie. Let's do Carrie. So Billy Aronson wanted to do a modern take of La Boheme and went to Playwrights Horizons because they had done a lot of readings of his plays. Never a production, always readings. And they had worked with Larson at that point, who had spent the better part of the 80s writing Superbia and getting the Richard Rogers genius grant for it, I believe. No, that was. He got it for Rent, I think, but he got the Richard Rogers, granted. Mm. Was it for.

[Adam Elsbury]

It might have been for Superbia.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. No, it was for Superb.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Because he used the money to set up the workshop, and then the workshop never led to a production for the reasons explained in Tick, Tick Boom. That's one of the things they got right. Everyone who saw it said, it's too big for Off Broadway and it's too weird for Broadway. Like, it's a perfect Off Broadway show, but it costs too much money to put up anyway. He had been working at Playwrights and curating content and trying to, you know, make something happen there. And with both Aronson and Larson, they were, like, liking them both. Just couldn't find anything for the. To put up of theirs. And they connected the two. They're like, we think this could be a musical, and we want to connect you with Larson. The first thing that Larson said was he wanted it to be in the East Village. Apparently, Aaronson wanted it to be on the Upper west side. He also had the idea to call it Rent, because he said, it's a play on words. Mm. Mm. The three.

[Adam Elsbury]

Because Rent also means torn apart.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. The three songs they wrote were Rent, I Should Tell youl and Santa Fe. Those were not the songs as we now know them. They were the titles. Some of those lyrics were in there, and I think some of the music, but they were not completely fully formed.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think that. I think from what I read in my brief research, was that Santa Fe pretty much is intact as it was written.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay.

[Adam Elsbury]

It was sung by different characters, but it was. But the lyrics and the melody pretty much remained intact. Also, everybody was white originally, even in the reading.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep. Well, the characters were right. The actors were white. Characters did not change ethnicities, I think, until the first workshop.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right. But even then, I think Daphne might have been the only person of color in that. One of the only people of color in that.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, so. So talking about this brings Us back to life support. Eventually, Aronson went off the project because he. He lost faith in it. And Larson, very generous person and gentleman that he was, sent Aronson a letter. He's like, I would like to continue with it, please, because should anything come of it, your name will absolutely be on there story by. And any lyrics that I use will be credited to you. He goes, and we'll figure out, you know, royalties if anything comes of it. But just note like, this is me writing in print. You will get credit. And he does. He still does. But as Larson continued writing it, one of the things he really wanted to do was he wanted to make the show hopeful. Whereas LA Poem is sort of about these people who want to create and want to make art, but the world is just too cold and hard for them and. And so they're literally burning their art to stay alive, right? And someone like Mimi is supposed to like, just be too pure for this world. She can't survive in this crazy time. So she dies of tb. And Washington was like, no, I don't like that. I want the world to have hope for me and my friends. And because he was, I guess overall an optimistic guy considering the fact that he had no success or no successes, he would define it. At that point in his life, the only thing he had of any standing was his one man show that eventually would become Tick Tick Boom. And he would sort of go around playing it all the time. And that would get producers to be like, what you writing? And he's like, I'm writing this thing about Lobo Wham. And that's how he would get readings and workshops and whatnot. But with life support, what came about with that was he would sit on his friends, aids, you know, support groups and whatnot, and he would play some of the songs to his friends and they were all very supportive. But then his friends would invite their friends. And there was a. There were a couple of moments where people who did not really know him would sit in and listen on what he was working on and get very angry with him. And they would say, you don't know what it's like. How dare you put sugar down my throat. I'm dying. Right? And so there are pieces in Rent that acknowledge that, but not quite enough. I think life support does it best with what's his face, who is Gordon? Who's like, excuse you, I can't with this today.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think that section is so good. Yeah, it's so good.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, it's also very concise for how much it covers.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Well.

[Adam Elsbury]

And I think really what it shows is with the whole show, but that scene in particular, and based on what Larson picked up from going to these meetings and talking to people who were suffering with AIDS or dealing with it, or whatever you want to call it at the time, is that he really was an empath. He really did. He was there because he cared and he wanted people to have a voice and for the unsung to be able to have their information out there. How well he managed to do that in the end, I think is debatable because as we've already said, there's a lot that's. That's glazed over and missing. But in the end, I think had he been. Been able to stay around, I think there are things that would have been rewritten or expanded a bit where stuff might have gotten explained or. Or made a little more sense.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

In terms of representation.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, so all that. Yes. The reason why life support works so well is because I think it's able to tap in, as you mentioned, a very short amount of time. A not as. So, like, it's. My brain is all over the place. I swear. I swear. I have a point. But like, in Book of Mormon, they kind of come to the conclusion at the end of the show, like, all religions are insane, but you need something to give you some sense of order in this world and something to get yourself out of bed in the morning. So for this support group, like, they don't. It's not like a cult or they're like, every day is beautiful. No day but today there's only us. Forget regret. But it gives them something to latch onto. And then cord is like, I'm sorry, I can't today. No bullshit. This is all bullshit. And the counselor acknowledges, you know, okay, well, how do you feel? And the best I've felt all year. I'm a New Yorker, fears my life. And then there's a moment and the music changes. And it doesn't feel unearned because it's not a total about face. It's just a slight letting go.

[Adam Elsbury]

It literally wrecks me every time.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, also, I have. I'm from the same world of. The lyric is. I find. Look, I find some of what you teach suspects because I'm used to relying on intellect, but I try to open up to what I don't know because. Because reason says I should have died three years ago. First of all, fantastic lyric. But also the idea of, like, I try. I tend to trust in intelligence and scientific facts and data. It's why I always talk about. I prefer the Happiness project over Eat, Pray, Love. Because Gretchen Rubin's like, here's data on happiness. And like, yes, girl, give me a task to do. But whereas there's a moment later on in Act 1, is it before or after? No, it's. Yeah, it's after. Support group. Because it's after another day, Angel Collins and Mark are on the street. And Mark is, you know, filming everything. Like Mark do. They see cops about to most likely harass some homeless people. And Mark uses his camera to get them on tape so they don't. So they walk away.

[Adam Elsbury]

Smile for Ted Koppel, Officer Martin, and.

[Matt Koplik]

A Merry Christmas to your family. And then instead of gratitude, like I think Mark expects, the homeless woman eats him the fuck out.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's great.

[Matt Koplik]

It's great. But the problem is that it's a moment where this homeless woman is basically like, my life is not for you to make art. You don't know what suffering is like. And again, this is something that Lindsay talks about. Everyone who's a main character in Rent is in poverty by their own choice. Everyone, we learned, they all have families that reach out to them, that have the means to provide them with things. They can always go back to people that they know who clearly care about them. I mean, they all have, you know, their damage or whatever. But no one was kicked out of the house. No one has no ties, anything. Except maybe Angel.

[Adam Elsbury]

I had. I had always sort of assumed with the. With the angel character, just given, you know, what little we know about them that, you know. And especially within that day and age in the late 80s, early 90s, a really effeminate gay boy in a Latino family is probably gonna be ostracized if they're not immediately loved. So I would. I had always sort of assumed that this was, like, a person who nowadays would probably end up at, like, the Ali Forney center or something.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, yeah. And everyone else. Roger, Mark, Mimi, Joanne, Maureen, I would assume. Yeah. Collins, probably even Collins also, like, has jobs Like, Collins, like, gets, like, mit, man, and then nyu, right? So Collins has money, which I never said why Colin is like, we couldn't pay. I'm like, you have a job, you get a paycheck. And they, like, set up a suite at the Plaza when Angel was, like, really sick. I suppose I'm like, you have. Like, Are you just that terrible with money that it's just. You blow every paycheck you have the moment you get it anyway, not the point. But whereas La Bohem is about artists who the system has failed. Rent is about. Is about artists trying to defy the system and, like, choosing to live in squalor. And that's not romantic. When you have characters who are homeless because the system has failed them, not because they desire it, not because they think it makes them interesting. It's because they literally have no other choice. So you have Mark filming and then this homeless one being like, go fuck yourself. You don't. You don't get to do this. And rather than let that moment sink in for the characters and they. Maybe they learn a little something. Angel, Colin and Mark roll their eyes and go, ugh. New York City. Am I right? It's like, no, you just got a very important life lesson. Right. God.

[Adam Elsbury]

From a very eloquent.

[Matt Koplik]

She's not necessarily eloquent. She is.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think she's.

[Matt Koplik]

She is. She's. To the point.

[Adam Elsbury]

That's what I mean. She's eloquent. She says exactly what she needs to say.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay, she's eloquen. She's not eloquent.

[Adam Elsbury]

Maybe she's eloquent and not eloquent.

[Matt Koplik]

No, eloquent is drag race. That's Michelle Visage.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And I would assume is a combination of eloquent and elegant. This homeless woman is not eloquent. She is not. She does not use beautifully curated words to make her point.

[Adam Elsbury]

She's got no left.

[Matt Koplik]

Nope, nope, nope, nope. She has taken her vocabulary and shoves it up your ass.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And I love her for it. She's an icon. Christmas bells are ringing Christmas bells are ringing Christmas bells are singing on TV at sex. Honest living, Honest living. Honest living, Honest living. This is actually something that has recently bothered me as I've re. Listened to Rent. So Marine does her performance piece, which isn't. It's. It's not a good piece.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's not purposely. I mean, as written purposely.

[Matt Koplik]

It's written to not be good. You know, Idina Menzel talked about this, I think, in their oral history when she was talking to Jonathan Larson, because they kind of created the piece together. And as Thompson, what's her face? The dramaturg who eventually helped Larson. And we'll get to that later. But he was like. What he told Idina Menzel was, you know, Maureen has watched all these really amazing performance artists who have a voice and identity, and she's copying the pieces she likes the most because she doesn't actually have ideas. She wants to have ideas. And I think it actually would be really brave of him if, like, all of them were just bad at Art, like, it's what they wanted to do. And none of them were actually good at it because in the end, I think none of them really are, but I think Roger and Mark are supposed to be good at it. But anyway, Maureen does her whole over the moon and spot a cow. And she says, moo with me. And it's four homeless people in this lot that is eventually going to get torn down. And then they go off to the live cafe for, like, the after party. And Joanne comes by and she. And she says, you know, they've paddocked your building and now they're rioting. Benny called the cops and, you know, they're trying to clear out the lot so they can. Eventually she goes, no one's leaving. They're just sitting there mooing. And everyone goes, success. And everyone goes, yay. Yay. Here's what bothers me about this freeze frame. Yay. Instead of thinking of anchorman and they go buy new suits. Yay. Everyone goes, we did it. Exactly. Art. Art saved the day.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's. Who do you have to fuck to get a break in this town?

[Matt Koplik]

Yay. Azt break. Yay. But so womp, womp, womp, womp. But so the reason. So everyone's like, yay, it worked. Art actually does make an impact. I wouldn't say that it's Maureen's performance that did it. I think they had something that they could sort of unite with, which was. Remember when that chick was here an hour ago and told us all to moo? Let's just sit here and moo. But the people who are actually making a difference are the homeless people sitting there against the cops while all the faux poverty characters celebrate with wine and beer that Angel's gonna have to pay for with her thousand dollars. Oh, right inside. Everyone else is warm and cozy inside.

[Adam Elsbury]

In the live cafe, asked not to.

[Matt Koplik]

Come in because they never pay. And the movie has a bit where the waiter's like, don't put the tables together. Let's put these tables together. And I'm like, you are the worst. You are all the worst. You're all just the fucking worst.

[Adam Elsbury]

The only thing I can equate it to is, like, a bunch of teenagers showing up to Denny's after their high school performance. And the waiters are, like, friendly.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep. And they're all like, come on, guys, let's sing the Act 1 finale together. Maybe people will hear it and say, we should go to Broadway. That's a.

[Adam Elsbury]

That is a hundred percent what Lovey Bohem is.

[Matt Koplik]

God, I have this Awful memory. My freshman year of college, we did the Freshman at Emerson. Used to. I don't know if they still do it. Used to perform. And it was like the family weekend showcase. So you know, the weekend where families of the freshmen get to come and see what everyone's up to. And then that weekend there's a performance on Saturday. Two shows on Saturday, I think. I don't remember. It doesn't matter. But it's a variety of songs or whatever and they get a bunch of musical theater kids to do it, including all of the freshman class. And my year, our opening song was start of something new from High School Musical. Now we did sound good, but that's not the point. The point is that we did our cast party and it's Boston. Everything's close together on the T and we're all 18, 19, drunk off our asses on the T. And we just acapella start singing. Start of something new at the top of our lungs. It's like 11 o' clock at night and. And I look back at that and I go, we were awful.

[Adam Elsbury]

I hope somebody threw a glass bottle at you.

[Matt Koplik]

I wish it was like six people. I feel so bad about it now. And I wish one of them had the decency to throw something at our fucking child faces because we deserved it. As does everyone in La Viebom. Yeah, I'm just trying to enjoy my veggie burger or my pasta with meatless balls. And you have the audacity to stand on your table and talk about anorexia and dance. No eating disorders. Good day. Dorothy and Toto did not go over the rainbow to blow off Auntie Em. They went to Oz through circumstances that they had no control over.

[Adam Elsbury]

Dorothy wanted to go home that entire time.

[Matt Koplik]

That entire time. How dare you rewrite history. Mimi and Mark, no time. No time at all. I guess this is a good moment to ask you, who's your least favorite character in Rent? And then your favorite character.

[Adam Elsbury]

Hmm, that's a good question. Least favorite character.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, for me it's Mark. And it's ironic because that's the part I would ever play and it's the part I most wanted to play as a kid. I think still do.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think it might be the same for me as an adult.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I love playing a villain.

[Adam Elsbury]

Mark the villain. Well, it's. It's so interesting. Well, yes. Okay, let's discuss this now. So, yes, I think Mark now is probably my least favorite character. Mostly because I think that he could be helping a lot more than he is. And Instead, he's just, like, you know, trying to basically do reality tv.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Well, also, like, again, it's one thing if the show was aware of this and, like, was making a comment about it. The show genuinely wants you to bleed for Mark in the same way you're supposed to bleed for Roger and Mimi. Yeah. Like, Roger, Mimi are insufferable in their own ways, but I find them more compelling characters. Mark, I find nothing compelling about, I think.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. But I think as an adult, my favorite. My favorite character.

[Matt Koplik]

Hmm.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think it. I don't know. It's not me. I want to say Mimi, but it's not Mimi. No, I think it might actually be Maureen.

[Matt Koplik]

Maureen's a lot of fun as a human being. I think I have. I like Collins the most. Even though he doesn't use any of his technical computer skills for good in the world. He hotwires an atm.

[Adam Elsbury]

If we're. If. I mean, if we're going based on, like, morale and, you know, and people who have any, you know, I would say Benny is probably the best character in the show.

[Matt Koplik]

Benny is interesting. Again, re listening to it, I'm like, the opportunity's lost with the character of Benny, of what his story is.

[Adam Elsbury]

Okay, so I texted Matt this morning at.

[Matt Koplik]

9Am Is this what we're gonna talk about now?

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes, I'm gonna bring it up right now. I texted Matt at 9 this morning because I had a thought as I was re. As I was revisiting Rent last night, and I was like, we have to talk about this. But I. And I want. But I want to talk about it with you fresh. And so I'm telling you now so we remember to talk about it later.

[Matt Koplik]

Thank you.

[Adam Elsbury]

You caused me to remember in bringing this up. So this is jumping ahead in the show. So Angel's funeral, after Angel's funeral and after Goodbye Love. Or maybe pre Goodbye Love. Within that scene, Collins is tossed out of the church by the priest, the minister. I don't know. That's all a little messy.

[Matt Koplik]

The company manager.

[Adam Elsbury]

The company manager. But Collins gets tossed out of the church by some person, some. Some. Some religious figure who has discovered that angel was a drag queen and that the church doesn't condone that. And so they've been kicked out of.

[Matt Koplik]

Of the. Of the church and also that they couldn't pay for the service. And.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right. And then he says, we couldn't pay. We just found. I just found out, and I don't have the money to pay for the service. So in that moment, Benny pays for the Service. He says, I will take care of this for you. He and Collins have a little, like, back and forth. Oh, we're rekindling our friendship moment. And leave. That is Benny's last moment in the show. Yes, it is.

[Matt Koplik]

You're right.

[Adam Elsbury]

And then in the final scene of the show, Collins returns to let us know that he has totally called Benny out and secretly, behind his back, told Allyson that Benny is sleeping with Mimi, which then makes Allison pull Benny out of the East Village and out of doing anything to that location.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

When Benny has financially them is Benny.

[Matt Koplik]

Has Allison kicked out Benny or has. Or like, are they broken up?

[Adam Elsbury]

Says is she's pulled Benny out of the East Village.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

That's all.

[Matt Koplik]

So, yeah, he might just be on a tighter leash now.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

So he's. But he's now whatever was going on with the buildings is apparently no longer happening. But that's kind of also thrown to the wind. But it's. I just. My. My heart went out for Benny a little bit in that moment where I'm like, this dude paid for a funeral service and seemed to reconnect with a friend in a moment. And then Collins decided that it was more worth it to. For the building to keep. Or to keep them from doing anything to the building and the lot next door. So he ends up totally going behind Benny's back and. And telling on him.

[Matt Koplik]

I think it also. I don't. I. I don't know what happened. I wasn't there. But I think. I think another interpretation could be knowing that Mimi has aids.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And that Benny is sleeping with her and probably most likely also sleeping with Allison. First of all, to be cheating on his wife in general. No bueno. But also to be sleeping with a woman who is. Does have. Would. Would ACE be considered an STI at this point? Or it'd be a disease.

[Adam Elsbury]

I guess it's a disease. I mean. Yeah. She's at that point. She's living with aids. Yes. Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And. And. And.

[Adam Elsbury]

And isn't contract HIV from her?

[Matt Koplik]

She could. Yeah. Benny could contract it from her and possibly pass it off to Allison.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sure.

[Matt Koplik]

And so that is a health concern. Do I think that. Do I think that was going on in Collins's brain? I don't know. I wasn't there. But I'm just saying, I think if we really, really, really, really, really, really, really wanted to continue liking Collins after all the things that Benny did for him, he could say, morally, I don't think it's okay. We have to tell Allyson and rather than Allison kicking Benny to the curb. She's like, well, we're no longer. You're no longer allowed to be in that area anymore.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sure, I hear all of these things. I'm just saying this falls into the category of what we were talking about earlier, where there's a lot of information that gets glossed over. And it was one of those things that, like, when I was younger watching this show, I was like, oh, Benny's an asshole, cuz he wants them to leave their. You know, he wants to kick them.

