No day but today

I just read in the Poughkeepsie Journal that the Broadway musical "Rent" is extending its closing date to September 7.

Its producers had announced earlier this year that the very-long-running show would close on June 1, but a surge in ticket sales has apparently changed those plans. "Rent" opened on Broadway on April 29th, 1996, and has won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for Best Musical but after so many years, sales were declining.

I'm going to take a little credit for its extension because I was one of those people creating the surge in recent sales -- I saw "Rent" on Broadway just last month. ;-) It was a fabulous production. (Then again, I may be biased -- I have the music memorized.) "Rent" channels the story of the Puccini opera "La Boheme" through the counterculture residents of New York’s East Village in the early 1990s. It was a trip down memory lane for me.

I took the train to New York on a Saturday morning and had plenty of time before the 2 p.m. (and SRO) matinee. The line to get into the Nederlander Theater stretched around two blocks (!!) but the staff did an excellent job moving everyone inside quickly. No complaints here! It's a wonderful production -- uplifting, exciting, funny and optimistic despite its serious themes (such as AIDS, poverty, gentrification). Go, see "Rent" before it leaves Broadway for good. No day but today.