This is an odd blog. It's partly about me and the thoughts I've been wrestling with over the past few weeks, but it's also a thank you to Jonathan Larson, the genius behind RENT*.

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As some of you know, two community theatres in my area are producing RENT this fall, and I'm fortunate enough to have auditions for both. This has been one of my dream shows for years.

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"Why do you want to be in RENT?"

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Aidan asked me that after I told him I was auditioning for both productions.

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I honestly can't remember what answer I gave him, but it's a question I've kept coming back to.

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Why RENT?

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Just as Wicked was the first stage musical to change my life, RENT was the first film musical to do the same.

I was introduced to it in 2006, when I was 15 years old. A friend handed me their Walkman and said, "You should listen to this."

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The title song came on, and I was instantly hooked.

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At the time, though, I barely understood what I was listening to.

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Growing up in a conservative household, I didn't know what it meant to struggle to pay rent. I knew very little about the LGBTQ+ community. I didn't understand HIV/AIDS or the devastating impact it had—and still has—on so many lives.

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What I did know was that I loved belting Out Tonight, Take Me or Leave Me, and attempting that final note in Seasons of Love.

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Now I'm 35, sitting on my couch watching Tick, Tick... Boom!—another Jonathan Larson masterpiece—and that question has changed.

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It's no longer, "Why RENT?"

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It's, "Why not RENT?"

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This show planted the first seeds of questions I never thought to ask myself. It challenged what I had always been told and pushed me to seek my own answers. Looking back, it was one of the first things that helped shape the person I've become.

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At 35, I've lived a lot more life.

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I know the price of rent, and why so many people struggle simply to have a place to call home.

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I'm proud to call myself an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and to support people in being seen, heard, and loved.

I understand so much more about HIV/AIDS, and I'm honoured that friends have trusted me with their stories of love, loss, grief, and resilience.

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These stories still matter. They still deserve to be told. They still deserve to make us feel.
 

To feel seen. To feel challenged. To feel uncomfortable. To feel compassion.

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Thank you, Jonathan Larson, for creating this masterpiece. Thank you for telling stories that many people didn't want to hear. Thank you for writing something that still has the power to move hearts nearly thirty years later.

And thank you for opening the mind of a 15-year-old girl who was just beginning to ask questions.

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Thank you for starting me on the lifelong journey of learning what it truly means to love my neighbour as myself.

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*A little history of RENT: Loosely based on Puccini's opera La Bohème, RENT was written by the brilliant Jonathan Larson. Workshops began in 1993, and the show premiered Off-Broadway in 1996.

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Sadly, Jonathan Larson died from an aortic dissection the day before the show's first preview, never seeing the extraordinary impact his work would have.

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RENT transferred to Broadway later that year and ran until 2008, becoming one of the longest-running Broadway musicals of its time. It won three Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama before being adapted into a 2005 film featuring six of the original Broadway cast members.

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Thirty years later, RENT hasn't lost its relevance. If anything, it's only become more necessary.