[Matt Koplik]

Out of their building. Yeah, he's asking for rent.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, he. He got rich and turned around and now he's being an asshole. And so, but. But as an adult, I'm watching this and I'm like, oh, he just paid for the fucking funeral. Yeah, now you're gonna go and like, stab him in the back instead of it.

[Matt Koplik]

And then pays for. And pays for Mimi's rehab.

[Adam Elsbury]

And Mimi's rehab. Thank you. And it's. And instead you're gonna go behind his back instead of being like, dude, maybe stop seeing her.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And like, it just seemed a little underhanded to me.

[Matt Koplik]

Also. Okay.

[Adam Elsbury]

I mean, also, rigging the ATM to.

[Matt Koplik]

Give cash to people, people who knew that it was angl, rather than just rigging it to get cash and give to homeless people so they can maybe buy themselves meals or fresh clothes. I don't know. There are other things you can do than getting yourself cash so you can buy drinks for you and your friends in honor of your dead partner. I don't think that's great. Anyway, what was I gonna say? Oh, so think about Benny. And this comes into play. Okay, this is where we go back now to sort of the history of the show and how casting was all over the place. Again, everyone was originally white. Slowly, more characters started to become racially diverse. And that was also partly because the people who were producing Ren and New York Theater Workshop, where they just kept on doing readings and workshops over the years, because I think it was like a four year development period where they did a reading, a workshop, two more readings, one last workshop, and then the performance. And over that time, somebody said to Jonathan Larson, dude, if this is about the East Village, it's got to look like the East Village. You have an entire principal company of white people. And the first person to change that was Daphne Ruben Vega, who played Mimi. And that was a point of contention as well. When she came in, everyone but Larson was like, oh, absolutely, it's her. Like, she sounds.

[Adam Elsbury]

She looks it.

[Matt Koplik]

And Larson wanted Someone classically trained. Also, like the way the score was gonna be even despite all the talk of like the rock sound. And Larson wanted to bring in like modern day pop and rock to Broadway. He wanted it to also incorporate classical music as well. Like he, it was gonna be much more musically audacious.

[Adam Elsbury]

Orchestra with a band.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. The original script, when he presented it to New York Theatre workshop in like 1992, the opening direction was there is a full orchestra, right. And then a band on stage.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And they're like, interesting. So it was going to be like literally La Bom meets Rocky Horror Show.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right. And that still like to hear that, I'm not gonna lie.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I'd be interested in that. The thing is that like, I don't know how well it would have worked. It would have been more audacious, for sure. But would it have been as focused and clean? I don't know.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, I, I, I'm sure it wouldn't.

[Matt Koplik]

Over time, I think the sound just can't got closer to rock. And I probably started with Daphne because the original, according to her, the demo she was given of out tonight for her callback was up the octave.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, Jesus.

[Matt Koplik]

Sung by Larson's white soprano friend. And Daphne was like, no. So she did it down the octave. And the I think was that was supposed to be sort of like a more coloratura thing, like, oh, tonight. And she was like, what if we just make that a howl? You know, like it's supposed to be. And it's sometimes one of those things where you know, when you're writing, it sounds so obvious now, but you know, you're writing this big sprawling thing like Larson is, and the book is a mess according to everybody. You can't see the forest or the trees. So something as simple as you talk about howling. What if that thing was actually a howl? And it's like, oh, yeah. That took me three years to realize, but so she got the job that way and he was not really for it until like the moment they went up at New York Theater Workshop. And after she got cast, it became more and more so I think Jesse L. Martin was the last person cast for the show when it went to New York Theater workshop, like for 95, 96.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think that's correct, yes.

[Matt Koplik]

So Anthony Rapp was the first person of the original company cast. Then it was Daphne, then I think Wilson and Freddie maybe, maybe don't quote me on this. Idina was cast in the final workshop before production, as was Adam. And I don't know if Jesse was cast for the workshop or if he was just cast for the production. I don't remember.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Matt Koplik]

But originally Collins was supposed to be white, and they couldn't find a white actor they liked. And then they found Jesse, and they liked Jesse a lot. But Benny. Turning Benny from a white actor to a black actor. Mr. Taye Diggs, which have. Did you ever watch Ugly Betty? Mm. There's a moment where Michael Urie says to Vanessa Williams, like, she's just like, Taye Diggs. And Vanessa Williams goes, what do. What is it with white people and Taye Diggs. For a while, Taye Diggs was sort of like the go to black actor that white people could be. Like, I'm not racist because I find Taye Diggs sexy. It's like, you're not. You're not special. He's objectively a sex on a stick man.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. I mean, as someone who saw one of his few performances as Fiero in Wicked when he was in. When Norbert was out for the three weeks. Yeah, Yeah, I can tell you that. That ass in those white pants.

[Matt Koplik]

Oof.

[Adam Elsbury]

Holy mackerel.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, you are an ass, man. Was. Did you see a performance where he forgot the words not to my.

[Adam Elsbury]

Not to my record?

[Matt Koplik]

Apparently, of the like 20 performances he did, there were 10 where he'd be like, doo doo doo doo baluly la shiny. What do you forget? Got a light? I know you, you're shivering. It's nothing. They turned up my heat and I'm just a little weak on my feet. Would you light my candle? But so casting a black actor as Benny, who is someone who was from this world, whatever his original background was, we don't know. But he squatted with Maureen, Mark and Roger and Collins in this loft and then got his way out. As a black man in America, it's always difficult to carve a space for yourself in a predominantly white capitalist culture, but to do so from a place of poverty, to do it by marrying into a wealthy white family to then create your own business opportunities to have to then, like, continue thriving. And on top of that, he's not trying to ignore his friends. He is trying to bring his friends along.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

He's trying to make them understand, like, no, no, you can't live like this forever. This is not sustainable.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And if you want to, he literally has the lines. You want to produce and produce films and write songs, you need some way to do it. You can't just have a dream. Money is there for a reason. And he's not wrong. And there's something. There's so much riches to explore that with a black character by making Benny go from white to black without changing a word of dialogue. There's already so much more at stake, and it would be great if Larson expanded on that. But no, Benny just has to be the stand in for capitalism. And doesn't he suck? Right? And. And the thing is that sometimes he does, you know, sometimes in La Vivo.

[Adam Elsbury]

He's not always the most eloquent of people. He's not the most to dealing with.

[Matt Koplik]

He also has one of my least favorite lyrics of all times, which is, it's what we used to dream about. Think twice before you poo poo it. One of the worst lyrics of a very strong score. But any. He's mostly an asshole when it comes to the Roger Mimi shit because he and Mimi have the past. And it's also very clear that he has. He's not over Mimi. Something about Mimi and that magical vagina, everything that it touches, just can't get enough. And just Benny comes on in and he's like, I'm gonna fuck things up for no reason, for no gain. There's no gain to it. He just does it. Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

When does he. That's also not a clear moment. Like when he actually comes in. I don't know.

[Matt Koplik]

First we. We first find out that, well, they hint that there might be something with Mimi other than the Cat Scratch Club. Because first Roger's like, you look familiar. And then we find out it's because he used to see your dance, right? And then in Kristen spells, Mark's like, I think we've met. And Mimi's like, oh, that's what he said. And we're left to assume that Mark also is at the Cat Scratch Club. But I have a feeling Mark might have in passing seen Mimi in one of her dalliances with Benny. Because then what happens is in La Vie Boheme, when Benny sings his whole thing and he's like, mimi, I'm surprised. And we don't get any context. All we know is that they know each other, right? And then there's a brief moment of the we should discuss it was three months ago. And that's all we get to know. And then Happy New Year. He comes in and he starts again, again. It's messy storytelling because it's not clear who's lying about what. But when he. When he padlocks their building and they break in, in Happy New Year, he shows up and he's like, I. He's like, it's a shame you had to break in. I was literally here to give you the keys back. And. And Mimi's like, why? And she's like, all grungy about it. He's like, because you came to my office yesterday and blew me. Which. How much of it is a lie? We don't know the truth. We do know that Mimi did come to his office yesterday.

[Adam Elsbury]

She. Yes, she did go to speak to him to ask. Yes, in one way or another.

[Matt Koplik]

How. What. What transpired. We don't know. They both are capable of lying. And so. But. But he isn't lying that she showed up. He isn't lying that they had a past and when.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, right, because she does not deny going to the office.

[Matt Koplik]

No, she says and says, that's not how you put it at all. Yesterday. And then also I was on my way to work. Black leather and lace. I think I'm still sore because I kicked him and told him I was in his whore.

[Adam Elsbury]

I have to say. Happy New Year. 1 and 2 are also great songs.

[Matt Koplik]

There's a lot of great little bits.

[Adam Elsbury]

And pieces in those songs.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, what's one of your favorite moments? When Maureen shows up in her leather cat outfit and Mark says, oh, you.

[Adam Elsbury]

Can take the girl out of Hicksville. You think you can take the Hicksville out of the girl?

[Matt Koplik]

No, no, no, no. You're not doing a dust. He can take the girl out of Hicksville, but he can't take the Hicksville out of the girl.

[Adam Elsbury]

I'm not here to do impressions, Matt.

[Matt Koplik]

It's just. It's so light.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes, that's all I'm doing.

[Matt Koplik]

No, but it's, it's. It's just, it's. It's not that it's dramatic music. It's just very heavy for something that's a. For something that's a joke. So it's. It's not, it's not a. It's not a. It's not an issue I have. But sometimes in Rent, there are moments where, like, because the music is so earnest or it's so big for a moment that's relatively small, you're like, that's a lot.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right. But I think that music also sounds sarcastic, which is what he's being in that moment.

[Matt Koplik]

Sure. But I guess I'm more arguing for the Roger stuff. A lot of Roger. And it's also Adam Pascal's quote unquote acting, but a lot of his nose.

[Adam Elsbury]

No, I mean Adam Pascal also. Okay, first off, stone cold, bleached haired fox so hot.

[Matt Koplik]

Literally could do anything he wanted to make.

[Adam Elsbury]

So, Adam.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay, I know.

[Adam Elsbury]

But that aside, also, like, this was his first show he'd ever been in, as far as we know. Like, he'd been in a band, but he had never been in a musical or in a play of any kind, to the best of anybody's knowledge. And he kind of has one volume level, so everything sounds pretty intense.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

No matter what the line is, I'm not a boyfriend.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't care what she does. It's. Yes, it is very intense. And as you said, it is his first. At the very least, his very first professional acting job. And that is something they talked about with casting as well. This was also the show that established Bernie Telsey as a casting director because it was his first Broadway show. I don't know how much off Broadway he had done at that point. But as they were continuing with casting the workshops, it became very clear that they wanted grunge, they wanted rock, they wanted real. They wanted everything to feel authentic. So, no, we want as few trained singers as possible. So rather than, like, going to college showcases and, like, open calls, Bernie Telsey would go to, like, clubs and night spots and whatever and would pick people out. So I think he saw, like, Adam Pascal performing with his band. He saw Idina Menzel at a wedding or whatever, and that's how he got all those people.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, I mean, that's. To speak on the casting of this show, which I think is an important. An important topic in terms of the trajectory of it, especially as we're getting to the Off Broadway opening, is the cast of this show really is a massive part of what makes this show a success, this original cast. And it's true. I mean, I was. I was reading my rent book. I carry it with me everywhere I go. I was reading my rent book. I was reading my rent book.

[Matt Koplik]

Got a light? Got a light.

[Adam Elsbury]

But they really do. They talk about how they wanted everybody to feel real and authentic and, you know, and, like, it was somebody that you could pick up from that neighborhood. Like, it wasn't like, you don't. Like, you weren't watching, you know, musical theater students and. And I think they succeeded in that tenfold. But what's even more amazing. So to sort of address, like, again, my age that I was when I. When Rent first came out, I was, like, 15 or 16. And when you're that age, anybody who's over 20 is just an adult. You don't have a sense of, like, age. Like, they're just older.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Do you know what I mean?

[Matt Koplik]

I know exactly. Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And when that.

[Matt Koplik]

I still feel that way. Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

But, but when that show came out, you know, I didn't even have a full sense of. I knew they were all young. Ish. But I, but it's, but I went back and reread the. There was a Newsweek article that came out when that show, when the show became a huge smash.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Before, right before opening. An article of Newsweek with Daphne and Adam. Adam on the COVID Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right. But in, but in it they, they do really quick interviews with all of the principals, but they list all the, all of the principals and their age is next to their name. And it was so crazy to go back and see, you know, Anthony Rapp, 24, Dina Menzel, 24, Daphne Rubin Vega, 26, Adam Pascal, 25. I mean, which I think it's, I think it's something that I, I go back and forth on this all the time where I think about like classic musical theater. Well, sorry, golden age musical theater. And you have like 18 year old Julie Andrews starring in the Boyfriend and they're in like at 20 in my fair Lady. We don't hear stories like that very often anymore. But, but, and I mean I know early, early to mid-20s is pretty normal to make a Broadway debut these days, but that seems, but, but just the fact that they were bebes.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

At that time.

[Matt Koplik]

It's not just the fact that it's a Broadway debut. It's the fact. Yeah, it's, it's, it's the, it's a cultural moment where they are at the forefront of it. Right. I think the last time we had a young cast without. That happened to. And it wasn't even a fraction of the same scale. But yeah, the original cast of Spring.

[Adam Elsbury]

Awakening, it was, it was like. Yeah, it was like, it was like a modicum of what, Rent.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, it's. It, it's the cast of Spring Awakening at the level of fame of the cast of Friends. That kind of ensemble hugeness. But also the fact that like. But, and what they look. But here's the thing about that cast though. So the original cast of Ren. We look back at it now like, oh my God. Idina Menzel, Daphne Vega, Adam Pascal, like these icons.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

That wasn't really what happened. They were, they got very big very quickly because. So the way that the history of Rent goes is they were due to begin previews in January of 1996 at the New York Theater Workshop and everyone felt very strong about the show. They thought what they had Was good. It took a while to get there because Larson was really bad at story structure, really amazing at writing music. He could write songs at the top of a hat. It took him until rehearsals to write Take Me or Leave Me. I told you that little bit. That was fun.

[Adam Elsbury]

He, he, he fought a lot with collaborators because he was just convinced that his. He was correct in what he was doing.

[Matt Koplik]

Ultimately, ultimately, it was Stephen Sondheim who had to, like, talk him off the ledge and be like, you want to make theater? You have to collaborate. It's like, unless you want. It's like, unless you. There was some, like, 17th century composer he referenced was like, unless you want to be like, this dude who got like a duke to fund all the things he put up. Like, you have to collaborate and you have to bend sometimes, because also, sometimes the other people have the better idea. And you won't know till you try it.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right?

[Matt Koplik]

The whole sticking point with Ren for, like, the five years it was being developed at New York Theater Workshop, was that everyone was super into the music, or most of the music, I should say. Everyone was like, the script makes no sense. They're like, no one knows who anybody is. No one knows what's fucking happening. And it took until the summer of 95 for Larson to finally bend, because eventually what happened was Michael Greif was the director at this point. He had directed the last workshop and helped shape some stuff. But, like, even as a director, he could only go so far because Michael Rife's also not a writer, so he could only give notes for so long. And eventually the producers, Jeffrey Selman, Jeff McCollum, who had come on early on at an early workshop with Seller, having seen Boho Days, the Larson White man show, early on, like, being an early champion of his. They basically all sat down, sat Larson down. And, like, we're either going to bring in a writer, like an actual book writer, or you can spend the summer with a dramaturg who will teach you how to do story structure. Which do you want? Because it's one or the other. So he opted for the dramaturg, who is. I think her name is Lynn Thompson. Lynn Thompson. I'm right. Yay. Go me.

[Adam Elsbury]

You did it.

[Matt Koplik]

And then also, by the way, Tim Weil, who was the music director and arrangement orchestrator and was credited a great deal for making Rent sound like Rent and building a lot of the songs in a musical theater structure, who also, by the way, married to Randy Graf. But hey, similar tune to the Square of Kinky Boots of how everyone so Hot tea, everybody and I won't spill who I've been told this by, but numerous very valid sources have told me everyone on Broadway knows Stephen Oremus really wrote the score to Kinky Boots in the same way that what's His Face really wrote the score to the Producers in the sense that, like, Cyndi Lauper wrote it. But, like, Cyndi Lauper's not a Broadway writer. She doesn't understand, like, how you make a song build, how, like, sometimes things need to end. Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes. No, that's.

[Matt Koplik]

That's.

[Adam Elsbury]

That's totally true.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. I mean, you can talk about collaboration. Like, they. Yes, they collaborated very heavily on that show together. Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Steven understands how musicals work and how theater works. And Cindy's, you know, a very brilliant individual, but also, like, she would come in and hear the song. She goes, it's Sandboy Purple. And Stephen would have like, thanks, Cindy. He's like, okay, so measures 33 through 39, or we're going to increase here. And then it's like, that's what she means by Purple. And they're like, got it. But same thing with Tim and Larson, but. So Thompson comes in and basically goes through the whole show with Larson, makes him, like, put the material aside, and he's like. And she was like, okay, who are our principal characters? What are their aims? What are they about? What are, like, the five questions you want to answer out the show? And then she was also there throughout the entire rehearsal process for the New York Theater Workshop production.

[Adam Elsbury]

And she was she the one who was really, really intense about working on the Joanne Maureen relationship?

[Matt Koplik]

Maybe.

[Adam Elsbury]

I know that there was. There was a woman that he worked with at some point who was really adamant that. That they were. That they not just come off as.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't think that was Thompson.

[Adam Elsbury]

It wasn't.

