The National Theatre

Played May 9 through June 4, 2000

Book, Music and Lyrics by Jonathan Larson
Best Musical 1996 Tony Award -1996 Pulitzer Prize

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PERFORMANCES
Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8 pm
Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 pm
Sunday evenings at 7 pm

Narrated Performance for the Visually Impaired:
Sunday, May 28 at 2:00 p.m.

Signed Performance for the Hearing Impaired:
Sunday, June 4 at 2:00 p.m.

TICKET PRICES
Orchestra - $70
Mezzanine rows A-F - $70
Mezzanine rows G-M - $55
Balcony rows A-D - $45
Balcony rows E-J - $35

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The Benny Tour is the second national touring company of RENT.  The Angel Company, which opened in Boston in 1996, and played through 1999, was the first.  The Benny Tour opened on July 15, 1997 at the La Jolla Playhouse, for which Michael Greif (RENT's director) serves as Artistic Director.  The Benny Tour has most frequently performed along the eastern half of the U.S.

Act I

The Time: Christmas Eve.
The Place: A loft in the East Village, New York City
 

Mark, a young film-maker and the show's narrator, sets up his camera to record real ongoing "life," in the Lower East Side loft he shares with his roommate Roger, an ex-junki and would-be songwriter. Roger, as always, is struggling to pick out a new melody on his electric guitar. Turning the camera on him, Mark taunts Roger about his songwriter's block (TUNE-UP #1).

On the answering machine, Mark screens his mother's call. He has just lost his girlfriend, Maureen, who is a performance artist, to Joanne, a Harvard Law School graduate. Mark's mother, attempting to be very understanding, leaves a consoling, "motherly" message. (VOICE MAIL #1). The next call is from from their friend, Tom Collins, a computer expert, calling from a pay phone downstairs. The call is cut short: Collins is being mugged! (TUNE-UP #2) A third call is from their now former roommate Benny, who has married well, and is now their prosperous landlord. Friendship notwithstanding, he demands their over-due rent. As if things could get no worse, the electrical power blows. Roger and Mark rage against the night, (RENT). In order to keep worm, they burn pieces of their past: Roger's rock-and-roll posters, and Mark's unproduced screenplays.

The past, however, is not so easily erased. The phone intrudes again. It is Mark's ex-girlfriend, Maureen, begging Mark for technical help in setting up her performance piece, which is scheduled for later that night in the vacant lot next door. Haplessly, he agrees.

Outside, a badly-beaten Collins is reeling from the mugging. He is discovered by Angel, a street musician, who offers bandages, comfort, and an invitation for a night on the town, to take his mind off his bruises (YOU OKAY HONEY?). Their instant attraction becomes a bond, with the realization that both are HIV-Positive.

Mark sets out for the lot where Maureen's performance is to take place. She has created a protest piece attacking Benny for his eviction of a group of homeless people who have set up a tent city on a lot now owned by Benny and his rich wife. Mark urges Roger to come along but he refuses. As Mark reveals, Roger is becoming a reclusive hermit, having not left the apartment in six months. Roger is still reeling from the suicide of his girlfriend, who slashed her wrists upon learning that she had AIDS. He stoically takes his dose of AZT, and dreams of writing one last song to redeem and validate his empty and disease-threatened life. However, the melody which keeps coming into his head is "Musetta's Waltz" from Puccini's La Boheme (ONE SONG GLORY).

Roger's reveries is interrupted by Mimi, a beautiful stranger from downstairs. Her electricity also out, she seeks a match (LIGHT MY CANDLE). The request turns into a sexual metaphor, as the two are suddenly drawn to each other. Roger, however, resists. Mimi, he recognizes, is a junkie. And he, of course, is HIV+. He shows her the door. Mimi knocks again. She has lost her stash. Roger helps her look and Mimi eventually finds it--in Roger's back pocket.

At the squatter's lot where the performance is to take place, Maureen is not to be found, but her new lover, JoAnne, is slaving away, trying to get the sound equipment set up for the performance-demonstration. Back at JoAnne's apartment, her parents leave her a message (VOICE MAIL #2), pleading with her to come to her mother's confirmation hearings for an important government position in Washington.

Mark returns to the loft with Collins, who brings provisions, and better-yet, Angel Dumont Shunard, who has cash. Angel is now decked out in glorious Christmas drag: wig, glitter and platform pumps. Angel explains (TODAY 4 U) how he has just earned a fast $1,000 which he is happy to share: a wealthy woman hired him to play the drums until her neighbor's yappy akita puppy barked itself to death.

