Title: Rent (musical)
Content:  Rent (stylized as RENT) is a rock musical with music, lyrics, and book by Jonathan Larson, loosely based on Giacomo Puccini's 1896 opera La Bohème. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in Lower Manhattan's East Village in the thriving days of bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. The musical was first seen in a workshop production at New York Theatre Workshop in 1993. This same off-Broadway theatre was also the musical's initial home following its official 1996 opening. The show's creator, Jonathan Larson, died suddenly of an aortic dissection, believed 
Title: Rent (film)
Content:  Rent is a 2005 American musical drama film directed by Chris Columbus. It is an adaptation of the 1996 Broadway musical of the same name, in turn based on Giacomo Puccini's 1896 opera La Bohème. The film, which features six of the original Broadway cast members reprising their roles, depicts the lives of several Bohemians and their struggles with sexuality, drugs, paying their rent, and life under the shadow of AIDS in the gritty East Village of New York City from 1989 to 1990.
Title: Rent (musical)
Content:  In 2005, Rent was adapted into a movie directed by Chris Columbus with a screenplay by Stephen Chbosky. With the exception of Daphne Rubin-Vega (who was pregnant at the time of filming) and Fredi Walker (who felt she was too old for her role), who played Mimi and Joanne respectively, the original Broadway cast members reprised the principal roles. Released on November 23, 2005, the film remained in the box office top ten for three weeks, receiving mixed reviews. Several plot elements were changed slightly, and some songs were changed to spoken dialogue or cut entirely for the film. The soundtrack was produced by Rob Cavallo, engineered by Doug McKean and features renowned session musicians Jamie Muhoberac, Tim Pierce and Dorian Crozier.
Title: Rent (albums)
Content:  Rent (Original Broadway Cast Recording) is an album of music from the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning 1996 musical Rent. It is produced by DreamWorks with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson. The album is a 2-disc (in its CD format) collection of every song from the musical; some small segments of narration and spoken dialogue from the play are not included in the recording. The collection ends with a studio-recorded rearrangement of the song "Seasons of Love" featuring Stevie Wonder. The album was recorded by the original Broadway cast of RENT and was released on August 27, 1996. A second one-disc album was released in 1999 containing highlights from the original cast album.
Title: Rent (musical)
Content:  Larson's inspiration for Rents content came from several different sources. Many of the characters and plot elements are drawn directly from Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème, the world premiere of which was in 1896, a century before Rents premiere. La Bohème was also about the lives of poor young artists. Tuberculosis, the plague of Puccini's opera, is replaced by HIV/AIDS in Rent; 1800s Paris is replaced by New York's East Village in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The names and identities of Rents characters also heavily reflect Puccini's original characters, though they are not all direct adaptations. For example, Joanne in 
Title: Rent (musical)
Content: Broadway (1996–2008) ; Mark: Matt Caplan, Joey Fatone, Christopher Hanke, Adam Kantor, Drew Lachey, Tony Vincent, Sebastian Arcelus (u/s), Richard H. Blake (u/s), Norbert Leo Butz (u/s), Will Chase (u/s), Luther Creek (u/s), Colin Hanlon (u/s), Chad Richardson (u/s) ; Roger: Sebastian Arcelus, Declan Bennett, Richard H. Blake, Norbert Leo Butz, Will Chase, Luther Creek, Tim Howar, Jeremy Kushnier, Colin Hanlon (u/s), Chad Richardson (u/s), Tony Vincent (u/s) ; Mimi: Mel B, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Tamyra Gray, Marcy Harriell, Jaime Lee Kirchner, Antonique Smith, Lorraine Vélez, Karen Olivo (u/s), Shayna Steele (u/s) ; Tom Collins: Troy Horne, Michael McElroy ; Angel: Wilson Cruz, Jose Llana, Jai Rodriguez, Telly Leung (u/s), Andy Señor Jr. (u/s) ; Maureen: Carla Bianco, Jessica Boevers, Eden Espinosa, Kelly Karbacz, Tamara Podemski, Sherie Rene Scott, Karen Olivo (u/s), Antonique Smith (u/s) ; Joanne: Natalie Venetia Belcon, Merle Dandridge, Tracie Thoms, Frenchie Davis (u/s), Shayna Steele (u/s) ; Benny: Rodney Hicks 
Title: Musical theatre
Content:  In the 1990s, a new generation of theatrical composers emerged, including Jason Robert Brown and Michael John LaChiusa, who began with productions off-Broadway. The most conspicuous success of these artists was Jonathan Larson's show Rent (1996), a rock musical (based on the opera La bohème) about a struggling community of artists in Manhattan. While the cost of tickets to Broadway and West End musicals was escalating beyond the budget of many theatregoers, Rent was marketed to increase the popularity of musicals among a younger audience. It featured a young cast and a heavily rock-influenced score; the musical became a hit. Its young fans, many of them students, calling themselves RENTheads], camped 
Title: Rent (musical)
Content:  show. The production grossed over $280 million. Original cast ensemble members Rodney Hicks and Gwen Stewart returned to the cast at the time of the Broadway closing. Hicks played Benny and Stewart played the role she created, the soloist in the song "Seasons of Love". In addition, actress Tracie Thoms joined the cast at the end of the run playing Joanne, the role she portrayed in the 2005 film version. The last Broadway performance was filmed and screened in movie theaters as Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway in September 2008. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray formats on February 3, 2009.
Title: Rent (musical)
Content:  Jeffrey Schwarz directed this 2006 documentary about the musical Rent, from Jonathan Larson's original idea to his tragic passing and, finally, to the adaptation of Rent into a major motion picture. The nearly two-hour documentary was included in a two-disc special edition of the DVD release of the 2005 film.
Title: Rent (musical)
Content:  songs that never made it into the final version, such as:  This workshop version of Rent starred Anthony Rapp as Mark and Daphne Rubin-Vega as Mimi. Larson continued to work on Rent, gradually reworking its flaws and staging more workshop productions. On January 24, 1996, after the musical's final dress rehearsal before its off-Broadway opening, Larson had his first (and only) newspaper interview with music critic Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times, attracted by the coincidence that the show was debuting exactly 100 years after Puccini's opera. Larson would not live to see Rents success; he died from an undiagnosed aortic aneurysm (believed to 

Question: Who was the composer of Rent?
Answer: Jonathan Larson.
Jonathan David Larson.