[Matt Koplik]

I think that was earlier.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, it was, yes. There was another. He has another female friend who was sort of a clown, somebody who helped him with a lot of his stuff early on.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm blanking on her name, that is. The one thing I'll say about Larson is he did pick on parts of his life and would talk to people about things he didn't know to get insight on characters that were not him. So. But. So anyway, they're rehearsing all throughout the winter of 95, going into January of 96, and Larson's not feeling well. He gets. He sits through the final run through of the show and, you know, things are going well. He's finally happy with Daphne Rudvega, like, it took him until that final production to, like, be into her. And. And he's into everything else. He writes Take Me or Leave me for Idina and Freddie while they're in rehearsals. Because he couldn't crack the Joanne Maureen song right? Every. Apparently, everything that he kept writing for them were, like, literally bitchy rants. And.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And everybody. And they kept. He kept on, like, playing it for them. And they'd be like, no, like a. This isn't funny. And be like, isn't this supposed to be about, like, love? Even if it's toxic? Like, there's got to be a love there. So he found it, and they cracked it. The story that his sister tells is that the day he cracked it, he played. He would always play his songs to his sister on the phone before he would send it to the cast. And he plays it for his sister. She's like, it's pretty good. And then he goes off and then comes back and like, calls his sister that night. She's like, what do they think? And he goes, ugh, they love me. Take me for what I am who I was meant to be and if you give a damn Take me, baby or leave me Take me, baby or leave me but so they are ready to do their first preview, and Larson's not feeling well. And they're like. They're doing. They were gonna do, like, a cat. They were gonna offer a cast dinner. And Larson wasn't feeling well, so he decides to go home after being interviewed for the Times, his first big interview. And Anna Pascal talks about all the time where he's like, I feel so bad. He's like. The last thing I said about it was like, everyone was making a prayer for Jonathan at the table. Like, guys, Jonathan can't be with us tonight. And Adam was, like, rolling his eyes, going, God, you theater people. He's like, he's not dying. Like, he. Like. There's like, he has a cold. He's going home. And he died that night in his home. His roommate found him very sudden. Everyone was shocked. And the story goes is that they were gonna cancel the first preview.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

And his parents. Larson's parents showed up for the show, and they asked them what they thought they should do, and they're like, no, absolutely. Do the show. That's what Jonathan would want. And so they compromised. They said, we're gonna sing through the show where we're not gonna stage it. It's just. Everyone's gonna sit in chairs, right?

[Adam Elsbury]

They were in chairs.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, yeah. And then they got to La Vie Boheme, and Anthony Rapp stands up and just kind of starts performing it. And then apparently Daphne got up and started to dance. Everyone's like.

[Adam Elsbury]

And everybody got on the table, and everyone.

[Matt Koplik]

And everyone just did the choreography. And so in intermission, they go backstage, and the stage manager's like, it's. It was the reverse of Sister Act 2. The stage manager said, your teacher says, put on your robes. Put on your robes. Put on your costumes. Your teacher says, take off your robes. In this. The stage manager was like, michael says, put on your costumes. Put on your costumes. Put on your mic packs. We're doing Act 2. And they did. They do the rest of the show. There's a brief pause. Someone shouts, thank you, Jonathan Larson. Everyone erupts. And it becomes national news all over the place. Writer dies the night before his masterpiece goes up. And the reason why Larson was being interviewed for the Times was that it just so happened to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the premiere of La Boheme. So the music section of the Times was going to run this piece about. Oh, and by the way, on the 100th anniversary, this thing inspired by La Boheme is coming out.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Koplik]

I didn't know that. My research is great, but. So that. That was what was going to run. And then they also ran. Oh, and by the way, he died. And that just became national news immediately. Tickets for the show were sold out. And then the reviews come out, and everyone talks about how they. Everyone questions, would the show have been a success if Larson hadn't died? Would the reviews have been as great if Larson hadn't died? And I was reading an interview with Ben Brantley about this, and I think he also talked about it in his review and eventually went to Broadway. And he's like, let me be very clear. None of us went in there ready to love that show. Because we had heard rumblings from previews, from workshops that it was rough. Like, this thing had been developed, development for years. And our insiders all told us, it's rough. And the last thing you want to do as a critic is when someone dies and it's their last show to be, like, good effort. So, like, we didn't go in being like, we're gonna love it. We were like, oh, God, please don't suck. And they're like. And to all of our surprise, it didn't. In fact, we all thought it was pretty fantastic. So that was, like. It was a sigh of relief. And all the Broadway critics, when it Moved. When the critics reviewed it again for Broadway, they were a little more discerning. They were still very effusive with their praise. They all agreed that it was too big on Broadway. They're like, it's swallowed up in the nearlander. But they were like, I will still say the material is great and the cast is great. That is what they left with. And with those reviews, with the news about Larson, the thing just blew up. And then all of a sudden you get similar to Chorus Line. You get these writings in the Post and in the Times. Tom Cruise showed up and had to sit on the aisle because he couldn't get a seat. Which is like what you hear about chorus. Like Liza Minnelli had to stand in the back. She couldn't get a seat, right? And so everyone's like, what the fuck? Tom Cruise couldn't get a seat to Rent. He sat on the steps to watch this thing. And everyone was like, what? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? Everyone. Everyone wanted to go to either Broadway or some big off Broadway theater. Like maybe like take over a ballroom or something. They eventually decided on Broadway and they're like, it's never gonna be hotter than it is right now. Move it now. And so, cover of Newsweek, New York Times, again, the byline was, every day Rent has to be mentioned in some way. And it can't be about the fact that Jonathan died. Oh, and by the way, their last day of tech, Jonathan wins the Pulitzer while they're in tech on Broadway. Such, like, Fuel to the Fire, right? This is all to say 20 somethings. Everyone but Anthony making their Broadway debut. Some of them not even Broadway people. You're on the COVID of Newsweek, you're in the Times, you're in Vanity Fair. Your show is the hottest thing in the country. It's all anyone's talking about. And you are at the front of it. There is no. I don't care who you are. It's like what John Mulaney talks about. Mick Jagger. Like, I'm sure Mick Jagger thinks he's nice. His version of nice there.

[Adam Elsbury]

It.

[Matt Koplik]

It does something to you. It does something to anyone. Yeah. When you are at the top like that, so quickly, so young, and you're like, I think it is me. I think I am the moment. Yes, of course, collectively, we're all the ensemble, but that entire company, when they left Rent and they were all in it for a year or so, Daphne was the first lead, but she went right from Broadway to the tour. Yeah. And then Anthony was the Last to leave. But. And Adina even said that none of them missed for the first six months of the Broadway run. They. None of them called out. It was very important to them to keep it going, which is very. I love that integrity. It's. It's two hands here. They all leave at some point. And really nobody. But I would say Anthony and Daphne. Well, and Jesse, I suppose. But Jesse just got a job to do. Law and Order. Like, he transitioned pretty quickly into tv, but like everyone else, pretty much went like, I think I'm a rock star. I think I'm a model. I think I'm the moment when.

[Adam Elsbury]

Okay, wait, sorry. Timeline. When Anthony. When Anthony finally left, did he. Was it. I know he, Adam and Jesse. Did Wilson also open in London?

[Matt Koplik]

Maybe. Maybe.

[Adam Elsbury]

Because I think that might be why Anthony finally left was because the London production was opening. And so I know that he and Adam and Jesse were in it.

[Matt Koplik]

But maybe Wilson, I don't. Wilson, I think did as well. I think those were the four. Yeah. When did London happen?

[Adam Elsbury]

London was 97, 98.

[Matt Koplik]

The first tour started in November of 96. Second tour, the Benny tour was in 97. I think that's the one that Daphne opened.

[Adam Elsbury]

No, it was. It was the mini tour. Or was it the Benny tour?

[Matt Koplik]

It was. It was the. There was the angel and the Benny tour. Those are the only.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, then it was the Benny tour.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I don't know when London happened. I think London was 2000. Yeah, London I think was 28. No, you're right. 1998. I think London was 1998. Where it opened the Shaftesbury Theater. And it ran for a year and a half as opposed to the 10 year, 12 year, 12 year run on.

[Adam Elsbury]

Broadway by the time they closed.

[Matt Koplik]

96 to 2008. Okay, 12 year run. There you go. Yeah. 12 year run and very successful. Two national tours. That. The other thing. That's the difference between Rent and Hamilton as well as Hamilton has been a success everywhere it's gone. Rent has only really been a success in America. Kind of Mexico, but mostly America.

[Adam Elsbury]

But. But there have been like two revivals in the West End. 3.

[Matt Koplik]

There was the original Broadway production.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Which ran for a year and a half.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

It's not terrible, but compared to 12 years. And then there was rent remixed in 2007. Do you remember about Rent Remixed?

[Adam Elsbury]

I just remember photos and everybody looked way too rich and pretty.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. The whole thing looked like it took place on the set of American Psycho. And the whole vibe was that it was Kylie Minogue's Stylist and collaborator was directing it and reorchestrating the whole thing. And so very different sounds the entire time, but also, like, fucked around with the order of songs. So this is 2007. The movie had come out. So guess how the show opens now with Seasons of Love. Guess where act one ends right after a Christmas Bell. So it's Maureen going, Joanne, which way to the stage? Snow Blackout, intermission. Act 2 begins with over the Moon into La Vivo M. And then going into Happy New Year. Yeah. And then other things got shifted around. I think they moved Tango Marine later to act one. A lot of stuff. They did a whole lot of stuff. There was a ticker tape on the stage that just constantly was showing all the names of people who had died from aids. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus, the whole cast was older because I guess they cast a reality star as Maureen, but she was like, 35. And then, well, let's cast everyone else around 30, 35 to not make her seem so old. And they're like, well, now we're just seeing the movie on the set of American Psycho.

[Adam Elsbury]

Kind of how old everyone was by the time the show closed on Broadway, too.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, yeah. And we'll get to the movie in a second. My point is, we were talking about the hotness of the show immediately moving to Broadway, then winning the Pulitzer. Also the turnaround from Off Broadway to Broadway. I think the fastest of any turnaround. Definitely have an Off Broadway musical. How.

[Adam Elsbury]

How quick was it?

[Matt Koplik]

Three weeks between. They. They closed at New York Theater Workshop, and I believe started previews at the Nederlander within three weeks. And two of those weeks were tech.

[Adam Elsbury]

Wow. I would. Well, since. Since we're not going to be talking about it on this podcast, I. I know that Spelling Bee had a super fast. Yeah, turnaround, too.

[Matt Koplik]

I think Spelling Bee might. I think a month.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, it was fast.

[Matt Koplik]

It was very fast.

[Adam Elsbury]

Like, that was one that I remember. Like, I just saw this at Second Stage. Now I'm in Circle in the Square.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. What the fuck?

[Adam Elsbury]

It was jarring.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

That was just.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't know why that made me giggle so hard, but I remember. I remember how quick that turned around was. Everyone was like, oh, Jesus, we're going for it.

[Adam Elsbury]

It was wild. Yeah. I just remember that was the first experience I'd ever had after moving to New York with something transferred, transferring, or at least transferring that fast. And I remember, like, having seen Spelling Bee a few times at Second Stage and loving it. And then it was like, oh, it's transferring to Circle. In the Square. And everybody's like, amazing. And they're like, this season, everyone's like, huh?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And all of a sudden you're in this, like. And I just remember my first time seeing it. I was at the invited dress at Circle in the Square and being like. They haven't figured out the sound yet.

[Matt Koplik]

No. Well, it takes all Broadway shows, like a week of previous. Sure.

[Adam Elsbury]

But when you're going from like a. The 300 seat, you know, Kaiser. Is it the Kaiser Theater?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Theater for second stage into the freaking.

[Matt Koplik]

And proceeding proscenium to three quarter rounds.

[Adam Elsbury]

Like, oh, this is. This is.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, the difference between, like, Rent, Spelling Bee and the other shows is that. So, like, any changes done to the text of Rent was done in previews at New York Theater Workshop, and it was mostly just trimming. Nothing was rewritten because they didn't want.

[Adam Elsbury]

To.

[Matt Koplik]

Overcorrect anything that Larson had done out of respect, even if they thought it needed work.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, Well, I mean, it's. Because it's interesting, though, because the.

[Matt Koplik]

The.

[Adam Elsbury]

So the video that's on. Of rent, that's on YouTube, that's listed as the quote, unquote, opening night.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

I question. Because I wouldn't be surprised if it maybe is more like the first preview because there are some lyrics and a couple of cuts that are there that definitely crispened Christmas Bells.

[Matt Koplik]

Christmas Bells is not complete yet.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's complete, but they follow. The man section is twice as long.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And I also.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm convinced that Freddie fucked up the lyrics at the end of La Vivo. M. Oh, because she.

[Adam Elsbury]

Because she just forgot what she was saying.

[Matt Koplik]

She was like. And I should say they've piled after building the riding on Avenue B. I'm like, that's not the lyric.

[Adam Elsbury]

Then she forgets the rest of it, too.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. She's like, Benny Cops. It's crazy. But no one's leaving.

[Adam Elsbury]

They're all mooing.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. No, I think she. I think she completely fucked up. She had a brain fart. But so I was saying earlier with that original company, very hot, very much integral to the success of that show. There are voices, their energy, the roughness of it all. A lot of it also being shaped around some of those performers. But many of them come off the show and they kind of swan dive with their careers. The. I think the two people who had the most immediate success post Rent were Daphne and Jesse because they were able to transition into film and TV pretty quickly. Jesse got Law and Order pretty soon after Rent, and Daphne was able to get Some film roles. She's in Wild Things where she's. Wild Things. Yep. She's okay in. But I mean, if you're not Denise or Nev, who cares? But, you know, they were able to get the most immediate film and TV work. Adina. Nothing. Adam. Nothing.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, I remember it like Idina had an album come out and no one cared.

[Matt Koplik]

She has one line in Kissing Jessica Stein. Adina, a lot of those actors what ended up happening. And then Wilson won the Tony and then nothing disappeared. Comes back to make the movie and does a couple of TV gigs, but that's it.

[Adam Elsbury]

Didn't he just do something recently, though?

[Matt Koplik]

Maybe.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think he did.

[Matt Koplik]

Freddy also disappears.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't know what Freddy's deal is, but Freddie Walker, the original Joanne. But when it comes to Idina and Adam. Oh, and then. So Tay also. Tay also got success in film, but really it was just how Stella got her groove back. He's the man candy. And how Stella got her groove Back and then kind of rides that for a while.

[Adam Elsbury]

Adam was in a movie.

[Matt Koplik]

Adam does Road Trip, but that's around, like, 2001. Road trip.

[Adam Elsbury]

No, but before that he did. It was like a.

[Matt Koplik]

Was it.

[Adam Elsbury]

It wasn't SLC punk. It was something like that, though. It was like a. It was a movie about a rock band.

[Matt Koplik]

Adam or Anthony?

[Adam Elsbury]

Adam.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, Adam. Yeah, because Anthony's in Road Trip.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sorry.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, Adam. Yeah. Adam talks about this as well. Like, Adam, a lot of them had a lot of. Not opportunities for necessarily jobs. Like, they weren't offered stuff, but they were. The door was open to them for Hollywood and tv and only really, those three, Daphne, Jesse and Tay were able to get a foot in the door. Jesse got very lucky. He pretty much got offered Law and Order and just stuck with it because T went.

[Adam Elsbury]

Didn't Teju. Stella got her groove back, like, almost immediately.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, immediately afterwards. And that was very big for him. But I don't think much came of it afterwards because he goes back to theater. Right. Like, he. I don't. I don't see him in movies or in major roles in movies or TV shows much after that. I think he does, like, a handful, but he doesn't become a movie star for. For someone who was the plot point of a very big cultural film, he does not become a movie star.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. I honestly don't remember now. It's been so long.

[Matt Koplik]

But. And this. And this also connects to Chorus Line, which. We'll talk about this more in the Chorus Line episode with that guest. But that company of you know, you're in the biggest thing. It's culturally relevant. Everyone knows your show and a group of people know you. And if you play your cards right, you can level leverage that into bigger opportunities. And most of them can't, at least not immediately. And some of them are able to get. Become bigger later on down the road. Same thing with Chorus Line. Some of those actors got bigger later on. Like Idina. We think of her as Idina Menzel now. She kind of came back to theater with her leg between her. With her tail between her legs because she tried to become a rock star and it didn't happen.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. Because what was her. Her big return to theater was Aida Wild Party.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, that wouldn't say that was her big return, but that was.

[Adam Elsbury]

Was Aida before Wild Party, though?

[Matt Koplik]

Aida, she did Aida after Wild Party. They opened the same season, but she replaced two years later.

[Adam Elsbury]

Okay. I wasn't sure how far in she did it. Oh, that's right, because. Yeah, that was. Right.

[Matt Koplik]

It was Sherry. It was Sherry Taylor, then Adina and. Yeah. And Aida is really, I would say, what kind of brought her back into, like, the community. Because while people really liked people in the community, liked Wild Party, you didn't have the dueling Wild Parties. It was off Broadway. Not a lot of people saw it.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

The. The fandom for that grows over time. But that is sort of like her first, like, I'm back. And Aida, she gets to be on a Broadway stage again. Wicked is what really was the Juggernaut. Yeah, was the next Juggernaut, but then Wicked as well. Like, Wicked's this big juggernaut. She gets to ride that for a bit. Tries to be a rock star again, does another album that no one cares about, does Wicked in London. She gets to be an Enchanted. She gets to make the Rent movie. But that's. And then she's like guest starring in some TV shows on Glee, on whatever.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Frozen is the thing.

[Adam Elsbury]

Frozen's the.

[Matt Koplik]

The one. It's when you really put together Rent, Wicked and Frozen all combined. She now finally becomes Idina Menzel. And then the infamous Adele Dazeem really makes all of America go. Her name is Idina Menzel.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And now she's a star. Yeah, but it took a long time. It took a lot of like, here's your juggernaut. You missed your. You missed your window. Here's your next juggernaut. You missed your window. It took the third juggernaut for her to be like, I know what to do now.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, it's so. It's. It's. It's so interesting watching people's careers come off of something. Coming off of something as big as Rent.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't know. I don't know if I have anything.

[Adam Elsbury]

To add to that other than that's just my sentiment.

[Matt Koplik]

But you think about Adam. Like, Adam, hot as balls, sings really well. Not the world's greatest actor, but, like, could have, like, helped usher in maybe more rock musicals and been the lead of all of them.

[Adam Elsbury]

Favorite emcees in cabaret.

[Matt Koplik]

Interesting.

[Adam Elsbury]

He was great.

[Matt Koplik]

I've seen the video.

[Adam Elsbury]

He was in the final cast. It was him and Susan Egan. Yeah, they were both great.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Again, Adam comes back to Broadway in Aida, sort of. I mean, what a way to have your tail between your legs.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right?

[Matt Koplik]

Of like. I guess I'll star as the hot Elton John musical for Disney. That's gonna run for four years. Like, four and a half years. Poor me. But you know what? I mean, He's a white Egyptian. There's a lot with Aida that you just kind of have to go, it's not okay. It's all right. But it's not okay. It's. Yeah. But, you know, he comes back with Aida, and it's sort of like, I tried to be a rock star. I tried to be a movie star. Didn't work out. Here I am back on Broadway, and. But it's. Once he sort of embraces the fact that he's a Broadway dude, that he's like, punk rock for Broadway. Yeah. He, like, carves out his niche. Like, and. And Daphne as well. Like, Daphne comes back with Rocky Horror and that does a bunch of plays. Does Les Mis, like. And working off Broadway all the damn time.

[Adam Elsbury]

All the time.