Now ex-roomie-turned-big-businessman Benny barges in with a deal-you-can't-refuse (YOU'LL SEE). If Mark and Roger can stop Maureen's protest attacking his eviction of the homeless from his lot, he will forgive their unpaid back rent. He attempts to sweeten the deal with a glowing description of his plans for "Cyber Arts," a state-of-the-art, multi-media studio that will rise on the empty lot and realize all of their dreams. His former roommates are unmoved by what they see as his heartless, schemes, and he departs.

Mark, Collins and Angel try to coax Roger into coming to an HIV life-support meeting with them, but he refuses.

Mark finally reaches the lot where Maureen will perform her protest. He gathers his courage to confront the formidable Joanne, who has not only stolen Mark's girlfriend, but who has usurped his stage-manager duties as well. JoAnne, a better lawyer than stage "techie," is struggling vainly with the unfamiliar sound equipment and with the many demands Maureen makes upon her. Mark offers help, which she reluctantly accepts. Though they dreaded meeting, they soon discover common ground in their shared experiences with the self-centered, demanding, fickle, unfaithful-albeit- irresistible, Maureen. (TANGO: MAUREEN). Once he gets the sound working, Mark joins Angel and Collins at the AIDS SUPPORT meeting, to document it in his film. The group affirms its determination to live without fear, because they have "no day but today" in which to enjoy life (LIFE SUPPORT).

Meanwhile, in her apartment, Mimi, who dances in an S&M club, dresses for work, while appealing to an imaginary Roger to take her (OUT TONIGHT). She barges into his apartment and continues her appeal to Roger himself. He is tempted, but after a passionate kiss, his unreadiness for another relationship, and his fear that she will discover that he has the AIDS virus, compel him to reject her advances, and he vehemently pushes her away. They fight, her words blending with the affirmation of the support group that emphasizes the importance of living in the moment (ANOTHER DAY). A young man from the support group asks quietly "Will I lose my dignity/Will someone care?" (WILL I ..?). His fearful questions are echoed by each member of the community. The thoughts are Roger's too, and he decides to leave the lonely security of his loft to seek some answers outside.

After the meeting, Mark, Angel and Collins stop at the lot, where they rescue a homeless woman from the taunting harassment and night-sticks of the neighborhood cops (ON THE STREET). The woman -- brutalized past the ability to be appreciative, and trusting no one -- turns on them in anger.

Discouraged by life in New York, the three men fantasize about leaving the City behind to live the good life, opening up a restaurant far away (SANTA FE). Mark goes out to check on Roger. Left alone, Angel and Collins declare their newfound love for each other (I'LL COVER YOU).

JoAnne, meanwhile, has her hands full juggling work, parents, and the ever-demanding Maureen ... on a pay phone and her cell phone (WE'RE OKAY).

The scene changes to St. Mark's Place, where junkies, drug dealers and cops interact, as sidewalk vendors hawk their wares to the denizens of the East Village (CHRISTMAS BELLS). Angel buys a warm leather coat for Collins. Mark finds Roger, who spots Mimi looking for drugs. Roger apologizes and invites her to dinner. She accepts.

As snow begins to fall, Maureen finally arrives at the lot on her motorcycle, to perform her bovine-themed protest piece. (OVER THE MOON). She calls for a communal leap of faith against Benny's crass, commercial, community-insensitive development plans.

Following the protest, all repair to the Life Cafe, where a gloating Benny, one of his Cyber Arts project investors in tow, declares that Bohemia is dead. Mark and his fellow bohemians joyously reject Benny's' pronouncement with a makeshift mock-wake that quickly segues into a celebration of their lives (LA VIE BOHEME). The shocked investor flees. Furious, Benny confronts Mimi, who, we learn, is his former lover. He threatens to reveal their past affair to Roger. Mimi's beeper goes off, reminding her to take her AZT. Roger realizes now that his secret and his illness are Mimi's too: they are both HIV+. Frightened but exhilarated, they resolve to share the risk of romantic involvement as well. (I SHOULD TELL YOU).

JoAnne has been ordered back to the lot by Maureen several times to check on the equipment. Fed up, she finally rebels, telling Maureen that their relationship is over. She also brings word that a riot has broken out on Avenue A, next to the lot: Benny has padlocked the building in which Mark, Roger and Mimi live, and has called the cops to dismantle the illegal tent city. However, the homeless are standing their ground. And mooing. The artists rejoice as the riot rages on. Roger and Mimi share a small, lovely kiss.

Act II

In the aftermath of the riot, the community pauses to ponder the meaning and value of a life. How is it to be measured? How is humanity to be valued? (SEASONS OF LOVE).

One week later, on New Year's Eve, Mark, Roger, Mimi, Maureen, JoAnne, Angel and Collins are having, a breaking-back-into-the-building party to reclaim their apartments (HAPPY NEW YEAR). Mark, as usual, is capturing the moment on film. Mimi and Roger are now deeply in love, and Maureen has assumed a measure of humility to earn back JoAnne's favor. The "opening" celebration is complete when Collins and Angel arrive with a blow-torch.

