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Pulitzer-Prize winning composer and playwright Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop, White Girl in Danger!) joins the lads in lighting up a mean blaze with posters (and screenplays!) as they dive headlong into the grunge and Gen X angst of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer-Prize winning musical watershed: Rent. Topics include the influential score, the show’s vague politics, and the lasting legacy of one of the most seminal rock musicals of all time.

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Michael R. Jackson - Twitter // Instagram // Website // A Strange Loop (UK) Tickets

Media Referenced in Episode:

Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway

People in Trouble by Sarah Schulman

Stagestruck by Sarah Schulman

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Commercial: “You’ll Die Alone” - Music by Jonathan Larson - Lyrics by Dr. Samuel Bultch, D.D.S. - feat. Eleanor Philips as “Roger

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Comments

Jarda

Goddamn, what a flex of a feature... Very hyped for this!

All My Maidens

tfw you realize you’re older than everyone in rent

Sharon Horwatt

Fun fact about myself: I also learned about Rent when the movie came out in 2005, but I didn't see the pro-shot until I was in college. So when Mark says "his gf April left a note saying 'we got AIDS' before slitting her wrists in the bathroom," I had to stop watching it cause I had no clue that was how April died.

Autumn Jones

I think the thing about selling out nowadays is that nobody's buying. There's scarce few paths into any industry now and even if you manage to get in the gate you're not gonna make any money there so what would the point even be? In 2023 the idea that you'd even have the option to live a comfortable life doing humdrum work for The Man sounds like the most bourgeoise thing you've ever heard.

Dergon

I loved when y'all pointed out that one essential element so many songwriters miss, yet is essential for any musical to really 'pull it off,' so to speak. And I'm quoting here "when the rhythm is glad, there is nothing to be sad." So true, so true.

Autumn Cedar

I'm forever turned against Rent because all the most annoying people in high school wouldn't shut up about it lmao. But good to hear you guys talk about it

Autumn Cedar

My younger sister was really into Wicked so I got absolutely sick of that too lol

Wilko

This is the perfect opportunity to unleash my inner Old Country snob and just say that in my opinion Puccini's Bohème has more musical ideas, dramatic tension and emotional depth in one bar than RENT in its entirety. Which is not to say it's a bad musical or that it's not enjoyable. It's just trying to walk in some truly monumental footsteps.

Morgan Byrd

…so the impression I’m getting is that you guys like this musical and think that it is good

The Cube of Orbus

Random sort of thought but have you guys ever seem 'Existo: The Forbidden Movie'? There is a low rez version of it on YouTube, its a movie about 'creatives' fighting the 'man' and stars Jim Varney and his acting buddies (seriously, almost ever one of them was in an Ernest related thing).

Leo Fie

This gen x thinking about selling out are also no longer relevant, because there is no more money to be made. There is no job you could sell out to, no suit making you offers.

J

I can't help but hear a bit of Adam Conover in Adam Pascal's singing and it's messing with my head

🌛Witch💗Lioness🦁

Okay. Yall go to YouTube and you can find the New York Theater Workshop version of Rent. There are so many changes.

Chapo Bath House

"Contact" feels like Bob Fosse travelled through time so he could parody it in All That Jazz