[Matt Koplik]

I feel like with those with a lot of that cast, when they finally embrace the fact that, like, they. Their break was in theater, a lot of their core audience knows them from theater. Just embrace it and, like, be the punk rock of theater. Yeah. Be the cool. Be the coolest kid at that table that not everyone wants to be at. Yeah. You know. Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

No, it's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's pretty. Pretty wild, though, when you look at how most of the people from the original principals of that show have continued to have some level of success. I mean, Anthony's been on Star Trek for the last four years.

[Matt Koplik]

Something like that. Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

I mean. Yeah. Just. But. And he. I mean, he was still doing plenty of stuff.

[Matt Koplik]

Anthony's never stopped working. And Anthony, I would Also argue was the most established of the cast when it. Because he was a child actor. Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, I. Oh, that was when that, when Rent originally opened, I was like, oh, my God, it's the guy from Adventures in Babysitting.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep. How dare you? And one of those children from Six Degrees of Separation.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sure.

[Matt Koplik]

And the Prince. And the Prince in the Aviator. That show. They never opened that.

[Adam Elsbury]

I really wouldn't have known. No, I have that playable separation I didn't see until.

[Matt Koplik]

And the children in Six Degrees of Separation are not important.

[Adam Elsbury]

They're in for like five seconds.

[Matt Koplik]

They're there to be assholes and leave.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, but. But no, like, I mean, I vividly remember, like, him from Adventures in Babysitting. It was. It was so funny to be like, oh, it's the same person. Oh, weird.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep, yep, yep. You know what? Sorry. I was just thinking how Daphne Ruben Vega is in the Sex and the City movie and her credit is like, baby voice woman. It's throughout the auction for that woman's jewelry and they're in the bathroom afterwards, and I think it's Charlotte saying, like.

[Adam Elsbury]

You know, I thought this would be.

[Matt Koplik]

More fun, but it's kind of sad. And Daphne Rudvega's like, I know, right? It's so sad. I thought my Daphne says, like a really sad Carmen. She's like, like, I thought it'd be sad because I know her, but it is really sad. Right? She was a really smart girl. Just. She fell in love. And her credit is like, woman with baby voice. What's the time? Well, it's gotta be close to midnight.

[Adam Elsbury]

My body's talking to me.

[Matt Koplik]

It says, time for danger. So with Rent, you know, a lot of the issues that people have with the show and with the characters are very valid, but it's hard to necessarily grasp what makes, what makes those characters work. When you're watching the 10th Replacement Company, not that those actors aren't good, but rather that. And this is sort of the danger of a long running show. And something that Phantom was notoriously really good about was maintaining and really keeping the spark of what made it so special to begin with. And originally they wanted to keep with the whole grunge hard rock. Like, let's not find musical theater performers. Let's find raw people. And the thing about raw people is a lot of them don't have technique and they can't sing that way eight times a week. And they can't act, they can't hit their marks. So there's inconsistency. And people call out And a lot.

[Adam Elsbury]

Of the really good ones find work in what it is they're wanting to do, which is be in bands and things and then want to be in a musical.

[Matt Koplik]

Exactly.

[Adam Elsbury]

And at that point, after a while, I'm sure Rent developed some kind of stigma where people were like, eye rolly about it.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Whereas real rock people were like, oh, Rent.

[Adam Elsbury]

Exactly. I'm sure that rock people who were approached about it were like, I don't want to do a musical. Yeah, but no, thanks.

[Matt Koplik]

And like the grueling schedule. So they eventually had to go in with musical theater people to the extent that one Sutton Foster was in Final Callbacks as a replacement. Maureen, at one point. I mean, who knows at what point of her career. I think it was around the time she was about to do.

[Adam Elsbury]

Probably post Greece.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, it's absolutely post Greece. Well, Greece was before Ren.

[Adam Elsbury]

But Greece ran for a long time.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, I know, but I think she.

[Adam Elsbury]

Was in it like late in the run.

[Matt Koplik]

She got in early in the tour and then went straight from tour to Broadway. I know because I read Hooked. But her memoir, I saw that national tour too. Oh, that you did. You saw all the good national tour, you know who.

[Adam Elsbury]

The youngest cast member.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't care. Let's get back to Ren Versa.

[Adam Elsbury]

Jarrett Winoker. Anyway, continue.

[Matt Koplik]

But so they went with like more musical theater types over time. And the acting styles change. And so you watch that final company and so many things that are played broadly for laughs are just not as interesting and not as good. But this is to say, a lot of replacement people in the show also have major careers. Norbert, Leo Butts, a replacement. Roger, you know, two time Tony winner. One of the famous stories is that Sherry Renee Scott was the first replacement of Maureen. Now, the story goes with this replacement, Sheri was only in it for about five months.

[Adam Elsbury]

There's. There's one really grainy, awful video of her doing over the Moon on YouTube.

[Matt Koplik]

And take me or leave me.

[Adam Elsbury]

And take me or leave me. She sounds great.

[Matt Koplik]

She sounds amazing. Her over the Moon is very funny. But it is exactly how you would expect Sherri Renee Scott to do it. And this is, you know, one of those things. And I want to tie this into the fandom. Once I finish the story, let's talk about. Great, the fandom. Ready. And then we also should probably talk about the show more because we've talked about the show, but not a lot, you know. Yeah, we should talk more of like music and shit. Sure.

[Adam Elsbury]

I'm on the ride, babe. Let's go.

[Matt Koplik]

Stop yelling at me. So God damn it, Matt, stop it. This is a serious podcast. We have a network now. So Sherry gets cast as the replacement Maureen and the fandom goes ballistic because first of all, how dare they replace Adina? Second of all, Adina's understudy, Christine E. Kelly. Some of this is hearsay, but I have do have reputable sources. Whether she was told she was going to replace Idina at one point, whether she just assumed she was going to get it, I don't know. But apparently there was a big kerfuffle that they did not promote from within, but rather cast someone from the outside. And how dare this outsider come in and ruin the world. Now that's just the toxic teenage fandom. Apparently, according to Sheri, inside the theater was not so nice as well. Not, not the entire company had changed yet. I think only a handful of principals had left and some of the. And a lot of the ensemble was still there.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, it was probably like half and.

[Matt Koplik]

Half at that point. And some were very kind to her, I would assume most of the principals. She says that she and Jesse have become very good friends since then, but that a lot of people, both in the company and then backstage, like in the production side, were not happy to have her there because at that point they become this family. And how dare someone from Jessica come and ruin your family? Which is weird. She wasn't the first replacement in that cast, but she was the first Maureen. Anyway. They didn't promote from within. She was an outsider. Her first performance as Maureen, she comes on to do over the Moon. And it's immediately different from Adina's because Adina's, you know, very earnest, bold, wacky. Sherry is a deadpan motherfucker. It's what makes her so brilliant. And so much kind of comedy is like why she should always do Durang, because she can play straight faced and get a laugh like nobody's business. So her Maureen was a little more like not dumb blonde, but like did a lot of reading and thought she was smarter than she was. So she played it like she was smart, but she wasn't or not. Not as intelligent as she thought she was. You know what I mean? And so already fandom was not having it. And when she does her moo with me and everyone's supposed to move, what does the first two rows of the audience do? They boo her instead. And the first two rows are important because Rent started a new trend with its Rush. Rent was not the first Broadway show to do Rush. I think, I think that might have been. I want to say Secret Garden, but that maybe, I'm sure that's wrong. I don't know.

[Adam Elsbury]

I don't know. But it was the first, it was the first Broadway show that I ever heard of where it was a thing.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, it was a thing. They might have been the first Broadway show to do a lottery because the, because the rush got so insane. People were camping up out overnight.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And some people were getting robbed. People were having sex on the sidewalk.

[Adam Elsbury]

Which. Amazing. But again, to tie this into when you're comparing something to the phenomenon of Hamilton. Hamilton similarly had an in person lottery. The, the, the, what did they call it?

[Matt Koplik]

The ham for ham.

[Adam Elsbury]

Ham for ham.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And, but that got so insane by six months in, in the middle of winter that they started doing it digitally. And now every fucking show does a digital lottery, which ruins everybody's chances of winning.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely. Because people from like Connecticut enter the day before and then will come in from out of town.

[Adam Elsbury]

I don't even, don't even get me started on digital lotteries. They make me so mad. Listen, I used to win every lottery I went to in person. I'm not even exaggerating.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm sure you're not. I, I, there's also a sense of occasion, of it being in person. I don't know. I, I've.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, you're, and you're, you're also rewarding the people who do the footwork to get there.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't know.

[Adam Elsbury]

You can like click a button in the morning from.

[Matt Koplik]

Listen, as someone who has won a few digital lotteries but also have lost a bunch of them.

[Adam Elsbury]

Same.

[Matt Koplik]

I am, I am of two minds. I understand. But also I think there should be. I don't, I also think it just.

[Adam Elsbury]

Be a half and half.

[Matt Koplik]

It also. A half or half. It helps, but it helps with, with promo because that's the thing with Ren. Like what helped keep Brent in the news and what made it even more of a phenomenon was they. Because the story goes, that seller McCollum tells that in Brantley's review for the Broadway production, he was like, the top ticket price is a whopping $69. Oh, the old days.

[Adam Elsbury]

But remember when producers broke 100 and.

[Matt Koplik]

Everybody'S like, go fuck yourself, producers. Well, we have producers to blame for premium seating because that didn't used to be a thing.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right, but that was. Was that the first Broadway show to break 100 on ticket price?

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, yes, but, but then you're lucky.

[Adam Elsbury]

If you can get a ticket for 100.

[Matt Koplik]

I know, but then producers also did like, select seats in the mezzanine and orchestra are now like 200. They. They started the premium price, which I hate. But they read that and like, it doesn't seem right that, like, only the elite now can go see Ren, which was gonna be the majority of the case anyway.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Something. Lindsay Ellis also talks about the irony of Rent. Yep. Huh. But so they decided to do a rush where the first two rows of the theater were for people who paid the Rush tickets. And what made that three bucks when it started? Maybe I think 20.

[Adam Elsbury]

25?

[Matt Koplik]

No, not 25. I think 20. But what made that different from everything else is most Rush seats. And it's still that to this day. But Rush seats used to be like back row them as any wherever, like, because they were talking about, oh, Miss Igon did a rush. But the rush for Miss Saigon was the last two rows of the Broadway. So I was like, you're just luck. Yeah. Like you're lucky you're even here. Go fuck yourself. And Ren was like, no, let's put them in the front because they want to be there. Their energy is gonna help, you know, keep the cast engaged. Yeah. But then that also goes into toxic fandom, which again, we'll get to in a hot second. So Sherry gets booed on her first night, gets booed a couple more times since then, and the booing of the Rent heads, in addition to the toxicity backstage, made Sherry Renee Scott leave after five months in what was probably supposed to be a year long contract. So it's not all sunshine, rainbows and love at Rent, you guys. Just saying. One of the big things we now have to talk about is the Rented, the legacy of the Rented. If there is one real thing that I think Rent has as a legacy, it is Broadway fandom as we know it today. Yeah. The ushering in of fandom message boards, of toxic fandom, of treating your favorite performers in the roles like gods of ranking and comparing different performers, of stalking, of crossing the boundaries. I would argue Rent was really the first to do that because something that Jonathan Larson really wanted to do, something he wasn't seeing in the 80s when he was coming up in the city, was that the big mega musicals were not appealing to the younger crowd. It was all for the elite. It was all for the Reaganites, which is not totally wrong, although kids do love Les Mis and Phantom and all that shit too. But he's like, they don't have a show that appeals to them. We don't have our hair, we don't have our chorus line. We need that. We need to get youth into the theater, which is exactly what Rent did. Yeah. With a price.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yep.

[Matt Koplik]

Let's talk about that price, baby.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, I mean, part of it came with the beginning of, like, so. So Rent and the Internet kind of went hand in hand.

[Matt Koplik]

Yup.

[Adam Elsbury]

Because I remember, you know, we didn't have Internet in my house until I was 18. So I remember being like my freshman sophomore year of high school. I would go to the library to use their Internet computer.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, no.

[Adam Elsbury]

What would I look up? Broadway show websites, which were janky. Some of them still are. But these ones were really janky.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And I. But blue on green. Why.

[Adam Elsbury]

But when you would. You know, I don't even know what search engine engine you would even use at that point. It wasn't Google. It was like, probably like Ask Jeeves or something along those lines.

[Matt Koplik]

Right.

[Adam Elsbury]

But when you would search Rent, which I would do, you would more often than not be directed to message boards. And that was. And that was where. And it still exists. They still exist to this day. But that was Rent. And that whole time period were the beginning of the Broadway message board and the intense Broadway fandom.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep. Would Ren possibly be the first show to have an online message board about it? I'd have to imagine it might have been because, like, the Internet message board culture. Well, I guess we have chat rooms. Would probably be the beginning of what? Of message boards.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm not. What are. What's the history of message boards? Is it chat rooms that. Message boards.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, I think they kind of went hand in hand. I don't have. I. I'm as old as I am. I don't have. I don't have all that. The full information, I think.

[Matt Koplik]

Where's Meg Ryan? She'll know that.

[Adam Elsbury]

Knows everything. Secrets in her lips.

[Matt Koplik]

The Goldie Han.

[Adam Elsbury]

But I. I think I would. I would say that they probably went hand in hand to some degree. I think message boards probably might have been a little bit before.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay.

[Adam Elsbury]

Chats. Just because they didn't require the, Like a live stream.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, I guess. Yeah, you're right. Because I guess chats are more sort of. They were like a cousin to imming. And imming was later in the game.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes. Imming came initially with aol.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And like. But AOL chat rooms are always a thing. So there probably were, like, Broadway chat rooms in aol.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay.

[Adam Elsbury]

But as. But like, message boards themselves, I think were probably a part of a thing simultaneously or shortly before, like, IMing and chat rooms.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's. It's so interesting. So like with.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, what's another thing that's so amazing to when you, when you look back at Rent now. Oh, and this will go hand in hand with the fandom as well, is that Rent is a show where there are a few people that use cell phones, but most phone messages are on.

[Matt Koplik]

Old, old, old fashioned answering machines left by their parents.

[Adam Elsbury]

And the. Well, one of the things that over time that Rent, because Rent heads got younger and younger.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think it was besides cast, the cast, you know, maybe not being given full insight as far as what the character originally was and whatnot. There were people were getting, as the crowds were getting younger and the show was getting older. The people going to see the show were also too young to have experienced the AIDS epidemic or at least closely experience it. So there's a lot of stuff in the show, I mean, AZT break, all of that stuff even changed within a couple of years of the show opening. Like, AZT wasn't a thing anymore. So there were parts of the show that dated themselves within a couple of years of it opening and made it immediately sort of like a historical touchstone of a piece of. But I, you know, I think after a while the fans sort of ended up having, I think a lot of the younger fans just connected to the fact that they were like young struggling artists and sort of lost sight of like the true danger and real death that the show was based around. Because I think that that was probably part. The other thing of what made the original production when it came out so like of the moment and exciting and dangerous and real was that it really was sort of a time capsule in of that moment. Like it just like two years before, three years before on mtv, we'd watched Pedro on the Real World who died of aids. Like I think maybe while the season was still airing.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

You know, and it was stuff that, you know, younger people were, you know, had been exposed to and of that time. But then you, like, as the show is running even six years, kids who were, you know, nine or 10 when Rent opened and then discovered it six years later when they're 16, weren't watching the Real World and weren't watching MTV or the News and didn't have that same connection to those moments.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's the thing about the Rent fandom and this is really what is telling about all of this. And with Broadway fandom in general, no one who is a teenager and a fan of Rent really was who the show is about. If that makes sense.

[Adam Elsbury]

You're 100% right.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's. Or I should say if they were. And we keep on hinting at Ms. Ellis if you're nasty. And we will absolutely talk a bit about her video as we continue discussing the show itself more. But she talks about, you know, when she went to NYU in the early 2000s and rent was still on Broadway, it was no longer like the Must See show, but it was still halfway through its 12 year run. So it was still doing fine. And the fandom was still a thing. Yeah. And the fandom was still very strong. And especially if you were going to school at nyu, which is in the East Village. You know, we have all these kids, many of whom come from well off families or upper middle class families, going to see rent for the 10th time and going, ugh, it me. And she's like, yeah, I guess it is trust fund baby. Because that is sort of the thing about the Mark and the Roger and the Joanne's that we talk about were like, they have families they can go to. The system has not failed them. They are choosing to rebel, which, listen, you want, you see the world and you want to make change. That's great. You want to make art, that's great. But don't act like you're a martyr for doing so.

[Adam Elsbury]

I have to back up.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

With character analysis though, and I think maybe not my favorite character. I have to say Joanne is the least person at fault in the show. Joanne, she's always doing her thing. She's being a very supportive partner to Maureen, but she's.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, yeah, keep going, keep going, keep going.

[Adam Elsbury]

But I'm just, I'm just saying, like, she doesn't stray from her day job as much like her parents. Her parents want her to be more old school like they are.

[Matt Koplik]

Joanne comes from an actual upper class family.

[Adam Elsbury]

An upper class Black family.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, 100%.

[Adam Elsbury]

And so they very much want her to, you know, hold on to that upper echelon of that establishment.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, it's like we worked so hard to get here. Like how.

[Adam Elsbury]

And I think, I think it's safe to say that Joanne is probably wanting to be a lawyer for people who are a little more downtrodden. Yeah. But I don't. But I would say that in terms of like her as a character, she always kind of. She manages to hold her respectability throughout the show.

[Matt Koplik]

Joanne is the only actual adult in this show. I would say her biggest stumbling block is her relationship with Maureen, which is, you know, just the fact that she's.

[Adam Elsbury]

Under her Sexual powers.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, it's. There is something, and I really don't mean to generalize here. I'm only going off of, like, the female friends that I have in my life who I speak to about their relationships, and then in terms of, like, something that I recently have gone through. And anytime I've talked to, like, them about it, their minds are just very solid about, like, what is right, what is wrong, and, like, what you are owed when someone has wronged you, rather than, like, having grace for the person you care about and, like, bending and. And knowing when you can break. Joanne feels very wronged by Maureen at the end of Act 1, and then basically uses that to punish her for a lot of Act 2, if that makes sense. Not like, in a super cruel way, but more in, like, microaggression kind of ways, which is human people are. There are people who do that. So it's not that, like, this is my way of saying, like, I agree with you. I think Joanna's the biggest adult in the show. I think there's a lot to recommend towards her. More so than Collins, where. And then angel is just, like, in my opinion, just a little too martyrdom, a little too Ryan Murphy. The gays die for our sins. But Right.

[Adam Elsbury]

There's a lot with angel of her always trying to stop the fights that are going on and be like.

[Matt Koplik]

And saying the one nice thing that, like, makes everyone come together. And angel is the light. All this.