Once inside, Mark listens to one more phone message from his mother in Scarsdale as well as one from Alexi Darling, a tabloid television-show hostess with a job offer and a desire to buy his footage of the riot (VOICE MAIL #3). Benny crashes the party with ostentatious apologies, offering his tenants new keys to their apartments. (HAPPY NEW YEAR B). Suspecting Benny's motives, Roger balks. Furious, Benny implies that Mimi helped change his mind by sleeping with him. Mimi angrily denies this, but the damage is done; Roger is bitterly jealous. Mimi flees outside and into the welcoming arms of her dealer who offers a little something to assure her Happy New Year.

As narrator, Mark fast-forwards to Valentine's Day. Roger is living with Mimi, but remains terribly jealous, often threatening to leave. Angel and Collins are surviving together wherever they can find shelter. Mark still lives behind his camera. Maureen and JoAnne are rehearsing another show, but warring as well, and issuing ultimatums to each other (TAKE ME OR LEAVE ME). Neither will back down, and they split up once again.

With the coming of spring, everyone has a foreboding of imminent changes. The community asks: How do your measure a last year on earth? (SEASONS OF LOVE B). Roger walks out on Mimi, accusing her of having been unfaithful with Benny. Alone and fearing the impending loss of love, Mimi reflects on what life would be like without Roger (WITHOUT YOU). As spring ends, Roger and Mimi reconcile, as do Maureen and Joanne, but all is tentative at best. Angels' health has begun to decline. At the end of the summer, Alexi is still enticing Mark with big-money offers for her TV show (VOICE MAIL #4). Roger and Mimi, unsatisfied by love's complications and frustrations in the age of safe sex, break up, as do Maureen and JoAnne.

Collins and Angel suffer a more profound and final separation as Angel dies (CONTACT). At a memorial service, each friend offers a loving tribute. Clutching the overcoat which Angel gave him at Christmas, Collins affirms his undying love (I'LL COVER YOU: REPRISE).

Outside the church, Mark phones Alexi to accept her job offer, despondent at how drastically life has changed since that Christmas night just one year before (HALLOWEEN). As the mourners leave the church, Mimi learns that Roger has sold his guitar and is leaving town for good. A nasty scene ensues, with arguments erupting between all the estranged lovers. Collins, in sorrow, begs them all to stop and appreciate the "family" which they have been to each other. Maureen and Joanne are moved to try once again to reconcile. Mimi and Benny leave together.

Mark tries to convince Roger to stay in New York and face his pain and the fact that Mimi is very sick. Roger attacks Mark, accusing him, too, of running away from his feelings -- remaining always the detached observer trying to experience life through the lens of a camera. Mark wonders whether Roger is simply afraid to watch Mimi die.

Mimi enters, having overheard the entire angry exchange, and bids Roger a forgiving farewell (GOOD-BYE, LOVE). Roger leaves for Santa Fe. Mimi turns to Mark for solace. Benny arrives, offering to pay for Mimi's drug rehabilitation, but she refuses his help, and runs away. Benny also offers to help Collins by covering Angel's funeral expenses. Collins is appreciative, and the two head off to get a drink, as Mark prepares for his meeting with Alexi.

Mark reviews recent events, questioning the choice he is about to make, as well as the world in which he lives. His thoughts are echoed by Roger, who is on his way to Santa Fe. Roger begins to discover his own song and Mark turns down the tabloid television job to finish his film (WHAT YOU OWN).

Roger's mom, Mark's mom, Mimi's mom, and JoAnne's father all wonder where their children are as the holidays approach once more (VOICE MAIL #5).

Back at the loft on another christmas Eve, Mark now has pieced together a rough cut of his film, which he hopes to screen tonight. Roger has moved back into the loft, and has finally finished his song (FINALE) No one knows what has happened to Mimi. The power blows again, but the night is brightened by the arrival of Collins, rolling in cash. The computer genius has rewired an ATM to give Christmas gifts to anyone with a special code. The password? "Angel."

Maureen and JoAnne suddenly arrive, supporting a desperately ill Mimi, whom they have found collapsed and near death in the park. Roger begs her not to die, and sings for her the song it has taken him all year to write (YOUR EYES). "I have always loved you," he whispers, as Mimi slips away, to the strains of Puccini's music.

Moments later, however, she returns, with stories of a warm white light and Angel steering her back to life (FINALE B). Celebrating the wonder of life's terrible uncertainty, the community reaffirms love as the strongest force we know, acknowledging the need to cherish what we have, because there is as always, "no day but today."

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