[Adam Elsbury]

Angel killed a dog.

[Matt Koplik]

Let's just remain. Let's just remember, well, what's his. What's his face? Killed a parrot in La Boheme. So it's where it's at.

[Adam Elsbury]

I know.

[Matt Koplik]

And Benny hated that dog. And whatever. It sounds like that dog was possessed by Satan anyway. And also, angel did not technically kill the dog.

[Adam Elsbury]

Angel drove it crazy.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. Angel created a circumstance that the dog died in.

[Adam Elsbury]

Roger, where are you? Where are you? Roger, where are.

[Matt Koplik]

You?

[Adam Elsbury]

Roger, where are you?

[Matt Koplik]

The majority of the main characters have a family support system that I would. Not necessarily. They can, like, fall back. I'm like, we at least know they're not alone in this world. Right? Like, they're choosing to live this way. And which is. We go back into that issue I talked about, like, with the moment with the homeless woman where it's like, there's. There's an interesting commentary one could make with. With this that I don't think Grant does in. Part of that is I think that would require Jonathan Larson to look inward on himself of like, you know, who am I to complain about not being able to afford food this week when like I chose this lifestyle. And there are people that actually can't and never will be able to get out of the situation they're in. That like, that requires a kind of introspection that could just make you want to jump off the Tappan Zee Bridge. But so I understand why maybe he didn't want to go fully into that, especially if he is, if he was an empath, that kind of way.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And. And Rent is ultimately a hopeful tale. And it can only be hopeful if the characters, you know, aren't completely held to task. If that makes sense.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sure.

[Matt Koplik]

But so what I'm saying is, like, you talk about Rent seeming dangerous when it came out when you were younger. Yeah. And I think Rent only seems dangerous to those of us who have a comfortable home life, you know, like.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sure.

[Matt Koplik]

Where it seems like a dangerous world to us when it's something we don't know much about. And then the more you know it and the more you experience it, the less dangerous Rent seems.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes, I mean, I guess, I guess my point. Yes, yes to that. And also I think that, you know, there was, there was a point. I mean, at that point in time, the East Village was a more dangerous place. And.

[Matt Koplik]

Sure.

[Adam Elsbury]

And Broadway hadn't seen a musical like this before. So this was.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm not, I'm not talking about the show itself. I'm talking about in connection to the fandom of like, of the kids who gravitated towards Ryan.

[Adam Elsbury]

I know, I, I know I, I'm just saying in terms of what I, when I was saying Dangerous, I think it was just more, it was an edginess that Broadway hadn't seen in quite a while in a new musical.

[Matt Koplik]

Sure.

[Adam Elsbury]

And so, and I think kids were connecting to that edginess.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. So when the movie came out and. Well, so we also, we do have to talk a bit about like the movie, the live TV thing, because it all, it all ties into fandom, Phantom and also the shelf life of this show, of the double edged sword of when your show is so. Of the moment. Yep. You know, my dad and I talk about, you know, Promises, Promises was so up to date in 1968 that it was dated two weeks after it opened. And that's the problem with something is so up to date of so of a time capsule that like, it's really difficult to come back and capture that lightning in a bottle. But this brings me to the movie for a quick second where back when I was an active poster on Broadway World, I Remember everyone's excitement for the Rent movie coming out, which, in fairness, the teaser looked nice because movie musicals tend to make good trailers. Yes, the music is epic. They show you a lot of clips in a montage. It's very Mark's final movie clips of clips in a montage to one big song and you go, this is going to be epic. But you don't see everything in context. And the first person on Broadway world who saw the movie at a private screening and then wrote a review of it. Maybe there wasn't the exact first, I can't remember, but someone wrote this review. They opened it with a story of when they were living in the East Village. And it was a. They were like having lunch at some spot in the East Village during the day. And a man was shooting up on the scene, sidewalk, like sitting on the sidewalk. And a drag queen was roller skating by and the man was in the way and tripped the drag queen accidentally, who fell, started shouting bloody murder at this man who then offered her a small bag of heroin. She stopped talking, grabbed it and skated away. And he was like. And that was before my sandwich arrived. And he's like, he's like, the rent of State, like the stage rent kind of captures that world. The movie Rent captures none of it. And it's, it says something that, like at 15, when I saw that movie, I was like, oh, my God, they did it. They captured it all. It's brilliant. This is no slight to the children of the world.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, my God. Did you really love it when it came out?

[Matt Koplik]

I did. I went to. I went to it. I went to a screening at. I went to a. I was actually. It was the premiere. I actually went to the movie premiere. I don't know how I got in, but I got into the movie premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater.

[Adam Elsbury]

That's adorable.

[Matt Koplik]

And 15 year old me and my friend Jessica afterwards were like, they did it. They figured it out, they did it. And. But like, I felt this.

[Adam Elsbury]

I would have loved to have had a conversation with you right after I left, I'm sure.

[Matt Koplik]

But like, I said the same thing about the Phantom movie, you know, when it first came out.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sure.

[Matt Koplik]

Part of it is it took me until I was about 19 to stop being just so pumped for a new movie musical coming out. And I knew. I realized by senior year of high school I had to see a movie musical three times to figure out if I actually thought it was good.

[Adam Elsbury]

I mean, I'll be honest, I have a feeling that if I, if that movie came out when I was in high school, if Rent came out the movie. Yeah, when I was in high school, I probably would have also felt similarly there.

[Matt Koplik]

They, most of them were older and it wasn't as dangerous. A lot of them got prettier. Adina got prettier. Hot as Daphne. Ruben Vega is like, Rosario Dawson is a movie star. Like, for a reason. Everyone was just like more Hollywood. Everything was streamlined, everything was prettier to look at, everything was safer to look at. And so it was a very easy to swallow movie at the time. And for 15 year old me who had, you know, never seen another grown man's erection before, I was like, this is sexual and energetic and dangerous.

[Adam Elsbury]

There were erections in the movie of Rent.

[Matt Koplik]

No, but you know. No, you're talking about like, I, I'm talking about how like me and my tiny world of what sex is endangerment.

[Adam Elsbury]

So we got to see Adam Pascal's erection in the movie Rent. Okay.

[Matt Koplik]

And yeah, it was a cut scene. Talking one song glory. One song Glory hole. It's a glory hole that lasts for one song. But whatever. It's stupid. The whole thing is stupid. But so this is, I'm saying all this because like a lot of the teenage kids at the time, like also super into it and that movie and of the show and all that stuff, like, it was dangerous to us who didn't actually know what danger was. And we thought we were special, we thought we were different. And I don't mean this as a slight to all teenage fans out there. I was a teenage fan, you were a teenage fan. We just had a lovely review from a teenage fan in Alaska. Jackson, you're awesome. We love you. If at 14 you feel like you can fully decipher the contents of a musical, the musical's not that deep. Because at 14, not only is your brain fully formed yet, you have not read or experienced enough in the world to have that insightful a take, you know?

[Adam Elsbury]

Yep.

[Matt Koplik]

I say this to someone who's. And much as I deep dive, like, there are things that jump out at me later in life as well, you.

[Adam Elsbury]

Know, there are things that I noticed in listening to, recording cast recordings, seeing films like, you know, that, that I've. That I've loved for a long time and revisit and go, oh my God, how did I not get that before? Yeah, how did I, you know, how did I miss X, Y, Z? Yeah, I mean, true, truly good thing, or maybe not even truly good things, but things that are a little deeper than surface level really can continue to.

[Matt Koplik]

There'S a certain kind of masterwork in art of any medium and any genre like it. I'm not just talking like a Rock Moneroff piece. Like, you know, something like Mean Girls the movie, or no teeny Bopper song, whatever. Like, if someone is really fantastic at what they do, no matter the genre, style, whatever, what it does is it immediately leaves you with a feeling. Right. That you can hold on to. And then when you go back to experience it again, if the feeling's not as huge as the first time, you find details to discover that give you even more excitement than the first time. Yeah. Something like Sweeney Todd, right? You see it for the first time and you're fucking bowled over. Unless you're my grandparents and you just go, jesus Christ, that was insane. That was brilliant. And then, like, the more times you listen to it, the more times you pour over the lyrics and you listen to the motifs and how everything repeats, you go, holy shit. Like, there's that video about Sweeney Todd the movie, which I've gone to rector to say how much I love. But you know this movie guy who's like, if you listen to the score and the underscoring, like, every spoiler of the story is told in the first five minutes and it's. And it's true, but you don't realize that the first time you're watching, you're too invested, you're too blown away by everything else.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sure.

[Matt Koplik]

And some things don't hold up as well under scrutiny. Or some things, the older you get, you see the flaws and you can maybe start to hold a nostalgic place for it in your heart, but you don't realize, you don't recognize it as the masterpiece you once did. You know what I mean?

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Which is what brings us back to the fandom of Rent, which is, I think, the first Broadway fandom to be cult. Like, I don't think I'm going too far to say that. Not just. Not about the fact that, like, Rent heads have sort of had like a cult like mentality.

[Adam Elsbury]

Not Phantom fans. No.

[Matt Koplik]

Because I think Phantom fans were a little more respectful. Like, intense as well. Like very. But also, it's Phantom fans. When Phantom began, the Phantom was the elite or like the upper class or upper middle class.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sure.

[Matt Koplik]

Again, not to generalize, but this is true because of how commercial Broadway works. Especially in the late 80s when it was, you know, Reaganomics, reigning supreme, it was wealthier, mostly white people.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

A lot of women fangirling over Michael Crawford.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

That was how the Phantom fandom began.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right. Because he. They made him into a sex object.

[Matt Koplik]

Somehow they managed to do that. And then the Les Mis fandom was also, like, a little lamest. Fandom, when it came out, wasn't rabid. It was weirdly cultural. Like, Les Mis was considered, like, the thinking man's mega musical. Like, it was still commercial. It was big. It was huge. But that was the one where it's like, well, it's based off of a French book and it's three and a half hours long. So is Phantom, But Phantom's Pulp.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sure. That's true.

[Matt Koplik]

Not a Victor Hugue novel. That's true.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes. Is based on a novel, whereas Phantom.

[Matt Koplik]

Is an internationally recognized masterwork. Whereas Phantom was a scrapped, together serial piece.

[Adam Elsbury]

You're right. It is Pulp fiction. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. 100%, totally. But, yeah, like, so those fandoms were big and they were rabid, but they were not. They were big and they were, you know, beloved, but they were not insane.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

The Rent Heads was a very different kind of culture.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes. Where.

[Matt Koplik]

Because it also wasn't where supposed to Phantom, where it was like. It was mostly just Michael and Les Mis. It was about the work. Right. It was about the work and it was about the cast, and it was about, you know, writing the song lyrics on your arms during math class and getting a tattoo of it on your ass and having a wall dedicated to Idina Menzel in your locker and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Coming to see it 90 times. Because it was also younger. It was a younger crowd.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, no, it was. It was a very intense fandom, and it kind of. It was one of those. It was. It was a fandom that soured me on the show.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. At a.

[Adam Elsbury]

Like, at a not too old age. Like, it was. Because it was one of those shows where, you know, it came out my freshman year, like I've said a million times, my freshman year of high school. I would say that by my senior year of high school, I didn't want to hear it anymore.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Not because I didn't like it anymore, but because too many people had taken ownership of it in a way that I didn't like. It's one of the reasons I can't stand when everybody in a room starts singing, like, Disney songs together. If I hear a group of people start to sing part of your world together, I will leave the room now.

[Matt Koplik]

That's my song. That's my song.

[Adam Elsbury]

But that's how I feel when I'm in a room and everyone starts singing seasons of love.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

But I. But that said, it's kind of incredible how that is a song that even if you roll your eyes and go, oh, fuck, by the time they get to that first chorus, everyone knows what their harmony line on love is. And you're like, oh, here and here we're singing it. And.

[Matt Koplik]

And effective is effective. Yes, effective is effective.

[Adam Elsbury]

Is effective. But that said, I will say that it did. That show did. The show eventually did go to a level of fandom where I was like, I'm not interested in this part of all of this. No, this is getting. All these people are claiming that this is their show, and it's like, I just like the show.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. The ownership of it is. There's one. This is the thing that I've been talking about a lot with, like, current Broadway fandom and what I don't understand with people who call themselves Broadway fans, and I'm like, no, you become obsessed with one specific show per year or.

[Adam Elsbury]

A specific person in a specific show.

[Matt Koplik]

That too. And what's. You know, you're not a Broadway fan if you've seen Beetlejuice 60 times, but you can't name me a single Sondheim song that's not a. You're not a Broadway fan. You like Beetlejuice. Right. Which is fine like. Like Beetlejuice. But I'm also sitting here going, you know, life's short, it's long, and it's short at the same time.

[Adam Elsbury]

Go see another show.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, there's. There's so much to experience like you. You're never going to become better seeing one thing a million times. The show I've seen the most on Broadway was Fun Home. And that wasn't because I was so obsessed with that. I was like, this is my show. But because I am a stone cold cunt and I have a high bar for what I consider to be excellence on Broadway. And I saw. I remember I saw Fun Home at the Public, and I thought it was brilliant. And then I saw it on Broadway, and this was. I had the same thought I had when the Red Movie came out, but this time it was justified. I was like, they did it. They made this even better. And I said to myself, I. I remember seeing the final preview of Fun Home, second row, and I said to myself, I'm gonna see the show multiple times, because I don't know the next time I'm gonna see something I think, is this good ever again?

[Adam Elsbury]

I wasn't lucky enough to see that.

[Matt Koplik]

Off Broadway at the Public.

[Adam Elsbury]

Are you. Are you doing spoiler alert to Everybody listening. Are you doing Next to Normal as part of the series?

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Adam Elsbury]

Okay, so I will say since I won't be on that episode, that I.

[Matt Koplik]

That you don't know.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, I don't know, but I'll Spoiler alert now if I am. When I. I saw that show at second stage, when it was okay.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. It was more comedy there, wasn't it?

[Adam Elsbury]

It was campier.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. She had her Costco.

[Adam Elsbury]

Costco.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, man, do I remember that. But then, year and a half later, I saw it on Broadway and I sat there at intermission and I went, they fixed it.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Holy shit. And then at the end of the show, I was like, I still don't think this is a perfect show. I think there's a lot about this show that's not great. But, man, if it isn't way more effective and they actually figured out what to do to make it work.

[Matt Koplik]

Also, you can name the number of perfect musicals on one hand. Perfect. Perfection is overrated. Greatness is, I think, even harder to achieve. And I think there are a number of great musicals.

[Adam Elsbury]

But I. Yes, but I thought I. But in that case, I'm saying this.

[Matt Koplik]

For the trolls out there. They're like, next to normal. That's not a critique, guys. Perfection has to. Is an objective. Like, sitting there with the material. I mean, like, does this connect? And if everyone remembers from the Sondheim series, Preston Max Allen found the one flaw in Gypsy. So Gypsy is not a perfect musical.

[Adam Elsbury]

That.

[Matt Koplik]

But he's not. He wasn't wrong about it, though.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, anyway, the. But. But. But it is. It is very satisfying when you go. When you. To return to something that you were already like, okay, and then you're like, oh, wow. Yeah, they figured out the problem, and then it work.

[Matt Koplik]

Fun. There were no problems with Fun Home. Fun Home. They took. They took greatness and made it otherworldly. Like, things that I didn't think were weak. Yeah. And I remember when they were like, oh, we cut Al for short. And we were like, excuse you. Al for short was so delightful. Like, Sydney Lucas was so wonderful in that number. And then they just cut it and made it a small scene between her and Bruce and made it the party dress thing and connected it to the I want, I want. I was like, oh, that. They took this really sweet number and, like, just made it even more profound with this scene. The in the round worked better. Everything just clicked in a way that I went, holy fucking shirtballs. And I saw it six times. Not because I was so obsessed with it. But just because I was like, there's not a lot of amazing shit on Broadway to me. And so when I see something that I'm truly like, this is at the level that I always want things to be, I'm gonna see it as much as I can. Just. Cause I'm like, I don't know if I'm gonna see this kind of shit again. Usually that means like two or three times. Fun Home was a very special case, but with Rent, you know, it's not that it was. It was, as you said, it was an ownership. It was. This show belongs to me. This is my show. And I think something that I was thinking about while you were talking and I was listening and what you were saying was feeding my thought. I think about Theater Camp, Stage Door Manor. Everyone take a shot where they did do Rent twice.

[Adam Elsbury]

Mike, you went to Stage Door Manor?

[Matt Koplik]

I've never brought it up once before. Oh, my. Oh, my God. Stage Door Manor Performing Arts Camp, or I think they call it center now. But so, you know, theater kids in the Catskills, majority white, most of us from upper middle class families, some from very upper class families.

[Adam Elsbury]

I bet that was a fucking Rhett Mecca a lot.

[Matt Koplik]

It was a lot. So when.

[Adam Elsbury]

I mean, probably a little bit before you started going there.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, I'm sure when it happened. Yeah, I got there in 2003. So there were five more years of Rent on Broadway.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

So Ren was still very much a thing, but it was. The older kids were now getting to Jason Robert Brown. So Rent was. Yeah, Rent was weird. Like, it. It wasn't that Rent was uncool, but, like, the quote, unquote uncool theater kids were more obvious about Rent and Phantom, whereas, like, the cooler theater kids were like, no, no, no, Jason Rupert Brown, man. And then, like, by the next year, JRB became like du jour. But so there were girls at Stage Door who were so into Rent, and they would take their T shirts and, like, cut it up, and they would cut up their jeans and they would wear, like, you know, they would take the gloves and cut off the. The fingers and whatnot. But like, the following year, that would be gone. Like, that was their personality for a year. And there's nothing wrong with that. When you're. When you're a teenager, you're trying on different things, different hats of who am I in this world? And Rent is so. There's so much about Rent that is so effective. And when you're at an impressionable age, you're like, is this me? Like, this Looks like such an interesting way to be. Is this who I am? And I think it says something that a lot of the people that really, quote unquote, were affected by Rent and don't really carry as much of it with them anymore in older age, like in a nostalgic sense they do. But like, I don't know. Everyone I know who talks about like, oh, and I was in middle school, like, I wrote the lyrics on my sneakers. I'm like, but you don't have anything about it in your home. Not that you like, not that that's the only token, but you don't. I mean, like, there are so many other things that we carry with us in our homes and our, in our clothes and our whatever. I mean, I'm a 32 year old person who has a fucking Little Mermaid phone case, but that's. That shit sticks with me.

[Adam Elsbury]

Can confirm.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, can confirm. I smile and Harry Potter and everywhere. But, you know, I don't know Rent nowhere. And Rent was very important to me for like two years. Yeah, same. But. And same thing with the writers that claim to have been inspired by Rent. Like, you know, Lin Manuel Miranda talks all the time about like, he saw it like 20, 30 times. He, you know, he's not sure he would have been a musical theater writer today if it weren't for Rent. And I think with the way that he carries that now is through having done Tick Tick Boom, which, you know, is its own troubled musical that I think the movie improves a lot on, even if I don't love the movie. But I mean, I don't hear any Rent in any of Lynn's stuff.

[Adam Elsbury]

No, I mean, the show that. The only show that I think I ever saw that got produced off Broadway, like I saw, there were a couple of, of like fringe shows and stuff that I saw where it was like, oh, you were clearly influenced by Rent. Yeah, just in like in music style. But the only show that I remember seeing that was. That was actually commercially produced off Broadway was Bear. That felt like such a Rent rip off.

[Matt Koplik]

Rent meets Degrassi 100%.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. And I know there were parts, but again, I mean, not even to go off. Go on and on about that, but like that was an original company of a show that was very, very good when it was at the Actors. What is the hell is that space on 54th Street?

[Matt Koplik]

The actor's temple? No, not Actors Temple, Actors Playhouse.

[Adam Elsbury]

The one, the one where you're in town originated.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah, over like the fire station.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I know what you're Talking about.

[Adam Elsbury]

So that was where Bear originally played. And that original cast was great, but they really were trying so hard to make it a Rent.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And it was like. And I remember I saw it, I think two or three times because I had a friend involved. Like it was doing like press for it or something. And it always touched me to a degree. Like I never. I was never like totally cold hearted about it, but there was also something about it that just felt so wannabe to me at the time where I was like, ugh, you just want to be Rent so bad.

[Matt Koplik]

That's the thing is like the 2000s is really when like the Rent knockoffs really started. Not the late 90s. There were four more years.

[Adam Elsbury]

We had to get workshops.

[Matt Koplik]

That's true, but you know what I mean. And when I talk about like, you know, carrying Rent with you, I don't. Those were shows like for shows like Bear and Spring Awakening and you know, like that. I don't think they were like. I don't think to them it was that Rent meant so much that they wanted to. That like it influenced their Bear was. You think so?

[Adam Elsbury]

I think I honest, I think I even heard that it was like a direct, like inspiration.

[Matt Koplik]

Interesting. I always got from Bear that I don't know that like maybe Rent inspired them to write, but that they weren't necessarily trying to like connect the dots to that. I don't know.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, well. And I can also.

[Matt Koplik]

It was just so try hard.

[Adam Elsbury]

I can also very much say that that original production was a billion times better and more interesting than that version that they did at New World Stages.

[Matt Koplik]

I didn't see the New World Stages production.

[Adam Elsbury]

Missed nothing.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm sure. Also had some good people in that cast too, though. Yeah. But to be fair to Bear, I never saw the one in New York. I saw it in college. It was not the best of productions. Sure. So maybe with a good cast and a good director, it would be better. I do not care for it at the time. I don't decide. I do not desire to ever see it again. But how are we getting to this Rent, all this fandom? Fandom, yeah. Oh, and. Well, then we talk about this legacy, but we don't have to talk about the movie much more. We didn't talk about it all that much to begin with, but we have them.

[Adam Elsbury]

There's not much.

[Matt Koplik]

There's not much to talk about. Everyone's too old. Everyone's auto tuned. Everyone's way too pretty. They. It's. And it's Chris Columbus who directed Home.

[Adam Elsbury]

Alone they translate a lot of lyrics into spoken dialogue, which is embarrassing.

[Matt Koplik]

In fairness to them. Phantom did it first.

[Adam Elsbury]

Okay.

[Matt Koplik]

No, it was. It was a bad decision then. It was a bad decision for Rent.

[Adam Elsbury]

I'm just saying they made the choice to do it and it was bad.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, absolutely. Well, Chris Columbus is not a good filmmaker. He got very lucky with Home Alone. I actually think that the first Harry Potter film is quite delightful. I even think Chamber of Secrets is pretty delightful.

[Adam Elsbury]

But Doubtfire is an enjoyable.

[Matt Koplik]

It's enjoyable.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sad, but it's enjoyable.

[Matt Koplik]

Enjoyable enough. But he. I don't think he particularly is very on top of it. And then Rent was also something that he had no business directing. There was talk for a long time of Spike Lee directing it, which I love.

[Adam Elsbury]

That made a lot more sense.

[Matt Koplik]

I love that synergy. But it was also at the time where Chicago got away with being a big movie musical hit by having all the songs being in Roxy's mind so they could get away with the big production numbers. But it was also like, don't worry, no one's breaking out a song like in the street. So show a movie. Like, Rent was like, well, what the fuck do we do? They have to break out a song in the street. I guess we don't have them break out into song all the time.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

And something like Rent as a film. And I talked about this, you know, with like, the Dreamgirls movie, it's got to be music all the time if we're gonna be on board with it. The train's gotta never stop moving. Yeah. And that train for both Dreamgirls and Rent, it stops and it starts. It stops and it starts all the time. I mean, Rent is a boring mess, whereas Dream Girls is sort of an interesting mess.

[Adam Elsbury]

But the movie of Rent is also confusing. They chose to set the movie in the late 80s, which, timeline wise, fine. But it doesn't look like the late 80s.

[Matt Koplik]

No, it does not.

[Adam Elsbury]

It is the most confusing, like, what.

[Matt Koplik]

When the fuck are we movie? So anachronistically. Yeah, but I'm saying this because, like, the movie comes out, and, yes, it's not very good, but there was a hope that could still be successful because writing was such a huge phenomenon. And I remember, I think it was, like, the number one movie on Friday. And then it swan dove into the Gracie Mews that Saturday Sunday, that it became, like, number four overall for the weekend and then just died.

[Adam Elsbury]

I also will never understand. Part of me is like, is it just because you live there and you didn't want to like travel. But why they filmed it instead of San Francisco instead of in New York?

[Matt Koplik]

Well, they did film some of it in New York, but it was 80% San Francisco. Yeah. I don't know.

[Adam Elsbury]

So I guess those outdoor scenes are San Francisco. And you can tell.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, with the CGI cold breath. There are so many creative decisions. We could ask, for example, why is it that Mimi is working in the nicest, most expensive club of all time?

[Adam Elsbury]

She is a class stripper.

[Matt Koplik]

She is. Where she never takes off any clothes. No, I.

[Adam Elsbury]

Honestly, I'll say. More than anything else, one of my biggest gripes about the film is number one, its choice to put Seasons of love at the opening.

[Matt Koplik]

Sure.

[Adam Elsbury]

But also that they took away all of the stakes of Act One by setting act one over a week. Several days.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Instead of three hours.

[Adam Elsbury]

It really just makes you go, okay, yeah, well.

[Matt Koplik]

And similar to the dear Evan Hansen movie. Whereas there is some. It doesn't matter, baby. Whereas the stage. Where is it? Where is the stage show? The morality is a little more gray with some of the moments. The movie's like, no, Ernesty all the time. No day but today. But it's. But. But it's no day but today. So, for example, another day where, yes, Maureen, Mimi is like, correct to try to get Roger to come out of the house, to get out of his shell. She is also trying to get a recovering drug addict to do drugs. Yep. He is right to kick her the fuck out.

[Adam Elsbury]

She's like, here, here's some heroin.

[Matt Koplik]

Want to do it? But, like, the song itself is a little gray. He is right to kick her out. And then. And this is again, like, similar to the homeless woman situation. Like, eventually, he's the one who apologizes to her. Like, I'm so sorry I flew off the handle. It's like, no, you were right. But his reasoning for King around isn't like, how dare you come and tempt me? He's like, how dare you come to be beautiful and wonderful and magical and I want to kiss you. Go away. I can't have you. I should tell you. And so, like, his actions are correct, if not the reasoning. And so there's a moral gray area to it. Whereas the movie's like, no, no day but today. You're wrong, Roger. And they have Mark and Angel and Collins magically show up behind Mimi from support group and be like, no, but, Roger. No day but today, man. Whereas in the stage. Whereas in the stage show, she's singing along with the support group, who are in another room, which is also Foreshadowing that Mimi also has aids because she is singing the mantra of the aid support group that she has definitely gone to.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's a solid moment in the stage show.

[Matt Koplik]

The Mimi. Roger scene work, I think, is really strong writing.

[Adam Elsbury]

I agree.

[Matt Koplik]

Again, my issue with Another Day is just like, I think Larson is not. I wish Larson had put a little more time into Roger actually being morally right and Mimi being morally wrong. It's more kind of. He just sort of allows it to exist, which is fine. That is human. It just takes like two lines of Rogers to be like, by the way, I'm recovering. Go fuck yourself. He literally says to her, and light my Candle, I used to be a junkie. Which is why she's like, well, but.

[Adam Elsbury]

In Light My Candle, he takes her stash.

[Matt Koplik]

He does. He tries to get away from her. But that's.

[Adam Elsbury]

But isn't it for him to use his own.

[Matt Koplik]

No, he's taking. He's trying to get it away from her.

[Adam Elsbury]

I didn't take it in that way. Oh, I. I always took it as he was taking it for himself to sneak later on.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, I never took it that way. I took it that he's trying to get her to quit that stuff.

[Adam Elsbury]

Interesting.

[Matt Koplik]

Why don't you forget that stuff? He says, it's a candy bar rapper, which I texted that to you. Listening to. If there's one improvement Adam Pascal has as an actor from the Broadway cast recording of Rent to the movie soundtrack, it's his line delivery of It's a Candy Bar Rapper. He goes, well, in the movie, he goes, it's candy bar rapper. And in the Broadway cast recording, he's like, it's a candy bar rapper. Because he says it like. So he says it earnestly with no Rs. And it's almost like, I remember the first time I heard it, I was like, what's so special about a candy bar wrapper? He says it like it's a candy bar wrapper. Oh, yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Like he's discovered it.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I never understood that line in her delivery anyway.

[Adam Elsbury]

God. Well, first of all, I will say let's talk about the cast recording for a second. The original cast recording really does an amazing job at capturing the energy and magnetism of this cast.

[Matt Koplik]

100%.

[Adam Elsbury]

100 it is. Having just re. Listened to it, it is still a very exciting recording to listen to.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Everybody still. Everybody sounds fucking incredible.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep.

[Adam Elsbury]

Singing their fucking faces off.

[Matt Koplik]

No one's holding back. It's not a sterile cast recording. No.

[Adam Elsbury]

And it. But it. But it. And it does. It really has an incredible energy. It has an immediacy to it. You really do. It really does feel like the theatrical experience.

[Matt Koplik]

It's the kind of energy you get either when your show is, like, about to close and it's your last hurrah, like the original Merrily, or when your show is such a fucking hit and you go into that studio and you're like, go fucking us like that. My Fair lady cast recording. The original My Fair lady cast recording has one of the most exciting overtures of all time. Because everyone's like, guys, we have jobs for, like, the next five years. And it's guys, I think we did it. Yeah, we did it. We did it. Yeah. Everyone's like, guys, we are the hottest thing in the world. It's why I wish they actually had recorded Evita a couple of months into the Broadway run. A when Patty was more vocally comfortable, but also by that point, when they were, like, a phenomenon. And they could have been like, guys, it's us. We're the moment. Whereas in. They're in LA and everyone's like, I don't know if this is gonna work. People keep walking out.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, but all of that to say, like, there are. I don't care if I'm overusing this word. There are iconic after iconic line deliveries during these songs, Some of which are so incredibly cool and good. Some of them are so weird.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

But the choices.

[Matt Koplik]

There are choices. Tay has some interesting line deliveries.

[Adam Elsbury]

Really?

[Matt Koplik]

Not my attitude. It's the way there was.

[Adam Elsbury]

I always love his.

[Matt Koplik]

After he says that every. As a. As a younger person who, again, would listen to the music and be like, yes, and the music still holds up. Very much so. But, like, the storytelling in some of the lyrics did not make sense to me as a kid. And so I just thought that they were words that I was like, oh, it was whatever. Maybe I get it, maybe I don't. But. So I remember the lyric of the. Maureen is protesting losing a performance space. Not my attitude. I. I don't know what it was. I didn't realize that Benny was commenting on Mark's comment when Mark says, like, oh, that attitude towards the homeless is what Maureen's protesting against. And I always thought it was, like, the way that it's sung and then spoken. It felt like, to me, Benny was, like, reminiscing to himself like, maureen is protesting losing your performance space. Not my attitude. Like, it's like, not my. Like, that's not my kind of attitude. And I didn't realize he's Saying, no, Maureen isn't protesting the homeless. She's protesting me taking away her performance base. Not my attitude.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Stupid. But that's also, like, the way that it's written.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, no, it's. But, I mean, I could.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't even go down the list, but there's America. America. Prairie Dogs.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. So, yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Iconic. Iconic.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely. Thoughts on Contact? Not the musical, the song.

[Adam Elsbury]

I was. Oh, well done. I was. I. That was another thing I was going to bring up. So I think that number makes no sense.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Especially actually, it makes more sense on the cast recording than it does in the stage show.

[Matt Koplik]

The staging of it is not great.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's just unclear.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Like, at least on the cast recording, I hear that everybody's having sex.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And, you know, you hear angel have, like, you know, having some sort of ecstasy moment.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Physical ecstasy. Not taking ecstasy. And then you hear everybody, like, everybody has a. A fail in bed. And then you hear it's over. And we go into. On the. We skip the funeral service and go straight into. I'll cover you. But I think that the storytelling on the recording with it is very clear. The staging of that musical number, I think, is so confusing.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Adam Elsbury]

Because it's like nothing else in the show.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And it's very. It's. It's. It's.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't.

[Adam Elsbury]

Not that I want it to be more literal. It just feels so. So like such a weird dream ballet moment when.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's.

[Matt Koplik]

It's just. It's a. It's a cluster. And if you read the. If you read Brantley's review in the Times, he's, like, not super pleased with the staging of the show in general. So it's. It's ironic to me when you read, like, the oral history and everyone's like, it's so crazy how things just, like, came together and it was like, it just happened to be the perfect choice. And you read some of the reviews.

[Adam Elsbury]

For you in that moment.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, you read some of the reviews, and they, like, they have things to pick apart. And a lot of them are like, listen, like, this is really profound writing. Like, I wish it was given a better production. So it's just funny to hear people talk about it that way anyway. But, yeah, context is a number that makes people uncomfortable. Confuses people. I think sex in general makes people uncomfortable. Yeah. I have been pondering this as a possibly, like a Instagram think piece at some point, but why is the Broadway musical so afraid of sex very much? Which is not to say afraid of being sexy. Being sexy is very different from sex. Moulin Rouge has no problem attempting to be sexy. Moulin Rouge has no interest in sex.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, it's why I think. And I know you'll get to it when you talk about it, but like, why Spring Awakening was so surprising at the time.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Was. I mean, number one, sex on. Simulated sex on stage with young people.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Who were all of age, but playing like 15, 16 year olds. That was. I mean, I. I'm amazed that that show did as well as it did, given how. How sexually overt it was and also.

[Matt Koplik]

How they did Spring Awakening. And yes, we will talk about this more when eventually get to that episode. Spring Awakening. What I appreciate for all the issues I have with it and all the things I love about it, I appreciate that they explore sex in every way it can be, especially at such a young age where you're figuring your way out in the dark. Sex can be beautiful, it can be scary, it can be hilarious, it can be isolating, it can be communal and contact. I feel like it's trying to make you understand. It's trying to get you to feel. Feel the high and the rug being pulled out from under you in terms of intimacy with a partner. What it does to the overall landscape of the show, I couldn't tell you. It kind of sticks out like a sore thumb to me.

[Adam Elsbury]

I agree.

[Matt Koplik]

I feel like it's there mostly as a. As a clever way of telling us that angel has died. Because the way Angel's solo happens, then we go to the it's over. You could argue that it's angel and Collins having sex and angel having her ecstasy moment. And it's the com going back to today for you, tomorrow for me. But this time it's today for me, tomorrow for you. It's like, it's take me, my moment. I want my big o. To quote Ms. Violet, Ms. Hilton, if you're nasty, I want mine. Where is mine. But also, you argue the way that it's staged with the light behind Angel. It's also angel going into the light of, you know, take me, I'm done, I'm ready. Angel's dying.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, because up until then, she's like suffering on a table during.

[Matt Koplik]

Without you. Yes, she's. She is now. She went from being perfectly fine to suffering. The big suffer.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Well.

[Adam Elsbury]

And so. So that's why. The other reason why I think contact is confusing in terms of what's actually happening in that moment, because you've been watching her in the. During taking your leave Me. And without you, sort of very quickly declining in health.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And so it's like, wait, are you having sex while you're this ill?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Are you? Or is this your ascent into death? Yeah, death. A higher place. Whatever. It's. It's. It's very confusing.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, I also don't want to confuse people. Whereas HIV is a virus. It does not. It does. That is not aids. AIDS is the syndrome that you get when HIV goes untreated, which it does. Which for a lot of people in the 80s and early 90s and people still today, if they don't get themselves tested. That happened if you were not testing yourself regularly, if you didn't have access to health care. So Angel Collins, Mimi, and Roger, they have aids. And it's actually one of my favorite moments. It might be the only time that AIDS is involved in a meet cute. Is when Collins and Angel meet. And angel says the body provides a comfortable home with the acquired immune efficiency syndrome, as does mine. Oh, we'll get along fine. Yeah. That's basically angel being like, aids, I got aids, girl. Angel's like, oh, fantastic. Barebacking. It is.

[Adam Elsbury]

Did you wait until I was sipping water to say that? No.

[Matt Koplik]

That almost came out of my nose. Oh, my God. I didn't realize it would affect you so hard.

[Adam Elsbury]

It just got me.

[Matt Koplik]

But. So this is to say with a lot of people who have AIDS and had aids, you could be fine for a while, and then within a week, you were, like, rapidly declining.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, and especially when this show is originally being written. I mean, because even technology and in medicine even had improved from the time he'd started writing this show. Like, I mean, because even in the early night, like, 89, 90, people were still dropping like flies.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Whereas in by the mid-90s, there were more and more people that had access to treatments that were allowing them to live longer.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Adam Elsbury]

CZT was one of the first drugs to. To help people suffering with actual. With. I don't. I don't know. Don't quote me on this. I don't know if AZT was specifically for once AIDS had reached your system or if it was something that you took when you had hiv. I don't know.

[Matt Koplik]

I think it. I want to say aids.

[Adam Elsbury]

Okay. But it was one of the first treatments in pill form that would help people's symptoms and things subside.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Well, because from my research. Listen, I did a lot of research for this. It's late, and we just ate, and my mouth is burning with cauliflower Buffalo Sauce. But azt, I believe, was originally used as a cancer drug for. For chemo, I think. Oh, that would. And then I think they tested it for AIDS treatment and. And then sort of migrated it to that. But because it was used for both, they weren't making enough of it at the time when it was first being distributed, which is why it was such hot pills as Prior says in Angels in America. But eventually similar, you know, Covid vaccines and whatnot. Like when eventually they start making more of it. And when the government finally acknowledged aids, it was more of a regular drug. Point is, yes, by the mid-90s, technology and medicine had progressed enough that you could have AIDS and you weren't necessarily going to die later that year. But that is where Larson was when he wrote it.

[Adam Elsbury]

On this same topic, this was the other thing that I thought of while watch. Rewatching this.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And it's more just. There's nothing particularly deep about this, but we got to the end of the show with the Mimi quote, unquote, death jumped over the moon before she comes back.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Mimi dies in La Vohem. She does not die in Rent. She almost dies.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right. I'm not gonna lie to you. Okay, so last. Last night when I was finishing watching Act 2 of Rent.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

I'd had an edible and yes, that's right, the cannabis kids. But I was sitting and watching it, and I. My mind just went to very dark humor place where Mimi came back to life.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And we got to the finale and everybody. And you know, you got. Her fever's breaking and everybody's moving on and so excited. She's alive. And I'm like, but then the show ends. How do we know that bitch didn't, like, die 10 minutes later?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, people sometimes when they die from heart failure, they have one final burst of energy and then they die.

[Adam Elsbury]

But I ended up having a giggle all through the final note. But today, as I'm like, what if she came up and they were like, she's back. And then she just kicks it again as the lights.

[Matt Koplik]

That is going to be my production of Ren, much like Tina Landau's Annie, where Annie woke up and the whole thing was a dream. As they are. What it is, is everyone is such a narcissist that they are all singing while watching Mark's movie. No day with a. She's just dying in Roger's arms. And no one is the wiser because.

[Adam Elsbury]

Everyone gets up to sing. So nobody's with her at the table.

[Matt Koplik]

Nope. Nope. Everyone's either staring at their reflection or their own image in Mark's movie. And they're going, ah, no day but today. Write it on my sneakers. Middle school kids will love me. And Mimi's, like, dead. Something that always bothered me as a youngin was how much they acted like their quote, unquote, chosen family was so important to them. When you really think about it, they were only that chosen family for less than a year, starting with Christmas, going into Halloween. Well. Well, as an older person now, I'm a little different about it. Okay, not that.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sorry, you said. You said as a younger person. I apologize.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, as a younger person, because. And when I mean this chosen family, I literally mean the Roger, Mark, Collins, Angel, Mimi, Maureen, Joanne. Right. Because Joanne and Mark do not meet till Christmas Day. Mimi and Roger. Mimi doesn't meet anyone till Christmas Day. Collins doesn't meet angel till Christmas Day. Collins has also been away for Christmas Eve. Sorry, Christmas Eve.

[Adam Elsbury]

Eve.

[Matt Koplik]

Eve. Eve. Eve.

[Adam Elsbury]

December 24th.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. 9:00pm Eastern Standard Time. But so you have to think of it as Christmas Eve is the day that this family becomes the family, so to speak. But even then, Maureen and Joanne break up that night. So we have, like, six days of Joanne and Maureen kind of not being together in the group all the time. Pookie, pookie, pookie. And you shall see the padlock building and the rioting on Avenue A. I inverted what Freddie does in that bootleg. She literally says, and I should say they padlocked your building. And the riding on Avenue B, Freddy, not the lyric. But that's not a rhyme, girl. But so Halloween is Angel's funeral. So we're talking 10 months of this chosen family. Now the person in me that wants to get drinks with Lindsay Ellis watches this and goes, you fucking narcissistic assholes who think that you're special. Oh, this beautiful family must die after 10 months. Like, you don't know enough about each other. You haven't spent enough time with each other yet. That said, sometimes you bond people very quickly and.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And it's even more painful when, like, you don't get as much time as you should.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

So it is very. Even though it's 10 months, it could have been the most meaningful 10 months of all of their lives, you know, totally well.

[Adam Elsbury]

And. And again, you know, in that time frame in which the show takes place, you know, which got easier and easier as the years went on, as it ran. But in the early, early 90s, you know, people. Well, I was watching. I was watching some documentary with some Rent documentary, and they. But they were talking about Jonathan Larson and his group of friends, and he had a couple of friends who, you know, I mean, people are losing 30 friends a year.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

So when you are, when you're living in a time where there is a true plague going on and people are dying because, and your friends are literally dropping like flies, you know, you kind of hold on to whoever is closest that you can connect with.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And I think that that's what, that's one thing that rent gets. Right. It gets a lot of things right, but it's, but as far as, like, people, I don't think that these people are all as selfish as, you know, we want to joke about them being, I think that they are, they are a caring group of people for each other.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And they are holding fast to make sure that they look out for one another.

[Matt Koplik]

The thing about rent, that isn't unique to it. We see it all the time with art is works. Stories that are earnest about earnest people make a lot of people uncomfortable.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

And they tend to get. Those stories tend to get villainized. Vilified. Villainized.

[Adam Elsbury]

Villainized.

[Matt Koplik]

Villainized. No.

[Adam Elsbury]

Or vilified.

[Matt Koplik]

Vilified. They mean the same thing, right? Yeah. Oh, side note, speaking of which, by the way, there is a lyric in rent in you okay, honey? They get any money? No, had none to get. But they purloined my coat.

[Adam Elsbury]

Purloined my coat.

[Matt Koplik]

Purloined. Everyone just means stealing. They stole my coat. They stole my coat. I was trying to think on the way over here, what's a famous lyric where you could just like replace that simple word with a fancier version of the word?

[Adam Elsbury]

And it's like, I mean, I, I, I appreciate that in that moment, that's Jonathan Larson being like, we need to show immediately that he's a more intelligent person.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. Well, I mean, he teaches computer, Computer age philosophy at mit.

[Adam Elsbury]

No, I know, but it's just like, what's, what's one of the first things that he can say where it makes him sound like, yeah, he's much, he's a very educated human being.

[Matt Koplik]

He said purloined. They purloined my coat. Well, so fun fact, by the way, when they were doing workshops of this, one of the first workshops, they did the second. It was a two week workshop, and they did surveys for audience response, and they said the overwhelming response was, why should I care? Why can't they all just get a job? And Larson never answers the second question. He decides to try to answer the first question of like, okay, let Me try to get you to care about these characters more. And you're right. Like, they're not completely selfish. They clearly have love and care for each other. They have empathy. They're not complete narcissists. But I think where the issue comes into play for a lot of people, and we talked about this again, and so we won't talk about it too much again, is the romanticism of poverty and the fact that it's all for the sake of their art. And none of them are really good artists. Right.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, and I think also, you know, a little bit that gets lost in translation when it comes to La Boheme. Not direct translation, but translating from one. One time frame to another is that in the time frame of La Boheme, people probably people had fewer resources.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

So now. But now it's like when you're in the early 90s and you have far more resources.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, and again, in La Boheme, the artists in La Boheme are not like, I suffer for my art. They're like, they. They would love nothing more than to sell their paintings and their music and to live in a nice apartment with a fireplace. Yeah. The irony of the opening scene is that they have to burn their sheet music and their paintings to keep warm. And it's like, we're. And the only reason we're cold is because we wanted to. We chose this life, and we have to kill our darlings to survive. Rent is like. It tries to have it both ways. They have, like, occasional eye roll lyrics where they're like, some life that we chosen. It's like, yeah, but you want this life. You did want it. You did want it. And it sucks when you have, again, actual homeless people who are failed by the world and can never get. Make their way back up. And then, you know, the hustlers of Christmas Bells who are doing everything they can to survive. And, you know, we. We yell at the thieves who stole Collins's coke, but they're trying to make a buck so they can still live in their places. Because you want to know what they're doing? They're paying rent. The people who beat up Collins, you want to know what they're doing? They're paying their rent. Yeah. Yep. You want to know what that drug dealer for Mimi's doing paying his rent? Just saying. Any other songs you want to talk about? Moments without characters you want to talk about? We didn't really talk about La Vivo M all that much. We don't have to. It's such a long song with every word in the dictionary.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think that's so the thing about La Vivo M, which I do. I mean, it is still a very clever, fun song. I think that's what I can really say about it.

[Matt Koplik]

The only song to name check Susan Sontag and Stephen Sondheim.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, I will.

[Matt Koplik]

I will say.

[Adam Elsbury]

And Pee Wee Herman.

[Matt Koplik]

And Pee Wee Herman. And German Wine Turpentine. Gertrude Stein. It is a really, I would hope for youngsters who listen to it, they take the time to like, look up all the things it's referencing.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, yes, 100%. And I also. It's. It is one of those songs that will frequently come into my mind because some. I'll. Some be watching something else where something from that song is referenced. Not one of like the bigger mainstream things, but like, I remember the first time that I ever heard somebody talking about Carmina Barana and I was like, carmina Barana. Like, there's so many things that, that he does touch on that are all, you know, sort of like, I don't know, I don't know, popular and, and avant garde type artists.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, he. He fully ruined Maya Angelou forever because I can't hear her name anymore without.

[Adam Elsbury]

Rancheros and Maya Angelou.

[Matt Koplik]

Kari Vandalou, friend of the pod, Ali Gordon. When we were in high school and we thought we were so clever, she told me about a friend of hers who was an aspiring lyricist, much older than we were because he was, I think, 20 years old or something when the show came out. And I guess Brantley had mentioned in one of his reviews or in a Times piece about the cleverness of the lyrics. Oh, rhyming curry vindaloo with Maya Angelou. And he wrote to the Times, he's like, Dear Mr. Bradley, I may not be a Pulitzer winning writer, but even I can rhyme Lou with Lou. And in a way he is right. But it's more than just that because a lot of rhymes are often the last syllable sounds the same. Yeah. It's the fact that he found two instances with. With the same exact number of syllables and, and they, and they scan exact. Like, that's just. That is clever.

[Adam Elsbury]

It is.

[Matt Koplik]

It is clever. And.

[Adam Elsbury]

But. No, but to speak on love you bom. Yes. So my first exposure to that song was on the Tony Awards, because that was before the cast album came out.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Adam Elsbury]

And so at that point I'd seen Season of Love, Seasons of Love on TV with, you know, TV performances, but that was the first time I'd gotten to hear another song from Rent. And so La Vie Boheme was, you know, to this little kid in the San Francisco suburbs. It was like, oh, look at these adults that are like, they're. They're like. They're all sexual and having a good.

[Matt Koplik]

Time and girls kissing girls.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. It was not. Not shocking, but it was very much a. And this is. And. But it. I can 100% totally see where the rent fandom comes from.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

And. And the mindset of it is. I remember watching that being like, I want to go live like that.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

But then you come. But then you're like, no, you don't.

[Matt Koplik]

No, no. The other thing is about la vie.

[Adam Elsbury]

Boheme, but also how sexy that cast was.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, they were sexy. They looked great. They filled out those jeans quite nicely. It is a phenomenal Act 1 finale. It is probably one of the. It's one of the best of all time. It just. It energizes and builds in a way that is very infectious to the point where, like, when we get to the very end after the. They're just sitting there mooing, which, you know, we already discussed my issues with that. But when they get to the. To me, to me, to me, to me, to you and you and you like all of that, for some reason, like, that always gets me. I can just imagine, like, a group of people singing that in a bar. Well, I remember in a not weird.

[Adam Elsbury]

Way, I wasn't out of the closet just yet, but I. At that point, I knew that I was not straight. And to hear a song on television and they didn't bleep anything. To hear them on national TV sing to faggots, Leslies, dykes, cross dressers, too. I was like, you just positively used the F word.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep.

[Adam Elsbury]

Where I was like, oh, my God. Like, that's reaffirming in some ways. Like, there were. There were things about the. The what rent did celebrate that made young artistic people feel supported.

[Matt Koplik]

So there's the one of the last lines in La Vio. I'm going back to the faggot thing for a second. When people. I know when people get, like, triggered when I use that word sometimes. And I'm like, here's the thing, though, when Mark says the opposite of war is in peace, it's creation. Yeah. Which is, you know. You know, going back to Tolstoy's War and Peace. It's not war destroys creation, you know, makes more of. The only way to undermine hate, besides knowledge and exposure, is to take the weapons that are thrown at you and turn them into flowers. Right. So if you call Me, faggot. If I can repurpose that as a point of endearment and make that my own, you can't use it to hurt me anymore. What else are you gonna, what else are you gonna say? Yeah, you know. Yeah, it's every, it's every minority or oppressed group, they all use terms that have been used against them for their own sake. And obviously that, that does not cross barriers to allies and people not in those groups.

[Adam Elsbury]

Correct.

[Matt Koplik]

But it's why like, I have no issue using the effort around my friends. Not in a way that's hateful, but in a way of like. No, I, I give that word less hate and less power by giving, by giving it the energy that I give it. So similar what you said with when they say faggots, Leslie's dykes. Yeah, no, it is, it is a very powerful moment, or at least it was. It's probably a little less so now because we all, we all feel brave to use that step.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yes. And. Well, and now we've also normalized a bit more the usage of the word queer.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Like nowadays queer is used as a positive description of describer descriptor of a group of back minorities.

[Matt Koplik]

Back when I had an OkCupid account back in the long, long days ago, in the before time, they, they know OkCupid has these questions they can. That they'll ask you and you answer as many as you want. And the idea is the more questions you answer, the more the easier it is for them to match up with someone like you. And one of the questions was like, how do you feel about the word queer? And I remember the time being like, no, that's hateful. And I would be surprised if the people would be like, yeah, no, absolutely. And over time I realized, you know, how we, how our community was using that as a more umbrella term for everyone to be included.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, the first time that I ever heard that word used non offensively was I'm picking up my rent book right now and I'm holding it up and I'm showing Matt in the back of the rent book. They, there are little like cast bios. And with an Anthony Rapp's cast bio, he, he jokes about the fact that all of the, the main queer characters in the show are played by straight actors. And he just thinks it's hilarious that he's like playing one of the straight characters and is identified as queer. Yeah, but that was the first time I'd ever seen anybody use the word queer to identify.

[Matt Koplik]

Interesting.

[Adam Elsbury]

And I remember as a teenager Being like, oh, weird. I've never heard that word used in a positive way to identify yourself.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

So.

[Matt Koplik]

And then he had that book about his mom dying around the time of Rent. Right. It's called without you.

[Adam Elsbury]

Without you.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. So as. As we were talking about with the movie for a second and now is, you know, with the show, when the show eventually does close in 2008, wins the Pulitzer, wins Best Musical at the Tony Awards opposite Bring it to Noise, Bring it to Funk, which was another big hit. And one choreography, direction, supporting actress, and I think one other thing.

[Adam Elsbury]

Big, the musical.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, Big was not up for best Musical. Oh, it was that. So, okay.

[Adam Elsbury]

They allowed them a performance even though they weren't up for musical.

[Matt Koplik]

So here's. So here's the thing. This, especially then, this was a very dramatic Tony Awards because this was the.

[Adam Elsbury]

Year egregiously overlooked year.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. This is the year where Julie Andrews declined her nomination and Donna Murphy basically wins by default for King and I. This is also the year where it's Bring Into Noise, Bring into Funk, Rent. I think Swinging on a Star and I think Chronicle of a Death Foretold. That sounds right. I think those are the four. Yeah. And Big got nominated for score, book, choreography, supporting actor and actress, and maybe. Maybe one other thing. And everyone. And Big was originally going to be, like, the Big hit. Everyone thought it was going to be, like, the massive hit of the year. And in fact, like, the Shuberts had offered Rent when they were coming from Off Broadway to Broadway, like, one of their lesser theaters. And they're like, well, what about the Schubert? And they're like, well, BIG is coming in here, so, like, we can't give it to you. And, like. And, like, Big's gonna be, like, the next Phantom. Actually, no, they told them when they said, wait until next year because, like, Big's gonna be Phantom and, like, you're gonna be, you know, the Romance. Romance. And they're like producers. Like, no offense, Jerry and Bernard, but, like, BIG is no Phantom. And we're like, we are. We're Rent. But. Yeah, but so Big gets overlooked for Best Musical, and there ended up being not an investigation, so to speak, but an evaluation of the voting system from the nominating committee because it used to be on a preferential ballot and which is, I think, where the Oscars are now going to. But it used to be nominators voted on, like. So it wasn't the number of votes something got, but it was number of votes something got and where it placed in a top four. So it was deduced that enough nominators put Big at like, number four. Like, put. Took BIG off the ballot completely to rock the votes. And then like, put like Chronicle of the Death Foretold and Swinging on a Star, number one and number two so they could inch out Big.

[Adam Elsbury]

Wow.

[Matt Koplik]

Because that was a year where if you were nominated for best score and best book and at least one acting nomination, there was no world in which you weren't going to get a best Musical nomination. It was definitely. It was a fuck you to that show. And it's FEO Schwartz endorsement. Sure.

[Adam Elsbury]

But I still can't believe that Victor Victoria didn't get nominated for Best Musical. It's not great, but, like, it should have been.

[Matt Koplik]

It should have been Rent bringing the noise. BIG and Victor Victoria, that should have been the four. Swinging on a Star and Chronicle had both died. Was it Chronicle of a Death Foretold? I think so.

[Adam Elsbury]

That sounds right.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Yeah, it was. And. And they were. They were, they were. They were filler shows that no one cared about. And they were there to be a fuck you to Big in Victor Victoria. Point is that Rent wins Wilson wins Supporting Actor. It runs for 12 years. It has a year and a half run in London during right after it opens on Broadway. Lynn Thompson, the dramaturg who helped Jonathan Larson, sued for almost 20% of the royalties and a writing credit because she was like, I helped write Rent. That script was a mess. Until I came along. And the case eventually got thrown out because the judge was like, okay, what did you write? She's like, well, I couldn't tell you.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Which everyone. Well, everyone looks at him. They're like, oh, well, she's clearly wrong. It's like, no. Especially for a collaborative process like Rent where it's like, it was Jonathan's show and Lynn kind of came in and would make tweaks and things would happen in the rehearsal room where she would probably pitch a line and they would use it. It's a year. It's a year later. You're not gonna remember everything.

[Adam Elsbury]

Right. You can't. How do you track that?

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. Eventually it was settled out of court. And that's good. Yeah. Basically everyone who was in the show was like, listen, was Lynn a huge influence on the show? 100%. Should she have done it immediately after it opened and won the Pulitzer and was like becoming a money making hit? No, that was a bad look. Like it should have been discussed earlier. Or she should have, like, waited a second. Yeah. Doing it the moment it opened and be like, I Wrote Rent was wrong, but. And then they have that Off Broadway revival in 2011 with a whole bunch of other young talent. The thing about Rent now is for something that was so huge, that made. That ushered in a new era of audiences that supposedly was this huge influence, I can't imagine it ever coming back to Broadway. And I can't imagine it ever having the same love that it once had. Because every time they try to bring it back in some capacity, there's disdain. You know, like the Off Broadway revival, everyone was like, ah, it's not terrible. But, like, I don't know, it's just. It's not the same.

[Adam Elsbury]

It was also too soon. It was literally just closed off Broadway.

[Matt Koplik]

It was two.

[Adam Elsbury]

Five years before.

[Matt Koplik]

No, two. It was two years. Oh, no. Yeah. And too soon. Same director. Literally. Everybody was like, it just seems like you're trying to cash in money again. But, like, we then did it.

[Adam Elsbury]

New World Stages.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Emily Ashford, Nick Christopher, Adam Chandler Barat. MJ Rodriguez was Angel. And then, you know, they do Rent remix in London. Possibly another Rent in London at some point. I can't remember.

[Adam Elsbury]

There was another one not long ago.

[Matt Koplik]

We do Rent live. There's a Rent High School Edition. But every time they try to kind of bring it back to the pop culture zeitgeist, everyone's like, no, just let it go. And anytime it's referenced in any other thing, like Broad City or Team America or Girls, it's never done with, like, a way that makes you go like, yeah, Rent is great.

[Adam Elsbury]

You know, it's made fun of or.

[Matt Koplik]

Like, the people who love it. You're like, well, that person sucks. Like, it's Marnie and Girls who loves Rent. And you're like, well, Marnie fucking sucks.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, you know who loves Rent, though?

[Matt Koplik]

Who?

[Adam Elsbury]

Yitzhak.

[Matt Koplik]

Yitzhak. Oh, yeah. And Hedwig.

[Adam Elsbury]

I'm playing Angel.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. In that. In. And in Yitzhak's defense, Hedwig came out in. In 2001. The movie.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. So it was still cool to, like, Rent.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, yeah. It was still cool to, like, Rent. I just.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Speaking of an example of a character.

[Matt Koplik]

That I likes Rent. Yeah, absolutely. Yitzchak's a lot to like Rent, even.

[Adam Elsbury]

Though it's, like, on a cruise ship production, I think.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, my God. We've kind of mentioned Lindsay Ellis's video. Do we want to talk about it any further? Just how much she hates the show?

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah. I don't know that there's much more to say about it. I think we've kind of covered the points. I will say, though, for anybody that's interested, it is worth watching. I mean, she takes a hard take on it and it is, I would.

[Matt Koplik]

Argue, for more social reasons, but she. Which I think are half fair, half a little harsh. I think her story structure criticisms are absolutely fair. And also she uses the movie as a bit more of a reference than this show. Just because I think the movies are readily available.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, I think it's partly because the movies were readily available. And I think also the movie brings out a lot of the biggest flaws of the show. Yes. So I think that. And so it's. It just magnified.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think that. I have a feeling that when it was on stage, she was like, I don't care for the show. And then the movie came out and she was like, I really hate this.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, yeah. So.

[Adam Elsbury]

And so that's more what it's about.

[Matt Koplik]

And she's also acknowledged, like, her favorite show is Phantom. She's seen it a million times, and she knows every issue that is with Phantom.

[Adam Elsbury]

Well, yes, and in a couple slightly more recent years, because I think her movie video is from like 2016.

[Matt Koplik]

It's. It's, I think early 2017. 2017. Early 2017, I think.

[Adam Elsbury]

But. But she, in a couple of her more recent videos has been like, I play a curmudgeon on tv. Like, she knows that she, like, she does come at things hard because in some cases she's trying to play devil's advocate. Yeah. So, like, if you do watch it, I also recommend watching some of her other stuff because she comes at things hard, but it is semi tongue in cheek.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

You know, a lot of the joke of what she does, if you've never watched any of her stuff is usually she'll start off with a bottle of liquor and it's like whatever it is is like, caused her to drink. She's very funny.

[Matt Koplik]

One of my favorite things she's ever done is towards the end of her YouTube career, she basically did a reappraisal apology video to the Little Mermaid because she had. Because back when she was nostalgia chick for fucking what's Channel awesome was her name. Yep, yep, yep. Bingo. Fuck themselves. But her whole thing was her. She literally as nostalgia chick always had to be the point of contention of whatever your nostalgic childhood favorite was. So she, like, she wrote and she starred in it, but I don't know how often she agreed with the points. I think she was told, like, you got to do a nostalgia chick on this movie. And I'm sure You know, she didn't necessarily love Little Mermaid at the time, but when Covid hit and everyone was in lockdown, she, because she's also a Disney girl, she went through a lot of the catalog again and rewatched Little Mermaid for the first time in years. And she was like, oh, this movie is so much better and more nuanced than I ever remembered it being. And she's like. And has a lot more to say that I like. Like every. All the jokes about it are kind of baseless because if you watch the movie, nothing that we're making jokes about are actually in there. And so I, when she made that video, I was like, Lindsay way to.

[Adam Elsbury]

God on a high for me.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I love her.

[Adam Elsbury]

Her, well, her. And her very last video is on.

[Matt Koplik]

Love Never Dies, which is hysterical.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's great.

[Matt Koplik]

10 years old.

[Adam Elsbury]

I would, I would just say if watch the, at least part of the rent video.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

But this is just going to turn into a promotion for Lindsay Ellis.

[Matt Koplik]

Her.

[Adam Elsbury]

Watch any of her Phantom videos. They're great because, because that'll give you kind of a sense of the fact that she's coming hard for anything because she is a fully self admitted fan. Phantom fan.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

Ph A N so yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And she. And again, loving something, having something be your favorite doesn't mean you think it is the best thing in the world. It's just the thing that like brings you the most joy. So she acknowledges every issue that there can be in Phantom, the stage show, any movie version, but she loves it. She loves it. I love her recap of the book and how every time Christine's like talking to the Phantom and Raul doesn't know what's going on, he's like, slut. So good. Okay, we're gonna wrap things up now. Okay.

[Adam Elsbury]

Can I, oh, can I make a political statement?

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Adam Elsbury]

Okay. You look scared. It's nothing that crazy. We were just talking about AIDS and HIV treatment earlier and I just think that this always deserves to be said, especially now, because I want people to know because a lot of people aren't aware of this, especially non gay men. Is that for anybody who is not familiar with HIV and AIDS and as far as the progression of medicine and stuff, I think it's really important to know that HIV is not as transmissible as it once was. And I think it's really important for people to know that the majority of, well, a large majority of people living with HIV take enough medication to, number one, keep them healthy, but also keep their, their cell count at a point where Things are where it's an undetectable virus or it's an undetectable virus. And I think it's really important to. Maybe I'm preaching to the choir on this, but if you don't already know this, that if. If you're with somebody who is undetectable, they are also untransmissible, which means they cannot pass HIV to you through intercourse or anything else. Absolutely. You know this. I'm just saying this to. In an attempt to continue to try to end the stigma. I think it's really important.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely.

[Adam Elsbury]

And you know, and I. And I. And I think that only because I know I just was having a conversation the other day with a person who. And I even did this myself, where shortly before COVID I went out on a couple of dates with a guy who told me he was HIV positive, which did not affect my opinion of him. And because I know what I know it did not worry me, but he was telling me what a horrible stigma it still has and the number of people that would freak out and immediately ghost him when they found out about. When they found this out. Out about him. So I don't know. I just want to. Yeah, I just want to make sure that that's set on this podcast as HIV and AIDS has been a conversation topic on this. On this particular episode, and to make sure that all you kids out there are aware of the current state of things and read about. Read, read, read, read. I think it's so important to read about it, especially if you're being sexually active. There's so much you can do and, And, And. And people really are overall so much safer nowadays. But just be aware of your status, check on your partners with their status. And. And again, untransmissible. Undetectable equals untransmissible. So.

[Matt Koplik]

Thank you, Gunkle.

[Adam Elsbury]

You're welcome.

[Matt Koplik]

Listen, my listeners should know by now. I always preach knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. You never know everything. You're never old enough to know everything. Keep on learning, keep on reading, keep on studying, and then once you have the information, pass it on.

[Adam Elsbury]

Pass it on.

[Matt Koplik]

The only thing better than learning new shit is sharing that shit. Yeah. You know, that's all I gotta say. And don't do it from a holier than thou element, you know, just share it because it's important.

[Adam Elsbury]

Yeah, I mean, I just think it says. I think it says a lot that even living in New York, as we do live in New York, but like. But even living in New York, in the gay community, you would think that people would be more aware and Educated on subjects like that. And there are so many people that are not. And so I think. And so I. It's one of those things that anytime HIV comes up and I feel like there might be somebody who might not know, it's a piece of information I like to throw out there for people to be more people to be more aware of.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Again, our country is so fucked up when it comes to sex and sexuality and sensuality because there are diseases that come that can come with sex. And as gay men, we have always been categorized as more sexually promiscuous. The word I like to use. The term I like to use is sexually opportunistic. Sure, I coined that. I like to use it. It's Instead of saying slutty. And because we have had things stigmatized to us as infections or diseases, primarily with our community, we have actually had to educate and fight against it, because anyone can get any kind of STI or any kind of anything from anything from anyone. So just know that. So get educated. As we wrap things up with Grant, first things first. I was thinking of doing this as a game with guests, and either I can challenge you or you can challenge me originally. So I want to tell you about the progression that happened here. First, this thing was called who Lives, who Dies? Jeanine Tesori. And it was let's connect rent to Janine Tesori somehow through like, a Six Degrees of Separation. Then I went, well, why even go there if this is my podcast? Let's keep things going from my house rules Six Degrees of Sally Murphy. And then I went, or do we just do Six Degrees of and we challenge each other with a person and find a way to do a Six Degrees of with that person. Now, here are the rules. It can be cast members or production team. We do not count theaters, okay? And we. And it doesn't count to do a revival of. So you can't be like, oh, so and so is in this show which had a revival starring so and so. It's got to be, like, worked with in some capacity. So I'll also say so if it's. If we're talking production team, the connection has to be through someone from the original company. It can be a replacement. If that replacement, then blah, blah, blah. Okay, do you want to do a.

[Adam Elsbury]

Six Degrees of to Janine Tesori?

[Matt Koplik]

Whoever you want to do. Do you want me. I can challenge you because I was.

[Adam Elsbury]

Ready to do Janine Tesori?

[Matt Koplik]

You can do. You can do Janine Tesori, and I can do Sally Murphy.

[Adam Elsbury]

Okay, great. Janine Tesori. I can do it in one.

[Matt Koplik]

Great.

[Adam Elsbury]

So wait, I think Eiko Nakasone, who was in the original ensemble of Rent, she was in the furry pink bra. Yeah, she was in the ensemble of the 1985 Broadway revival of how to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which Jeanine Tesori did the dance arrangements for or music arrangements for. And there's your connection.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, absolutely. And one. I've got one for you too.

[Adam Elsbury]

Do it.

[Matt Koplik]

Sally Murphy. Taye Diggs was in the ensemble Carousel. Boom. Yes, he was. Broadway debut.

[Adam Elsbury]

That's right.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep. There are so many others I could do too, but I'm not gonna. Because Sally Murphy's connected Daphne Rubin Vega and Bernardo Alba with Sally Murphy.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Saw twice. Idina Menzel. Never met Sally Murphy. Adam Pascal, I'm assuming played tonsil hockey with Sally Murphy at one point. Yeah, I think that's gonna be. That's gonna be my new game. Adam, this has been lovely. Where can people find you if you want them to find you?

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, just these days. Just Instagram.

[Matt Koplik]

Same.

[Adam Elsbury]

Just Adam Ells A D A M E L S. Yep.

[Matt Koplik]

Matt Cop. Like usual spelling. I now have reviews on there that some people seem to like. Thank you. They're.

[Adam Elsbury]

They're just dishy enough.

[Matt Koplik]

Thank you. Just dishy enough. Well, I am at this point I probably will have posted some. I'm debating if I want to do reviews for all the shows I've seen recently. So Piano Lesson and Top Dog and then eventually Death of a Salesman.

[Adam Elsbury]

I don't see why not.

[Matt Koplik]

He doesn't see why not. You don't get to be in the Times unless you review everything.

[Adam Elsbury]

I like reading your opinion and that way I see. I like when you post things because then I can bring up a couple points to you afterwards. But then I also don't make you have to repeat yourself either.

[Matt Koplik]

Thank you. Like the reviews of this pod. Speaking of which, if you like the podcast, give us five stars. Give us a nice little rating or a five star review doesn't have to be clever or it can be whatever you want. We had gotten since last time I had Adam on, we had another one star rating which brought us down from 4.9 to 4.8. But then we got a bunch more five stars but it hasn't gone up, so I want more 5 stars. Get me back up to 4.9.

[Adam Elsbury]

Do you know what was. Oh, I guess. I guess it doesn't say what the one star rating. If it's like Based off of an episode.

[Matt Koplik]

No, No.

[Adam Elsbury]

I think wouldn't that be kind of amazing if you could, like, tell where it happened, what.

[Matt Koplik]

What episode did? Yeah. People killed it. Yeah.

[Adam Elsbury]

When they were just like, fuck, this one.

[Matt Koplik]

Was it Smile. That killed the. The podcast star. That wasn't Sideshow killed the podcast star.

[Adam Elsbury]

Could have been. That was a fucking long. I mean, this was.

[Matt Koplik]

This is gonna be long. Yeah. I'm not gonna edit much. I'm so sorry. It's gonna be long.

[Adam Elsbury]

I'm sorry, everybody.

[Matt Koplik]

We talked about a lot of amazing shit.

[Adam Elsbury]

We did. We did.

[Matt Koplik]

Well.

[Adam Elsbury]

And after. Now that you've introduced me to Blank Check, the. The podcast, which is very nonlinear, very much like this one. Yeah, it's. Yeah, they. They tend to go on also, so they do Less Guilty.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Yeah. I've gotten a little over them lately with their current Kubrick. Sorry, Kubrick series, but they are very enjoyable. I like. I like their format very much. Yeah. If I may or may not.

[Adam Elsbury]

If you like. If you like movies, listen to Blank Check with Griffin and David.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, he's Griffin, He's David. They're. I.

[Adam Elsbury]

The one that I. David lived in London.

[Matt Koplik]

What? Ding dong.

[Adam Elsbury]

Ding dong.

[Matt Koplik]

I want. I want to be on that podcast. I want one of them on this podcast.

[Adam Elsbury]

Let's get on their podcast.

[Matt Koplik]

Let's do it. Well, next time they do a musical, I want to, like, fucking troll their social media and listeners troll their social media and be like, next musical you do. Matt Koplik and Adam Elsbury have to be on. Yeah, have to be on.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, we would do really well against them.

[Matt Koplik]

We really would.

[Adam Elsbury]

I say it like it's a fight.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, we would add context because they. They have a vendetta against Rob Marshall, and I understand that, but I also. I think Rob Marshall is like, a great Blank Check series for them to do because Chicago's his first movie. It fully brings the movie musical back.

[Adam Elsbury]

I don't know if Little Mermaid's gonna change their mind. I hope it's good, but who knows?

[Matt Koplik]

No, it's gonna be bad. We know it's gonna be bad. We know. But Chicago is still the best movie musical of this century. It's the best movie adaptation of a musical since Little Shop. It's air fucking tight. And I would love to be on the podcast to tell them why it's amazing, because I'm sure they think it's just fine, but that movie fucking slaps. Anyway, that's it. Check us back next week when we cover. I don't know what. Because this Series is all out of order. It's exciting.

[Adam Elsbury]

It could be any one of your favorite Off Broadway to Broadway transfers.

[Matt Koplik]

Except for Spelling bee or title of show. I'm so sorry. It could be For Colored Girls. It could be A Chorus Line. It could be Next to Normal. It could be the Golden Apple. It could be Once Upon a Mattress. It could be Doubt. Who knows? Who knows? Hey. Oh, Once on this Island, Baby. Heidi Chronicles. Torch Song Trilogy. Love Vell or Compassion. Significant Other. We're doing a lot of gay ones. Good. Yeah. You're coming back on for one. I know that. I just don't know which one yet.

[Adam Elsbury]

I can't wait.

[Matt Koplik]

I can. Adam. Adam. We've had Adina. I think we've had Daphne. Let me check. Have we had Daphne close this out before? Okay. Yeah. I don't think we've done Daphne Rubin Vega. Great. We are going to close out with her. Do we do Rocky Horror? Do we do in the Heights where she sounds awesome, but she also sounds really great in Rocky Horror. I think Rocky Horror is the best she's ever sounded. It's such a good fit for her.

[Adam Elsbury]

That. That was a solid cast.

[Matt Koplik]

That cast recording is exceptional.

[Adam Elsbury]

It's a lot of fun.

[Matt Koplik]

It's so. Those arrangements. Motherfucker. Just tongue tonsil hockey. Me Sideways. Rocky Horror show. And oh, yeah, also amazing cast. Okay, we're gonna do Daphne in Rocky Horror.

[Adam Elsbury]

Got a light?

[Matt Koplik]

Got a light. You don't want to see me die.

[Adam Elsbury]

Don't waste your money on me, me, me. I'm shit for being cold.

[Matt Koplik]

Cold. Daphne, we love you. We love you so hard.

[Adam Elsbury]

Oh, you are a badass. Like, truly, this is all love.

[Matt Koplik]

It's all love. She's such a good actress, too. She really is. She really. I know. That's the thing.

[Adam Elsbury]

Sorry.

[Matt Koplik]

She looked good. But like, okay, we are gay. I know she has no offense from this. Because that bitch has lived a life. And she knows that the gays love her. And she knows that in order for us to not mock but to mimic certain line deliveries she has done on that cast recording means we have listened to her so much and have dissected it so much that it only comes from obsession and love.

[Adam Elsbury]

She also can't tell you that she hasn't gotten it from him. Million other people, too.

[Matt Koplik]

Jonathan Larson didn't want her. It took him like four years to like her. Mimi, who the are we? We're two gay nobodies. Like, let her listen to us and be like, oh, there's boys. So. So here's. Here's Daphne, everybody. And we'll check you back next week. Thanks for sticking it out. Bye. And Flesh Gordon was there and Silver Underwear Cloud Reigns was the Invisible man Then something went wrong Both Harry and King Kong they got caught in a secular exam Then at a genuine pace it came from outer space and this is how the message erased and science fiction.